Alexander Kobulnicky

Supposedly, people don’t like to know what goes into hot dogs. And whether it’s the slag from a meaty blast furnace, or as Steve Purcell has it “insect lips and eyelids” I couldn’t say for sure. What I can say though, is that it’s definitely not pork.

At the grocery store in my neighborhood — at the grocery store that isn’t Kosher, even — it is impossible to find a hot dog that will admit to containing pork. They’re either “all beef” or “beef and poultry and this and that” or simply “no pork”. Now, I understand that even if they’re not so religious that they demand Kosher-certified hot dogs, the number of people in New York City who abjure pork is greater than the number of people who require it. But there’s already a very popular brand of hot dog (Kosher certified even! They answer to a higher authority) for people who want to avoid pork. Is there any reason for every other hot dog company, even those without a brand to disgrace, to follow suit?

Hot dogs, like most sausages, like bratwurst and liverwurst and kielbasa, are traditionally made out of pork. And the local grocery stores sell other kinds of sausage. And while our bratwursts remain pork, our hot dogs have turned to beef. This isn’t just a New York thing either. Google returns 61,500 results for “all beef hot dog” and only 3,800 for “all pork hot dog”.

I know for a fact that pork is cheaper than beef. (although I couldn’t say for sure whether Grade F pork is cheaper than Grade F beef it seems likely.) And while hot dog makers may be evil, they are not insane. It must be that consumers prefer beef hot dogs. Why?

The only explanation I can imagine is that people think pork is icky (I don’t know why, but they do, right?) and that people think hot dogs are icky. Each of these factors alone is not enough to keep people from buying pork or hot dogs, but when they’re combined, the product is simply too loathsome for the buyer to contemplate. Does that sound right?