It can be a challenge to figure out where your favorite solid food come from – which is why we had investigator Jackson Landers , who ’s deeply - dived forThe SmithsonianandTheNew York Times– to get to the heart of one of LA ’s most storied culinary traditions .
You may not make out a Danger Dog by name , but there ’s no question that if you ’ve been to any result in LA , as you left you smell one : the sweet-scented , savory aroma of a bacon - wrapped hot dog sold on the street , typically by an unlicensed vendor , covered in an unusual array of topping , unlike the standard American heel . Also known as “ nerve onslaught dogs or “ dirty dogs , ” these thing tempt us with the sound of sizzling bacon avoirdupois and that typical odour of greasy , still - caramelizing onions . The semi - illegal version of the Roger Bacon - wrap street red-hot dog has been cited by everyone from theLA Timesto the Los Angeles City Council as the city ’s most iconic street food for thought , even as it has been criticized by the authorities as unsafe , with carts frequently raided by police force and the wellness department .
Most hoi polloi take that Danger Dogs are an LA archetype – and they ’re certainly not something you see on the street of New York , DC , or any other major American urban center . Three things set LA ’s peril dogs asunder from most of America ’s hot dogs : first , the classifiable strip of bacon spiraled around each one , the cause of the particular ira that the Los Angeles Department of Health has for danger dogs , who claim that leave behind raw copper core out in the sun for hours without refrigeration is the sort of thing that tends to run to food intoxication ( whether trafficker are actually guilty of this is subject to much disputation ) .
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secondly , peril dogs are always grilled , rather than boiled or steamed . The Department of Health also hat this because it is illegal for nutrient marketer in LA to falsify hot wiener using any method other than boil or steaming .
Finally , the received set of toppings on a Danger Dog is also ( allegedly ) discrete to LA . Each is topped with catsup , mustard , mayo , sautéed onions , and peppers , plus a whole , unripe poblano chile Piper nigrum ( just sample put mayo on a live wiener in New York or Chicago and you ’ll probably be asked to pull up stakes the urban center , never to return ) .
But is the Danger Dog really LA ’s own culinary art ? How did the Danger Dog come to exist ? To find out , we ’re going to take a trip back through hot dog account .
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There has always been something suspect about hot dogs . Before the creation of the USDA and modern review of businesses that handle meat , blimp were the finish for the most repulsive and otherwise unmerchantable bits of meat – arguably , for many years , all hot cad were risk dog . Upton Sinclair ’s most famous book , “ The Jungle ” ( 1906 ) , identify somewhat much the worst case scenario for making hot dogs , which was all too common a hundred ago :
“ There would be meat stash away in great piles in rooms ; and the water system – from leaky roofs would drip over it , and 1000 of rats would cannonball along about on it . It was too dark-skinned in these storage space to see well , but a mankind could run his hand over these piles of heart and sweep off handful of the dry out droppings of rats . These rats were nuisances , and the packers would put poison loot out for them ; they would die , and then bum , bread , and meat would go into the hoppers together . This is no fairy narrative and no joke ; the meat would be shovel into cart , and the man who did the shoveling would not problem to lift out a bum even when he saw one – there were things that went into the sausage balloon in comparison with which a envenom git was a titbit . "
Sonoran Dog|Flickr/stu_spivack
That was the reality of the hot dog in the other twenty-four hour period of its ubiquity . Sinclair ’s book quickly led to the creation of a federal agency in 1906 that later became the Food and Drug Administration . By that sentence , the condition “ red-hot dog ” had become well - established in the US for a small , flaccid sausage served on a roll . Now less likely to shoot down the client , the next step in the phylogenesis of the Danger Dog was to jump south of the edge .
Most culinary historiographer generally consort that ground zero for the hot dog in Mexico was the urban center of Hermosillo in the state of Sonora . Some acknowledgment an American circus for introducing the raging dog some time in the former 20th century , while others lay claim it was a visit baseball team ( the evidence is slight in both cases ) . However it did fall to get there , the hot dog pick out off topically , and by the early 1950s a clearly Sonoran hot pawl had evolved . To connoisseurs , it t represented nothing short of a renaissance .
The Sonoran wienerwurst was ( and still is ) roll in Francis Bacon , grill , served on a hefty split - top bolillo roll and brood with pinto beans , chopped tomatoes , both raw and grilled onions , Indian mustard , salsa , crema , and a roasted peppercorn on the side . That ’s just what comes standard – a good Sonoran spicy click marketer also offer an array of additional options like guacamole , cucumbers , cottage cheese , and collapse potato chips .
Flickr/NoHoDamon
Chicago can rightly shoot a line about thesophistication of their indigenous hot heel stylewhen ' dragged through the garden . ' But the Sonoran spicy Canis familiaris is arguably the high stratum to which any civilization has ever elevated a sausage .
Before long , watchword started to get out . Badly . Imitations of the Sonoran live dog spread around North America like first graders copying a Rembrandt .
The Sonoran chef-d’oeuvre was watered down in the most sickening way that seventies America could contrive . One Amarillo newspaper publisher published a recipe for “ noggin ' n bacon crescent franks ” that included instructions to “ spread a tablespoonful of baked beans over the triangle of dough . besprinkle with 1 tablespoon of bacon snatch . ” Forget about trichinosis – the real risk was boredom .
Flickr/TheCulinaryGeek
While Texas was doing its best to deflower the Sonoran blistering dog , California seemed to start a separate attempt to mimic it start in the 1980s . It can not be nailed down to a specific date , but immigrants from Mexico City and Sonora get selling the best copies they could manage . These hoi polloi were not necessarily talented cooks , but they were enterprising and could put together a risk dog pushcart with less than $ 100 worth of material : fix a bake canvass to the top of an abandoned shopping cart and set a can of Sterno underneath . Congratulations , you now have a mobile grill , and are on your way of life to a piece of the American dreaming .
But selling an accurate written matter of the street food from back home was n’t potential for most immigrant vendor . The big problem was probably getting a time lag of the bolillos – beefy rolls that are shorter descendants of French baguette that became pop start in the 1860s when Emperor Maximilian ’s world - class chefs present them to Mexico City . When you are pitiful , automobile - less , and restricted to buy ingredients within walking length , you have to practice whatever buns you’re able to get . Enter the the traditional American hot firedog bum .
However , a standard pack of American red-hot dog buns can not perchance stand up to the heaping down of edible bean , tomatoes , guacamole , and other toppings typically piled on a real Sonoran hot bounder : it would collapse before attain your mouth . So they pared it down to what the wimpier bun could wield .
Dirt Dogs
So : the danger dog is really LA ’s water - down version of the Sonoran hot dog . Is it really an original ? Not exactly . But each Sir Francis Bacon - enfold pawl , tended by an entrepreneur who has to expend his proscenium and walk away when a bull is sighted , represents the exchange of idea and nutrient between the US and Mexico in a very real , very LA way .
Authentic Sonoran hot dogs are thriving in Tucson , Arizona . Over 100 marketer there are serving them up on bolillos with all the right toppings . But you do n’t have to go as far as Tuscon or Mexico to try a Sonoran red-hot domestic dog . Dirt Dog in University Park near USC sells a middling good version .
As for trying a literal LA Danger Dog , there ’s no such matter as an computer address . Find the skinny street with the least amount of police presence , usually after a major event – and then , just follow your nose .
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