Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog

by Bob Schwartz

This book is an insider's view of a love of hot dogs - eating them, selling them and talking about them. The author, an executive at Vienna Beef, has spent almost 40 years developing and enhancing strong emotions for the business and for the people who operate hot dog stands. The book includes detailed stories about a long list of hot dog stands located in Chicago, city and suburban, as well as stands located around the country. The one thing all those businesses have in common is that they serve or served Chicago-style hot dogs. Everyone who grew up eating hot dogs at those stands, especially in their own neighborhoods, remembers the one rule about putting condiments on a Chicago-style wiener - never put ketchup on a hot dog. This book will help the reader bring back all of those delicious memories.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

Reviews

[Gretchen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book badly needs an editor and a fact-checker. Sentences just get cut off, transitions are non-existent, information is inaccurate, and the whole thing reads like a rambling story. I'm sure there is an audience for this, but I'm not it.

[Danielle Mintzlaff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will not play poker with an owner of a hot dog stand.

[Lemastre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a love letter to the world of the Vienna Beef Chicago-style hot dog -- its makers and marketers, those who eat hot dogs, and especially to the families who founded and in many cases still operate the many great and often quirky hot dog stands in "Chicagoland" and everywhere else. By the way, any eatery is a "stand" if it featured or features hot dogs, however large and elaborate the place and its menu may have become.

An oft-repeated theme in the book is the author's belief that hot dog stand operators, through the camaraderie their stands engender, infuse the patrons with positive family values and are thereby a force for good in their communities. Sounds reasonable to me.

The author is a longtime salesman for and officer of the Vienna Beef company. And his enthusiasm for his subject sweeps all before it, largely making irrelevant his book's rich offering of sometimes confusing but often amusing dangling participles and typos of various sorts. Fortunately, the story is straightforward and not likely to be obscured by these. Also, there are many photos of the stands and their personnel to make it even more immediate and personal.

[Kamillah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars actually. It gets a higher rating for being the only book that I know of that focuses on Chicago hot dog/hot dog stand culture. It has great photos and also some nice anecdotes, but there's a lot more work that could be done to go deeper into this area of Chicago and neighborhood history.

It's more meant to be a a coffee-table book I think. But I was expecting more, since it was written by a former Vienna Beef executive and has a forward by Chicago journalist Bob Serratt.

*Side note, I'm from Chicago and I take my Chicago hot dogs seriously lol

[Splatz Amore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about the history of all the different chicago style hot dog stands and I have a whole new list of places where I want to go and eat, in chicago and other cities. The only part I didn't like was when they talked about the people who sold the hotdogs. Not the people who OWNED the stands. The people who sold the hotdogs to the people who owned to stands. That pretty was pretty boring. Other than that, I found the book interesting and delicous!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ever long to make a pilgrimage to every great hot dog stand in the Chicago area (as do I), this is the book for you. While not particularly well-written (and in need of another visit to the editor's desk), Schwartz's book is a loving and knowledgeable tribute to the hot dog - the working man's lunch - and its long history in Chicago neighborhoods. A hot dog stand can be so much more than a place to eat - at its best, a hot dog stand is a part of a community.