The Great Hot Dog Debate '07

What do you get when you combine 6 grown men for a little football on a chilly Saturday evening? A hot dog showdown, that's what!

A few weeks ago, Spencer told me that he wanted to have some guys from our ward over to watch the BYU bowl game. He also mentioned that they would be cooking hot dogs. Okay, sure. You really want to BBQ hot dogs in December? Whatever floats your boat. Too bad my mind works so simplistically. They were not going to JUST cook up some dogs. No, they were going to have an actual contest to determine which dog deserves to be "top dog". Seriously? This was just too funny. There was no other choice but for me to blog about it!

Here were the 6 choices of hot dogs to sample from. {Keep in mind that these were "All Beef" hot dogs. No nasty pork mixture dogs for these manly men. And don't even think about throwing in a Turkey dog. Those are for sissy's!} And that's Root beer people!

You've got your Ball Park, Oscar Mayer, Bar S, Hebrew National, Nathan's, and Applegate. (I've never heard of Applegate, but apparently it's Organic...There's just something very humorous to me about an "Organic" hot dog...can that really be done?)

Here's how the night went down. One of these dudes actually came up with a scoring sheet for each person to rate their dogs. Scroll down a little further for details and scoring criteria.

Another dude brought this portable fire pit. The hot dogs were marked A-F, but no one knew which dog belonged to which brand. So they began at A, and cooked up their dog. Each MAN tried a few bites, and then scored the dog. This went on for at least an hour as they came in and out of the house with new dogs to sample. Of course the kids loved every minute of it because they could hang out with "the big boys" by the fire!

It's a little hard to see, but here's the score card. There were 4 categories to score from. And in each category, there were certain criteria that ranged from 1 ("nasty") to 5 ("awesome).

Pre-bite- a.) Aroma b.) Appearance

Taste- a.) Texture b.) Greasiness c.) Flavor (salty) d.) Flavor (spicy)

Post-swallow a.) After taste b.) Digestion

Overall

At the beginning of the night, I predicted that Ball Park would win hands down, and that of course Bar S would come in dead last cuz they're dead nasty! I bet you're dying to know which hot dog ranked the highest. Okay, I'll give it to ya straight.

Coming in 1st with 221.5 points- Nathan's

Second was a total shocker to me, but rounding out the night with 219.5 points was Bar S! Can you believe that?

In a very tight race ending in a tie for 3rd- Hebrew National and Applegate both came in with 178 points.

Ball Park was a shocker to me only coming in 4th place with only 177 points!

And in last place with a measly 154 points was good ol' Oscar Mayer.

There you have it folks. If you're in search of a good hot dog, you now have the tried and true results. Maybe it wasn't a national taste test, but it's close enough. I learned a valuable lesson that brand doesn't always matter. Hence, Bar S coming in 2nd!! Amazing, simply amazing!

Just think, these 6 well educated, and wonderful men did all the work for you. Not only do you not have to endure the belly ache from all of that nitrate filled goodness, but you also don't have to smell that lovely campfire scent around your house for two days. {I did that for you too!}