I haven’t had a hot dog in years. I don’t think I mind them or anything, but I grew to know them not as sausage and bread but as a stench.
My dad used to make them as a last-resort meal whenever it suited him, and without fail, he would burn them. Every single time. Usually, I would be in my room upstairs when the smoke would enter, carefully sneaking through the security of a closed door. It would sit beside me and poke at my nostrils with its meaty fingers until I could ignore it no longer. Upon opening my door, the fog would twist my face into a squinty sort of grimace as I trudged downstairs through the haze, the sounds of sizzling oil whispering louder still. Entering the kitchen, I would stop.
There’s something beautiful about a hot-dog kitchen. The light filtering through the windows lazily dancing with the grease-coated air. Though the scent seemed to be shoving itself down my throat, it resembled a playful noogie more than an attack on my life. There’s something so comforting about the warm familiarity of an arid stove emitting meat smell. Nonetheless, as soon as I gave the scene its due diligence, I would rush to open a window.
As I next turned off the stove, watching the little blue flame snuff out, I would notice the wieners were barely charred. It’s incredible what two bastions of processed flesh will survive, if only to dare us to consume them.
I would travel to my dad’s office, not bothering to knock. The room was always dark, maybe so he couldn’t see the smoke. The glow of a TV-turned-computer monitor illuminated his face just enough for me to see his surprise when I would tell him he burned the hot dogs. He would rush past me, only to find out I had already turned the stove off and opened a window. Then, he would finish toasting the buns while I sat at the kitchen counter watching his strange reverence for a simple meal. He would cover the hot dogs in spicy dijon mustard and the sauerkraut he kept in a gargantuan jar in our pantry. Then, he would offer me a hot dog.
I always said no. The charred meat smell, still lingering around the room, was a gentle reminder to my stomach that it actually was fine, thanks. I would stare at the debris of char and grease coagulating around the pan and politely decline. I would return to my room and ignore the call of the smoke until it faded away. One day, it never came back.
The gigantic jar of sauerkraut was thrown away, and the spicy dijon mustard had long expired. I haven’t looked, but I think the wieners are still in my freezer, having outlived the man to burn them. If I made one for myself now, it would be odorless and perfectly cooked, and I wouldn’t know what to do about it.
Elle Prince is the youth category, first place winner and grand prize winner of the seventh annual M.F.K. Fisher Emerging Writers Contest, which celebrates the legacy of writer M.F.K. Fisher and her passion for encouraging aspiring writers and artists. ‘Hot Dog’ is her winning piece.
