Catsup Is for Wussies
E. Noel Preston, MD

   Last year PBS did a Fourth of July special on The Great American Hot Dog and it was fantastic. The show started in Key West, Florida and moved upward throughout the entire country. They showed hot dogs being prepared in Atlanta, the Carolinas, several places in Texas, three places in Chicago, a few places in California, one in Nevada, and even Alaska. The basic idea, I think, is that even though some hot dog cooks boil them, some steam them, others butterfly them and grill them, and some deep fry them, the U. S. of A. is one giant country and whether we are Northerner, Southerner, Maine Down-Easterner, Midwestern or Rhinestone cowboy, Surfer Girl or Hawaiian Islander, we are all Americans and we love our hot dogs.

   PBS showed only one place in town as the epitome of Atlanta hot dogs, and wouldn't you know, it was the Varsity. Why people seem to think they have to name the Varsity as being typical of Atlanta beats me. I wouldn't go there for breakfast, or pecan pie, or baked ham, or fried green tomatoes, and I certainly wouldn't go there for a hot dog. But every Presidential candidate seems to think he has to be photographed at the Varsity eating a fried peach pie, and everybody who wants to show an out-of-town visitor "the real Atlanta" carts his poor obliging captive down to the dreariest, ugliest, noisiest, greasy spoon in the city limits. But what do you expect? An out-of-town public TV crew comes by, asks someone at the GPTV local affiliate "Where's a good place to get a real Atlanta hot dog?" and some poor, tired office worker mumbles, "well, I used to go to the Varsity for hot dogs when I was in college," and there it is: Why Legends Never Die. (As for me, the best hot dog in Atlanta is the one with chili, onions, pickles and kraut at Manuel's Tavern on Highland Avenue)

   But Chicago had three famous places for hot dogs, and the one I remember the most from the PBS special was Bill's Drive In "on the border between Chicago and Evanston." The first thing about a Chicago dog is that the meat comes from the Vienna Beef Company and yep, it's all beef. It's served on a bun with a huge slice of dill pickle, along with chopped onions, pickle relish, kraut, and topped with two wedges of ripe tomato. Children younger than eight years old are allowed catsup, but no adult Chicagoan would add anything but mustard to a real Chicago hot dog.

   Here in Atlanta there's a place called Mike's Hot Dogs in Sandy Springs, and it claims to serve Chicago dogs. They do have Vienna Beef, and they do serve it with onions, kraut, pickle relish and two scrawny shriveled up little slices of tomato. They have Chicago memorabilia on the walls and they frown on people adding anything but mustard, but by and large their hot dog's not worth the trip and I left feeling disappointed.

   Last week Susan and I went to Chicago for a relative's 100th birthday, and I pestered our friends Jack and Marilyn for a trip to Bill's Drive In. They had never heard of it, and couldn't find it in their All About Chicago tour guide. Maybe the 
PBS crew got sent there by some poor office worker who mumbled "well, I used to go to Bill's when I was in college..." and Bill's is to Chicago what the Varsity is to Atlanta and no self respecting native would be caught within ten miles of the place. 

   But: one afternoon Susan and I went to Homer's, a locally famous-for-generations ice cream parlor in Wilmette we had visited many times before, about ten miles north of Chicago. It's one of those places where you stand at the counter and order, and then go sit down until they call your number. There on the menu board behind the cashier were the simple words "hot dog," and not daring to believe I had stumbled onto The Prize, I asked the clerk, "would that be a Chicago Hot Dog, or an ordinary dog?" He said "We serve all kinds of dogs -- New York Dogs, which have everything but mustard, and Chicago Dogs, which have everything but catsup." I ordered a Chicago Dog and it was Beyond Incredible. It was on a steamed sesame seed bun, the Vienna Beef sausage was thick and juicy, it came with a sliced dill pickle as long and as thick as the sausage, it had two kinds of peppers, sweet and hot, it had tomatilloes, those spicy little Mexican tomatoes, and it was covered with chopped onions, pickle relish, and kraut. There was a thin streak of bright yellow mustard along the top, and was garnished with two huge, thick, juicy red tomato wedges. There may have been a little dab of chili as well, but I can't remember. All I know is it was the best hot dog I ever tasted, and I knew my journey was over.

   And Atlanta's answer to this was the Varsity? It's enough to make a Southerner weep.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553.

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