Hot Dog Taste Test

I kind of thought the Roadfood folk would see this test as bogus from the beginning. There are some good brands in there though, but why they went unappreciated is a mystery.

Well, maybe not such a mystery...seems like the highest rated brands are the ones with the deepest pockets. Hmm... let me think about this. AOL is sinking like a stone in the marketplace, their "welcome page" gets more lurid by the day as the new advertising model fails. Could it be the results are based on payola?

I hope not, AOL has fallen far, but I hope not that far.

In considering the possibility of payola, I don't think it likely. For the record, Kat Kinsman defended her impartiality. What is not impossible is asking the manufacturers to ship samples to NYC. There are only two brands on that list of 20 that I don't know where to buy. One is Tony Packo's. Tony Packo's does ship franks cold from Toledo by mail, but they are also available in upstate New York. They could have been brought down. The other is Brat Hans. Their label indicates a Whole Foods connection, which are in Manhattan. Or they could have been shipped in cold from Chicago.

A few other points. The top of the Slashfood blog, as well as the homepage of AOL Grilling, indicates they started out testing 50 types of hot dogs. Yet only 20 brands are mentioned in the article. Did the panel taste any of these, or were they disqualified by the AOL editors? Were these the tofo, vegetarian, chicken, mystery meat/mystery animal dogs, or the ones you find at Jack's 99 cents store down on Herald Square? Or house brands from Pathmark, White Rose, Black Bear (Shoprite/D&W), Associated, Western Beef, Shoprite, Stop and Shop, etc. which have limited geographical distribution?

Looking over the Slashfood site indicates a Nicole Weston mounted a similar taste test in 2006:
http://www.slashfood.com/2006/05/21/slashfood-ate-8-best-hot-dogs/
That article generated 253 comments, mostly of the "you're nuts" variety.

Sadly, other online sites repeated the 2008 AOL Food article, as this one on the website of the Sacramento Bee:
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/dining/
Scroll down to the entry for July 1, 2008.

I see the problem as being that free media (weekly free newspapers and web sites) as well as features sections of print media (those freelancer articles carried in newspaper food sections) don't have the budget to mount a 'scientific comparison.'

I'm sure many of us in college were told to consider the source of anything we were quoting in our papers. We really should not start threads on bogus "best pizza in the valley" stories. But for people googling the subject, they will usually find our comments and rebuttals to the balderdash they are reading.

When aol first came online we joined up----after six months i was desperate to find another way to get on the web!!! that place just plain sucks! The day we got off AOL was the last time i visited them until i check this out---i was right--there is NOTHING on aol worth reading---they havent gotten anything right since the day the went online. Thanks for reminding me to stay the heck away from aol!

quote:

Originally posted by tiki

When aol first came online we joined up----after six months i was desperate to find another way to get on the web!!! that place just plain sucks! The day we got off AOL was the last time i visited them until i check this out---i was right--there is NOTHING on aol worth reading---they havent gotten anything right since the day the went online. Thanks for reminding me to stay the heck away from aol!

Yahoo! is a very close Second!

quote:

Originally posted by Foodbme

quote:

Originally posted by DougS

quote:

Foodbme say'es, "Thank You, O King of the Weenies"

Now that tickled me. ROTFLMAO

What the Hell does ROTFLMAO mean???? I grew up in an era when we speled things out!

It's the Age of the Internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROTFLMAO

quote:

Originally posted by David_NYC

In considering the possibility of payola, I don't think it likely. For the record, Kat Kinsman defended her impartiality. What is not impossible is asking the manufacturers to ship samples to NYC. There are only two brands on that list of 20 that I don't know where to buy. One is Tony Packo's. Tony Packo's does ship franks cold from Toledo by mail, but they are also available in upstate New York. They could have been brought down. The other is Brat Hans. Their label indicates a Whole Foods connection, which are in Manhattan. Or they could have been shipped in cold from Chicago.

A few other points. The top of the Slashfood blog, as well as the homepage of AOL Grilling, indicates they started out testing 50 types of hot dogs. Yet only 20 brands are mentioned in the article. Did the panel taste any of these, or were they disqualified by the AOL editors? Were these the tofo, vegetarian, chicken, mystery meat/mystery animal dogs, or the ones you find at Jack's 99 cents store down on Herald Square? Or house brands from Pathmark, White Rose, Black Bear (Shoprite/D&W), Associated, Western Beef, Shoprite, Stop and Shop, etc. which have limited geographical distribution?

Looking over the Slashfood site indicates a Nicole Weston mounted a similar taste test in 2006:
http://www.slashfood.com/2006/05/21/slashfood-ate-8-best-hot-dogs/
That article generated 253 comments, mostly of the "you're nuts" variety.

Sadly, other online sites repeated the 2008 AOL Food article, as this one on the website of the Sacramento Bee:
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/dining/
Scroll down to the entry for July 1, 2008.

I see the problem as being that free media (weekly free newspapers and web sites) as well as features sections of print media (those freelancer articles carried in newspaper food sections) don't have the budget to mount a 'scientific comparison.'

I'm sure many of us in college were told to consider the source of anything we were quoting in our papers. We really should not start threads on bogus "best pizza in the valley" stories. But for people googling the subject, they will usually find our comments and rebuttals to the balderdash they are reading.

David,

Thanks for the links. I also agree that there was no payoff. I think that the editors, or whoever participated in the tasting, did taste and disqualify 30 brands. It's hard to argue with someone's taste and choices. On one hand, I think that people like us (Roadfooders) who love hot dogs and are discerning, would do a better job as far as reviewing hot dogs and commenting on them. On the other hand, any article written for a general audience might be better if the "tasters" were representative of that audience rather than hot dog aficionados. On the third hand, regardless of what criteria was used in selecting the tasters, more research should have gone into making the selections. Boars Head is a top quality hot dog that has close to, if not total, national distribution. Yet it was not included. A glaring oversight. Very good regional brands like Thumann's, Best's, Sahlen's, Hofmann's, Vienna, Usinger's, etc. were not included. All the editors had to do was search the net; especially Roadfood. Put "quality hot dogs" or something similar in a search engine and I'm sure they would have been led to places where there would be a lot of hot dog discussion and suggestions.

When we did our informal tasting for Off the Broiler, we bought franks that we knew would be good (with the exception of the uncured and organic stuff; some of which was outright horrible) and were available near us. Some of the brands were shipped to us from someone Jason knew who is from the Chicago area. I don't think conducting a tasting with a good selection of hot dogs would be expensive or put a dent in anyone's budget.

<<Tony Packo's does ship franks cold from Toledo by mail, but they are also available in upstate New York. They could have been brought down. The other is Brat Hans. Their label indicates a Whole Foods connection, which are in Manhattan. Or they could have been shipped in cold from Chicago.>>

Or, it easily could have been Kat Kinsman saying to her colleagues, "Hey I'm doing a hot dog taste test, who can bring me some out of town hot dogs?" And somebody from Toldeo and somebody from Chicago said, "Well, I'm going home for few days, I'll bring you some".

The whole test seems totally inexplicable. As for me, I make it a point never to eat the "Reduced Fat" or "Lite" version of anything. To me "Reduced Fat" = "Less Taste" and, often, "Higher Price".

And the same goes for beer. Lite beer is an abomination and I never buy or drink it. Yet I'm in the minority as Bud Light is the largest selling beer in the world and Coors Light is the top seller in N.J.

quote:

Originally posted by John Fox

And the same goes for beer. Lite beer is an abomination and I never buy or drink it. Yet I'm in the minority as Bud Light is the largest selling beer in the world and Coors Light is the top seller in N.J.

Your NOT alone, John!!!