Listen in as Bruce Kraig and Doug Sohn present a global history of the hot dog.

Doug Sohn is proprietor of Hot Doug’s, “The Encased Meats Emporium and Sausage Superstore.” Doug graduated from Kendall College fourteen years ago with no aspirations of owning a restaurant or even working in one. But divine intervention transformed Doug into Hot Doug. After an encounter with a bad hot dog, Doug cataloged the best practices of 30 hot dog stands in Chicago and then opened his own.

In his book Hot Dog: A Global History, food historian Bruce Kraig dares to ask, char-grilled or boiled? Sauerkraut or chili? Mustard or ketchup? Vienna Beef or Sabrett? Although each year nearly two billion hot dogs are consumed by Americans in the month of July alone, there is absolutely no consensus on the right way to serve up a hot dog. In his relentless quest for answers, Kraig recounts the history of this popular and mysterious “tube steak,” from the origin of the sausage 20,000 years ago to its central place in American culture today.

Recorded Wednesday, May 06, 2009 at Kendall College.