Vladimir Putin, the man who has invaded a sovereign nation, poisoned his opponents and banned the word ‘gay’, has said something I agree with. Hot dogs are the food of the future. I have spent the last 72 hours running what I call a full-spectrum emulsification audit on the frankfurter, and I can report that it is a cylinder of meat-adjacent matter that fits in a bun. You won’t have noticed that, because you are still eating quinoa. The man in the Kremlin has a point, and it terrifies me more than his nuclear doctrine.
The man who ate 14,000 hot dogs
I flew to Redditch to meet Derek Pugh, 67, who has eaten a hot dog every day since 1987. He showed me his ledger, 14,600 entries, each with a note on the bun-to-sausage ratio.
“The Americans put too much bun,” said Derek Pugh, a retired forklift operator and unofficial archivist of the British hot dog. “The Germans too much sausage. Putin’s people have got it right.”
Derek has a certificate from the British Sausage Appreciation Society and a letter from his doctor advising him to stop. He has framed the letter. I asked him about Putin’s claim that hot dogs are ‘the food of the future’. He nodded, and then he ate another one. I felt a strange kinship with a man who has committed his life to a single cylinder.
“You have to understand the bun,” said Dr Melanie Grigg, a senior lecturer in applied meat studies at Birmingham City University. “It is not a delivery mechanism. It is a geopolitical statement.”
I did not understand the bun. I still do not understand the bun. But I understand Derek, and Derek understands the sausage. That is more than I can say for my ex-wife, who left me for a man in Swindon who runs a falafel van. Whatever. Who gives a toss.
A brief history of the sausage, and why I am right
The hot dog is a descendant of the frankfurter, which is a descendant of the sausage, which is a descendant of the Roman ‘fartum’, which is a descendant of a man in a cave who worked out that you could stuff a pig’s intestine with its own leftovers and cook it. That is the entire history of civilisation. Everything else, the wheel, the printing press, the internet, is just a distraction from the fact that we are all still eating meat in a tube. Putin knows this. He has a man called Sergei who makes him a hot dog every morning, with a side of state propaganda. I have a man called Gary who makes me a hot dog every morning, with a side of contempt for my readers. We are not so different.
“The sausage is the only honest food,” said Professor Alistair Crowe, director of the Institute for Tube-Based Nutrition at the University of East Anglia. “It admits what it is. A lie you can eat.”
Professor Crowe has written 14 books on the subject and has not eaten a vegetable since 2003. He is a hero of mine. He is also a man I would not trust with a credit card. But that is the sausage for you. It attracts the unwell.
The science, the terror, and my new product
I have read the Kremlin’s official statement on hot dogs, which is 400 words long and mentions ‘the unity of the people’ and ‘the strength of the motherland’. It does not mention the fact that a hot dog is 40% water, 30% fat and 30% regret. But that is the point. The hot dog is a lie, and the lie is delicious. Putin understands that a nation that eats hot dogs together does not ask too many questions. He is not wrong. And that is what scares me.
I am now launching Hot Dog Dev, a pocket-sized device that dispenses a hot dog and a quote from Putin, £59.99, or £79.99 with a bun warmer. The bun warmer is just a sock. Whatever. Who gives a toss.
“I have eaten 14,000 hot dogs and I have never once felt fear,” said Derek Pugh, when I asked him about the geopolitical implications. “The only thing I fear is a dry bun.”
The final frank
I have spent the last hour staring at a hot dog. It is cold. The bun is stale. There is a smear of mustard that looks like a map of the Donbas. Putin is right. The hot dog is the future, because the future is cheap, portable and vaguely threatening. And I am going to have to write that in my column, and then I am going to have to eat the hot dog.
I have just eaten it. It was the best thing I have ever tasted. I am going to email the Kremlin and ask for a recipe. I am going to vote for him. I am going to buy a tracksuit. I am going to learn to speak Russian. I am going to change my name to Vladimir Boyle. And I am going to write a letter to my MP explaining that I am not a traitor, I am just a man who has finally understood the sausage.
