That frank’s gotta pickle and a cheese in the middle, and a bacon on the outside!
If you’re ever in the Bronx, and you happen to see a brightly dressed man digging around in the dirt, don’t be alarmed. Â That’s my friend Jason. Â He speaks for the trees. Â He’s been journeying to the Bronx on his days off to care for the neglected city greenery. Â You can read about his adventures on his blog here.
Jason, like me, is originally from the Midwest. Â Also like me, when he was growing up, Jason would often travel around with his mother to local flea markets and garage sales. Â I think rummage sales might be the best in the Midwest. Â Someone suddenly decides to throw open their barn, revealing long-lost, dust-covered treasures that can be bought for a nickel or a dollar a piece. Â Although, what qualifies as a treasure is different from one person to another.
Jason brought me a find from long ago: a set of matchbooks, printed in 1963, adorned with recipes using Hunt’s Tomato Sauce. Â You can see more of the collection on my Tumblr blog here.
 The matchbooks have recipes on the inside!
When I handle them, open them, pull them apart to examine the recipes, I think about tearing off each match and striking it, lighting each until the recipe is revealed. Â Ripping off the last blue-tipped match and then cooking myself a Hunt’s adorned treat. Â The vision brings to mind chain-smoking while stirring tomato sauce covered pork, which I supposed is exactly what we were doing in 1963.
As Jason and I looked over the recipes, there was one that caught my eye: The Fancy Frank Fry.
The hot dogs are stuffed and ready for afryin’
The Recipe
Fancy Frank Fry
From Hunt’s recipe matchbooks, 1963.
8 hotdogs
8 3-inch strips Cheddar or Swiss cheese
3 dill pickle sticks, cut in thirds
9 slices bacon
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon Worchestershire
2 8-oz. cans Hunt’s Tomato Sauce
Split franks lengthwise, not quite through. Â Stuff each with a strip of cheese and a pickle stick. Wrap slice of bacon around each frank. Â Place in a cold skillet, fry over medium heat, turning often, until bacon is crisp on all sides; pour off excess fat. Â Add remaining ingredients; simmer 25 to 30 minutes. Â Makes 4-6 servings.
***
I cooked this recipe in two phases: first, I took the filled and wrapped hotdogs and fried them, plopped two of them on buns, and my boyfriend and I devoured them. Â Golly were they good. Â The cheddar had liquified in the middle, creating a taste and texture that far rivaled any store-bought pre-cheese-filled hotdogs. Â The franks were Nathan’s, too, which were worth the money. Â And the crispy bacon on the outside! Â Salty, acid from the pickle, fatty…oh man oh man oh man.
A great way to ruin a good hot dog.
And then I dumped the tomato “sauce” on the rest of the dogs in the skillet. Â This recipe had two problems which I anticipated in advance: one, some of the hot dogs split during cooking, causing them to bleed out their cheese-filled guts into the skillet. Â Two: cooking the hotdogs in the sauce made the bacon soggy! Â The pickle, too, was warm and floppy. Â And who wants that? Â After simmering for a half an hour, the dogs were flaccid and unappealing–although they were happily devoured by my coworkers the next day. Â That’s what coworkers are for: gratefully devouring your failings.
But I think this recipe could be better. Â Time to retronovate.
The Retronovated Recipe
Let’s cut the unnecessary tomato sauce out of this recipe–sorry Hunt’s. Â Split the hotdog and stuff a strip of cheddar in there. Â Wrap it in bacon and fry it until it’s crispy on all sides. Â Put it on a bun and top with chopped dill pickles and BBQ sauce.
Voila. I’m going to call it “The Ohio Dog,” after the place where these matchbooks and I were born.