4 lipca Święto Hot Doga

 

Choć odsądzany od czci i wiary przez znawców zdrowego żywienia, hot-dog należy do ulubionych przekąsek mieszkańców wielu krajów. Doczekał się nawet swojego święta. Właśnie dziś, 4 lipca. W amerykański Dzień Niepodległości

Kilka "parówkowych" ciekawostek:

Amerykanie rocznie zjadają ok. 20 miliardów hot-dogów (średnio 60 sztuk rocznie na osobę). Najwięcej - nowojorczycy. Do miana "stolicy hot-dogów" aspirują też Chicago i kanadyjskie Toronto. W Polsce hot dog jest na pierwszym miejscu jako najpopularniejsze danie.

Najdłuższy hot dog świata miał ok. 60 metrów.

Standardowy  hot-dog starcza średnio na 6 kęsów.

Wśród sławnych miłośników hot-dogów była Marlena Dietrich (popijała je szampanem) i Al Capone. Podobno przy wózku z parówkami Bruce Willis oświadczył się Demi Moore (małżeństwo trwało 13 lat, sporo jak na hollywoodzkie standardy)

Najdroższego hot-doga oferuje restauracja Serindipity 3 w Nowym Jorku. Kosztuje 69 dolarów za sztukę. Parówka ma około 30 cm długości, przyprawiona jest czarnymi truflami i foie gras, a serwuje się ją w bułce grillowanej z masłem truflowym.

Nieoficjalnym mistrzem w jedzeniu na czas hot-dogów jest Japończyk, 34-letni Takeru Kobayashi, który w ciągu 10 minut zjadł  ich 69.

National hot dog month

While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Hot diggity dog! July is National Hot Dog Month.

During hot dog season (Memorial Day to Labor Day), 818 hotdogs are eaten every second. And on the Fourth of July, Americans devour approximately 150 million hot dogs; that's enough to stretch from coast to coast five times.

Depending on where you are, hot dogs can look and taste completely different. From slaw dogs in the South to Chicago dogs in the Second City to Detroit’s Coney dogs, cities take their hot dogs very seriously.

One of the first mentions of cooking sausages can be found in Homer’s Odyssey: "As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it quickly roasted."

Hot dogs have come a long way since Homer’s days. These days you’ll find bacon-wrapped, fried hot dogs and even chicken, turkey and veggie dogs.

As for toppings, a hot dog loves them all. Whether you stick to simple ketchup and mustard, add chili or sauerkraut, hot dogs do not discriminate. So, this month, take some time to experiment with a childhood classic that’s all grown u

Turn your hot dog into top dog

5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

Unless you're going rogue on some frankfurters this Fourth of July like thecompetitive eaters at Coney Island, you're going to want to make sure your dog is dressed to impress for the festivities.

Thankfully, Josh Sharkey and Brandon Gillis of Bark Hot Dogs have got all the fixins' to make sure your sausage turns up in the wiener's circle.

Five Tips for Hot Dog Success: Josh Sharkey and Brandon Gillis

1. Start with the classics
"Why mess with a good thing? We're big believers in keeping American classics classic. That's why we love Heinz for ketchup, French's and Gulden's for mustard and of course, Hellmann's for mayonnaise.

These condiments provide the perfect balance of sweetness, acidity, tang and fat for dressing dogs. Plus, they work so well with other all other toppings. If it isn't broke, why fix it?"

2. Pickles, pickles and more pickles
"We use a lot of pickles - bread & butter pickles, dill pickles, pickled red onions and pickled jalapeños to name a few. The crisp, sweet acidity of pickles provides the perfect contrast to the rich and fatty snap of a hot dog.

Want to make your own special relish, but don't have the time? Buy a few different types of pickles from the store, chop finely and you have relish in an instant.

Balance the relish out with some mayonnaise and mustard and you have hot dog nirvana."

3. Cabbage a million ways
"Cabbage is such a versatile condiment. We love how varying the cooking or preserving method can yield such a different array of condiments. You can pickle it, braise it, ferment it (sauerkraut), or slice it thinly and dress with oil and vinegar for an instant topping.

For our slaw dog, we take cabbage and carrots, salt them overnight, and then toss with our version of a traditional slaw dressing. The cool, sweet, and tangy slaw provides a nice counterbalance to the rich and smoky flavor of a dog.

If you want to be ambitious, braise sauerkraut with bacon, onions, wine and apples for a hearty topping for the dogs."

4. Meat-on-meat
"Take one part hot dog, add chili (no beans please), smoky bacon or pulled pork and you have just created a carnivore's dream. The full flavor of a hot dog comes through with the addition of some soft, sweet and fatty braised or slow-cooked meat.

And if you want to ramp up the smoky qualities of your dog, a few pieces of crisp bacon will definitely do the trick.

To cut the richness of the meat-on-meat combo add some slaw or pickles. Either way you really can't go wrong. "

5. Putting it all together
"Let's face it - hot dogs are really hard to ruin. Just don't overload the dog with toppings. It shouldn't look like a clothes hamper from your college days. The idea is to dress the dog so that you can taste the flavor of the hot dog.

Try to play around with different flavor combinations such as sweet and sour or hot and spicy. Use braised pork shoulder with spicy slaw and mustard, or chopped pickles with marinated cabbage and mayo as a couple of options.

But if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of really great hot dog, we suggest you leave it plain and remember the reason why you came to love them in the first place."

Low Fat Foods Are They Better?

Low Fat Foods Are They Better?
A search for the term "fat-free" in the grocery section on Amazon.com brings up 3,386 products; "low-fat" yields 3,597. That's a vast array of food products in which no- or low-fat content is touted as a virtue. Many of them compensate for the fat's absence with extra sugar, corn syrup or other added sweeteners.
But the fact is, there appears to be very little hard evidence that saturated fat - long reviled as the worst of the fats for heart health - really does raise heart disease risk. A review of studies supported by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada concluded that there was "insufficient evidence of association" between saturated fat intake and risk of heart disease. Instead, it singled out foods with a high glycemic load - that is, sugar- and processed-carbohydrate-laden foods - in raising cardiovascular disease risk.

Government and industry have used shaky science to demonize natural fats and promote fat-free dairy products, processed grains and sweeteners. The fact is that natural fats and fat sources such as extra-virgin olive oil, butter, oily cold-water fish and even an occasional grass-fed, grass-finished steak are all good for you if eaten moderately as part of a low-glycemic-load diet. They supply essential fatty acids and a feeling of fullness, while helping to keep blood sugar levels, insulin and whole-body inflammation levels low and steady. No one's health is improved by swapping out natural saturated or monounsaturated fats for skim milk, sugars or processed grains.

secret history of BBQ sauce

If there's one issue that divides barbecue fans more deeply than any other, it's the kind of sauce that should be served on the meat - if, indeed, a sauce is to be served on it at all. Though it inspires passionate argument, the colorful variety of regional sauces - peppery vinegar-based in eastern North Carolina, orange tomato-based in Kansas City, yellow mustard in South Carolina - is actually a rather recent phenomenon.

Regional sauce variations originated in the early 20th century with the rise of barbecue restaurants. Before then, barbecue sauce was pretty much the same from state to state. It was generally not a condiment applied at the table, but rather used to baste the meat just before it was served.

From Virginia to Texas, 19th century accounts of barbecues are remarkably similar in their descriptions of the sauce. In 1882, a reporter from the Baltimore Sun visited a Virginia barbecue and noted male cooks mopping the meat with "a gravy of butter, salt, vinegar, and black pepper." A guest at a San Antonio barbecue in 1883 recorded the sauce as, "Butter, with a mixture of pepper, salt, and vinegar." In 1884, the Telegraph and Messenger of Macon, Georgia, described the sauce of noted barbecue cook Berry Eubanks of Columbus as, "made of homemade butter, seasoned with red pepper from the garden and apple vinegar."

Similar descriptions can be found of sauces in Kentucky and the Carolinas, too. Sweeteners - be they brown sugar, molasses, or honey - were notably absent from any 19th-century formulas.

Based on these descriptions, could one conclude that the eastern North Carolina–style sauce - which consists of vinegar, salt, black and red peppers, and not a trace of sugar - is the closest to the original? I'll let readers decide for themselves; that's not an argument I want to get in the middle of.