Oh, come on – it works for an apple-a-day, why not a chili dog? Just think about it – you have protein (I think its protein – just don’t watch the PBS documentary processing a hot dog wiener. Shiver.), also there are veggies, with the piles of onion on top, plus nice color, remember the yellow mustard and of course, the lovely bun. The lowly chili dog could be in contention for the prestigious keep-the-doctor-away-award, I’m certain.

Don’t you just love an under-dog, oops, I mean a chili dog?

I’m sorry I even mentioned the documentary. I mean the memory is still seared in my brain. Hold on to your kitchen table as I recount that memorable morning.

It was an innocent day when I clicked through the TV channels like an old pro. You know the routine: click, click, stop … click, click, stop … click, click, Wow! At the Wow I settled to watch an educational program and I do enjoy those, but this time, hmm, I wish someone had warned me. I barely escaped with my hotdog appetite still in tack.

During the program there was a short period showing the meat as it was chopped and cut into small pieces, mixed with curing ingredients and flavorings then stuffed into the tube-shaped, cellulose casings. However, I missed some of that as I had clicked over to QVC just to check the buy of the hour, therefore, conveniently for me, and my logic of keeping some the “hot dog mystery” a mystery worked. I am pretty certain I should keep you in the dark as well. If everyone had watched, the hot dog market would have tanked no matter what type of art-of-the-deal President Trump had negotiated.

The term hotdog was coined in 1901 by a sports cartoonist named Tad Dorgan. He was at the New York Polo Grounds, where he had heard some vendors selling red-hot dachshund sausages. His famous cartoon shows a real dachshund dog covered with mustard on a bun and since he did not know how to spell dachshund, he wrote the caption, Get your hotdogs. The name stuck and we still enjoy hotdogs at sports events to this day, and lots of other places as well.

I always thought, perhaps the invention of a hotdog was a Mississippi thing. You know many yummy things, which tastes really good, and perhaps, are not so nutritious, have been blamed on our State. Recently I dined at an eatery which was a new place to me and I asked, discreetly (I could have stood on the table to ask), but I didn’t. I mean I have manners. Anyways, I asked why a certain item was not fried. I was told, sort of politely, that it was because I, as a Mississippian, might expect an unhealthy dish served in all restaurants.

Sigh. Well, I won’t be back there.

Don’t you like, sometimes, to live on the wild side, the edge of the world, you know take risks? Then have a chili dog, loaded with extra chili (make mine hot), piled with chopped onion and overwhelmed with yellow mustard. One chili dog meal will occasionally cut your craving for a culinary wrong-doing. Afterward you can go back to rabbit food and boiled eggs, which is supposed to be good for us. Go figure.

All I really need to know is that a hot dog can be mighty fine on a cool evening as it cooks upon the charcoal grill, or even very tasty as a home style concoction of chili-beannie-wennie. It mustn’t always be just a chili dog – we do have choices. The Fourth of July would never be the same without “the dog,” and well, what else it a better fit in your hand while watching the Cowboys and Dak? You always have a free hand to point at the ref or maybe hold hands with your husband-best-friend?

So come on the Masters of Nutrition Hierarchy, give the chili dog a chance — the little thing has always been an underdog, kicked around and not appreciated. But in Mississippi, it will outsell any jazzed-up bowl of rabbit food on the menu – so listen-up, healthy restaurants.

Anne McKee is a Mississippi historian, writer and storyteller. She is listed on the Mississippi Humanities Speakers Bureau and Mississippi Arts Commission’s Artist Roster. See her website: www.annemckeestoryteller.com.