Hot Dog Taste Test
In honor of summer cookout season, the editors at Food & Wine Magazine blind-taste-tested 15 different kinds of supermarket hot dogs -- beef, chicken, turkey and soy. And, much to our surprise, we wished they all were Oscar Mayer Wieners, which unanimously nabbed the first two spots in our top 5 below:
--Neri de Kramer
| Product | Staff comment | Interesting Bite |
| #1: Oscar Mayer Beef Franks $4.29 per package of 10 | "Salty, smoky, juicy, meaty. Just how a hot dog should be." | Oscar F. Mayer and his brothers Gottfried and Max, Bavarian immigrants, started selling fresh and cured meats in their Chicago retail shop in 1883. |
| #2: Oscar Mayer Hot & Spicy $4.99 per package of 10 | "Very good overall, nice spice, juicy, but more like a sausage than a hot dog." | Made out of pork and turkey, these are new to Oscar Mayer's XXL line. XXL hot dogs are 40% larger than a regular hot dog. |
| #3: Nathan's Famous Skinless Beef Franks $5.89 per package of 8 | "Pleasant flavor, great snap when you bite into it. Filling is juicy, but it pops out of the casing." | On July 4th, 131-pound Takeru Kobayashi from Japan broke the Nathan's hot dog eating contest record by downing 50 in 12 minutes. |
| #4: Hebrew National Kosher Beef Franks $4.49 per package of 7 | "Just like mom used to serve. This is the dog to have at the ballgame." | Unlike those of their competitors, 12 ounce packages of Hebrew National hot dogs contain 7 links instead of 8 because consumers wanted a fatter frank. |
| #5: Boar's Head Beef Franks $4.79 per package of 10 | "Nice crunch to the casing, not too salty, not too sweet and slightly garlicky." | Boar's Head products are made without artificial colors or flavorings, by-products, fillers and cereals. |
