If you eat hot dogs, you probably eat “chitlins,” my dear.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t eat hot dogs. I also eat neither beef nor pork. Not for any particular reason, I just – quite frankly – can’t afford it.
But.
You know all of what I know about food, and then you inevitably wind up having the conversation about how it’s so shameful that Black people eat chitlins and pigs feet…while they’re eating a hot dog… or, even better, a deli meat sandwich… and you somehow magically stop breathing out of sheer shock.
I’m sorry, but that’s hilarious.
I ask people this question all the time… where do you think hot dogs, loaves of deli meat, bologna and spam come from? That’s not a “chicken breast” hot dog you’re buying, at a price of $0.99 for a pack of 8, when a pound of chicken breast [that has had nothing done to it except being cut off the bird] is still $6 a pound. It’s just not. There’s no sirloin in your beef hot dogs and, even if there was, I’m willing to bet it’s got various other parts in there, as well. You’re eating the tongue, the intestines (that’s what chitlins – also known as ‘chitterlings’ – are), alladat.
And, considering the scandal in Europe right now, exposing the loopholes in ground meat containing hourse out there… no one should expect any sanctity of their processed meats in the US, where we have considerably less consumer protections.
So…what are YOU having for lunch?