Most food stories don’t involve the FBI. But sometimes — if the food is worthy enough to create such a stir — an FBI investigation might follow. In this case, I’m talking about hot dogs along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in this particular instance, the FBI was brought in and concluded that one hot dog vendor set up an extortion racket against his top hot dog competitor. Such poor taste.
Many — including myself — would never surmise that one of the most ubiquitously American foods (a bacon-wrapped hot dog, of all things) actually arrived in the country through immigration patterns in northern Mexico. The ballpark-favorite frankfurter isn’t from Dallas or Phoenix or Los Angeles: it’s from Sonora’s arid capital, Hermosillo. There, the tasty regional item is considered as belovedly Mexican as tacos or tamales, and it has been around for longer than one might assume.
It all technically dates back to the 1940s, when historians believe that U.S.-style hot dogs first arrived in Mexico through either a traveling circus, bullfights or baseball games. One American blogger claims that a young pair of entrepreneurs came to Mexico City and began selling hot dogs at the bullring.
From there, hot dogs made their way into the mainstream Mexican diet and were eventually adapted in local ways. Sonoran dogueros, in particular — street vendors who bordered the U.S. in a state already known for their beef affinity and baseball adoration — were in an ideal position to elevate the perro caliente for Mexicans and beyond.
Here’s what that looks like today: bacon-hugged “weenie” that gets sliced down the middle and filled with a stick of cheese, then grilled and inserted into a larger-than-usual bolillo-style bun to be topped with diced tomatoes, avocado, onions (both raw and grilled), pinto beans, lettuce, chorizo and other traditional and unorthodox condiments, from mayonnaise and ketchup to jalapeños and güero peppers.
At least one Mexican American journalist has tried to trace the historical origins of this dogo. Most sources seem to point to El Güero Canelo — a hot dog joint in Arizona — as being a major driver in the invention’s popularity during the late 1980s and early 90s. Opened and owned by Sonoran immigrant Daniel Contreras in 1993, El Güero Canelo is generally considered to be the definitive source of the bacon-wrapped weenie’s zeitgeist takeover, which has earned Contreras a lauded James Beard Award. But its roots and essence are clearly still present across the border in Sonora.
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