I went into a national chain grocery store to get some hot dogs the other day. I like hot dogs; they were a food staple when I was a kid. We’d hike into the woods outside our neighborhood with WW-II Army surplus knapsacks on our backs, metal canteens hanging from our belts, high-cut boots on our feet and decked out in jeans (which we called dungarees in those days) and white T-shirts, the only color available. They were undershirts after all, and back then, white was the mandated color for underclothes.
We hiked for 15 minutes, a steep climb up South Mountain, came to a level spot on the first of three unpaved roads that crossed the face of the hill and collapsed to the ground. We were one-quarter of the way to the top; it was 9 o’clock in the morning and, “Time for lunch!” We gathered leaves, made a pile, set it on fire, found a stick, speared a hot dog and stuck it in the flames, quickly turning it from pretty pink to charred black. A slice of bread served as a hot dog bun and mustard from a jar we’d smuggled from the house combined to craft a gourmet meal.
It was with that memory in mind that I strolled up to the packaged meat cooler to grab some hot dogs to take home and blacken. That’s where my trip down nostalgia lane screeched to a sudden halt. I couldn’t figure out what to buy, what might taste like those hot dogs of my youth. There were too many choices. All-beef franks, skinless franks, chicken, pork, turkey dogs. Every combination thereof. Plus: long dogs, plumping dogs, short dogs, skinny dogs, bun size dogs. Dogs, dogs, dogs.
It’s like that in every aisle. Too many choices! Talk about complicating your life. Even staples, like milk, eggs and cereal are complicated. A quart of milk was all we had in my day. No consternation at the milk cooler. Not today: Quarts, gallons and half gallons are the first layer of choices. Then comes the fat content: whole milk, 1 percent, 2 percent, no fat, skim. Does it really make that much difference? Probably not. Egg choices are just as bad: medium eggs (which is another way of saying small eggs), large eggs, extra large and jumbo. Eggs from hen house chickens, free range chickens or cage free chickens. White eggs, brown eggs, green eggs (though not at the supermarket) and other colors too. Which is best? I wouldn’t dare answer; it’s kind of like stepping into the middle of an argument between Republicans and Democrats or Sunnis and Shiites. No middle ground. Then there are the “sort-of-eggs”: egg whites, eggbeaters, egg mates and smart cups. It makes my head spin. Want a box of regular Cheerios? Good luck. The cereal aisle is 80 feet long and 6 feet high. More variations of the two or three cereal grains than an old coot can comprehend.
We’ve become food paranoid, and yes, quite finicky. But, in spite of the challenge I did finally did make a hot dog buying decision. I used the old coot method and bought the cheapest ones. It really doesn’t matter when you burn them to a crisp.
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