The Dog Days of June NEWS staffer searches with relish for the perfect frank, grilling fanns along the way

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Let me be frank.

I love hot dogs. LOVE ’em. Yes, I know what’s in them, and no, I don’t care. Usually, I’m a mild-mannered food journalist whose taste tends toward the frou-frou. But put a hot dog smothered in mustard and celery salt in front of me, and I go wild. Wild, I tell you. For the five bites and approximately two minutes it takes me to eat this little meaty masterpiece, I throw caution (and any semblance of food snobbery) to the wind. Damn the torpedoes! Full steamed ahead!

Actually, I prefer grilled, but in a pinch, steamed will do. And in a real pinch (2 a.m. at an Irving station, say) I’ll take red, steamed to the point of bursting in the classic convenience-store style.

I should get this out in the open right away: steamed or grilled, the “red snapper” is not my favorite kind. Throw me out of Maine if you want, but it won’t change my mind. I could blame it on that snappy casing, but all natural-casing dogs have a little bite to them. I could say that I try not to eat anything that red unless it’s a beet, but red or not, hot dogs aren’t exactly health food.

I think this red-frank aversion has more to do with the fact that I wasn’t born here than anything else. My sister, however, is a native. She likes the reds so much that she’ll pass up a free lunch if it’s red-hot-dog day in the dining commons at the University of Maine.

“People from out of state think the red hot dogs are really strange,” said Elizabeth Bean Trommer of W.A. Bean & Sons in Bangor. “People from this area are very devoted to their red hot dogs.”

Like my sister, the red hot dog is a true Mainer. They pop up in other parts of the country, but they have their roots here. Joe Jordan, former owner of Jordan’s Meats, said the red-dyed natural casing hot dog (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron) originated in Portland in the 1940s. But the people at W.A. Bean & Sons have been stuffing their hot dog filling into red casings since at least 1918, when they moved to a long-since-leveled plant behind the former Freese’s building. At the time, there were about six other manufacturers in the area making hot dogs, and there wasn’t a natural-looking one in the bunch.

“Everybody made them red,” Trommer said. “Who started it and why, I’m not sure.”

Today at Bean’s, the red casing distinguishes the beef-pork frank from its lower-fat counterpart, the fair-skinned, chicken-pork frank.

In the 1940s, Jordan’s had a reason for coloring its hot dogs, too: competition. Jordan’s and Portland-based competitor Schonland’s both manufactured natural-casing franks, but the lack of packaging and labeling caused some confusion when delis and meat markets displayed the two together. Determined to set his franks apart, Joseph F. Jordan, the company’s founder and Joe Jordan’s grandfather, decided to color them red. Though better packaging soon became available, the idea stuck, and today, more than 50 percent of the hot dogs manufactured in Maine are red.

“People are convinced that they have to have the bright-red hot dogs, that they taste better, but the color is a result of a red dye that’s added into the hot-water bath at the end of the process,” Trommer said. “It doesn’t have any taste. The red color is really not necessary, but it’s a popular perception. If they taste better, it’s because we have a better recipe. … It has nothing to do with the color.”

Try telling that to the people who flock to Dana’s Grill in Bangor and Hampden in the summer. Each day, cooks at both locations grill up a total of more than 200 red hot dogs.

“Oh yeah, they come in and they ask,” said Elaine Gray of Bangor, who has worked at Dana’s State Street location since January. “If we didn’t have red hot dogs they wouldn’t order hot dogs.”

Gray says it seems like she’s worked at Dana’s for years, and means it in a good way. She has gotten to know a lot of the customers there and she calls everyone “honey,” even the people she doesn’t know. She likes hot dogs, but she doesn’t eat them too often because they have a lot of sodium. When she does eat them, she eats the red ones. She thinks most of the customers at Dana’s prefer red hot dogs because they equate red with quality.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the taste, but they’re mostly made out of beef and don’t have a lot of byproducts,” Gray said. “I think people are better assured that if they have a red hot dog, they aren’t going to have all that processed stuff.”

Now, I know what I like, and red hot dogs aren’t at the top of my list, but Dana’s was pretty tasty. The flame-grilling made it refreshingly un-snappy, and Gray didn’t look at me funny when I asked for celery salt, which is always good.

Dana’s was the last stop on an odyssey that took me Down East to Hancock, down the coast to Belfast and Rockland, west to Hallowell and Augusta, and then back up to Bangor. It was an idea inspired by Eddie Andelman, a Boston sports-talk-radio host who holds a “Hot Dog Safari” every spring at Suffolk Downs to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Joey Fund. It’s an all-you-can-eat frankfest, where 12 manufacturers serve up more than 90,000 pounds of hot dogs.

It always sounded like a good idea to me, and since I missed it again this year, I decided to hold my own hot dog safari, with a few differences. Only two people attended. It was less for charity more for gluttony. And rather than stay in one place and stuff my face, I packed up a co-worker and $20 and we hit the road, stopping at every hot-dog stand (or stand whose sign mentioned hot dogs) we could find. We spent eight hours and traveled nearly 300 miles in pursuit of hot dog perfection.

First, we hit Hancock, where Hot Diggity Dog sits on a knoll beside Route 1 looking like something off a Candyland board. From the windows of the pastel-striped building, with its matching pink and seafoam picnic tables, perfectly grilled hot dogs emerge nestled in steamy buns and heaped with toppings.

In the parking lot, I caught Pat Spence of Lamoine on her way back to the car. She was about to speed off with two chili and coleslaw dogs, a favorite in her native West Virginia.

“This is the only place I eat hot dogs,” she said. Then, as quickly as she arrived, she hopped into her car and was off, presumably to eat those franks while they were still hot.

Seth Differ of Hancock, a junior at the University of Southern Maine who is home for the summer, was in no hurry. He and his friends Greg and Colleen Dolbec sat at a picnic table to savor the sunshine – and some food. Though he’s only been home a few weeks, Differ has already been to Hot Diggity three times, and figures he’ll be back again for his favorite: a hot dog with onions, cheese and ketchup, and a heaping serving of cheese fries.

“I like the toppings,” Differ said. “You can load ’em up with anything and they’re made so well here.”

Dick Jones, Hot Diggity Dog’s owner, said the toppings are part of what keeps people coming back. In addition to the usual ketchup and mustard, he also offers sauerkraut, homemade chili, cheese, bacon, jalapenos, grilled onions, salsa, coleslaw, a “taco” dog, and the unusual “datil dog,” which is served with Minorcan Mustard and Hellish Relish, both spiced with the datil pepper.

“If you like hot, it’s hot, but it’s also very flavorful,” Jones said. “I haven’t had anyone try it who didn’t like it.”

Jones built Hot Diggity nine years ago because he always wanted a hot dog stand. He had retired from the mobile home business, and CDs were paying so poorly that he figured he’d make more money chasing his dream than sitting on his investments. Over the years, Jones has learned a few things about people’s hot dog preferences.

“A lot of out-of-state people think red hot dogs are kind of funny,” he said. “I had people leave when I was selling red hot dogs.”

He also found that women order sauerkraut 10 times more often than men. People go wild for grilled onions. And peanut oil is the key to a good grilled dog.

Throughout the safari, my fellow hot-dogger and I found a few trends of our own: None of the places that advertise themselves solely as hot dog stands served red hot dogs. The stands that grill hot dogs usually use peanut oil. The french fries at these stands tend to be better than those elsewhere. And almost all of them offered chocolate milk. Wasses in Rockland even had coffee milk – yum!

From Hancock, we traveled south, and in Stockton Springs, a little cart called Lulu’s Dawg House caught our eye, so we pulled abruptly off Route 1, much to the chagrin of the RV driver behind us, and turned around in a driveway where a party was in full swing. We couldn’t stay. We had work to do. Unfortunately, Lulu’s was closed. I don’t know if it’s closed for the season, closed on Sundays, or just closed, but we were disappointed. We wanted a Dawg.

Reluctantly, we turned around again and drove to the Belfast branch of Wasses, the Rockland-based hot dog mecca. It, too, was closed. Apparently, if you’re in search of a frankfurter, Sunday is not the day to go. We looped by Bayside, hoping a cart may have pulled up at the landing, but to no avail. And as we turned back onto Route 1, giant raindrops started plopping down on the windshield.

Great, we thought. Our spirits were low. My windows were foggy. We thought the safari was futile. Driving through Camden did little to quell my fear that we wouldn’t find any more hot dog stands open on a Sunday. But then we reached Rockland and my heart rose as I saw a group of kids on bicycles in front of Wasses. The lights were on, the grill was hot and, more important, the place was open!

We thought the rain would keep people away, but no. Mark Moskowitz, who goes to Hampden Academy, had been fishing on the breakwater with his father, Robert, and his friend Anthony Johnson when they got caught in the storm. They were soaked, but otherwise in good spirits, as they ate their Wasses dogs.

“We came here for hot dogs because these are our favorite hot dogs,” Mark Moskowitz said.

“It’s hot after being soaking wet,” his father, who lives in Hope, added. “It’s tasty. It’s fun on a bun. Yeah, it’s fun on a bun.”

And while the rain didn’t stop the hungry fishermen, it did keep away the droves of people who usually line up in front of Wasses on a sunny day. A sign over the windows reads, “OVER TWO MILLION SOLD.” It’s no wonder.

“The line’s usually beyond the sidewalk around lunchtime,” said Sherri Losier, who works at Wasses. “I wouldn’t stand in line that long for a hot dog, but plenty of people do.”

After a chili-cheese dog each, we hopped back in the car and drove down to the landing, where Robert Waterman was getting ready to close up shop at the Public Landing Lunch Box. He had a few dogs left, but the kids nearly cleared him out at lunchtime.

“Hot dogs, at least here, are just as popular as hamburgers and cheeseburgers,” Waterman said.

The southern New Jersey native is visiting for the summer, and he’s found that Mainers do hot dogs a little differently than they do in his home state or nearby Philadelphia.

“Until I got to Maine, I had never seen anyone fry a hot dog or fry onions,” Waterman said. “You’d get laughed at if you asked for that in New Jersey. … Most hot dogs in New Jersey are steamed, and if not steamed, boiled. The rolls are totally different. We don’t use sliced bread rolls. We have real hot dog buns.”

Fortunately, he didn’t have to deal with the whole red hot dog issue, though he did have a few customers ask for them. As my companion pointed out, it’d be tough getting a good lobster roll in Philadelphia. Waterman laughed, and we were on our way.

We drove off into the sunset (between rain showers) and reached Augusta a little before 5 p.m. Again, we were worried that our destination, Bolley’s Famous Franks, would close before we got there. And we didn’t know how to get there, but we found it. It’s actually in Hallowell, just past the town line. There, among the Formica-covered tables and faux wood paneling, we discovered what makes those franks so famous. The answer sounded familiar.

“When they were cooked with peanut oil way back when I think they were one of the few places that would do it,” said Paulette Crabtree of Topsham, who was visiting her mother and her niece. “More than anything it was the idea that they cooked with peanut oil and used fried onions.”

Though Bolley’s offers all kinds of things on buns, from kielbasa and sausage to the “special frank,” which is skinless, the Famous Frank is still Crabtree’s favorite.

“Even if you tried to do it at home it’s not quite the same, even if you have the peanut oil,” she said. “I think you need a grill.”

Crabtree, who grew up in Gardiner, remembers when Bolley’s was the only real “fast food” nearby. She and her friends would always go for a Bolley dog, and it’s a tradition she’s continued.

“I’m up here visiting my mother,” she said. “Before I dropped them off I said, ‘Let’s go to Bolley’s and get some hot dogs,’ because I grew up in Gardiner and it’s always been a tradition to go to Bolley’s.”

Now, she’s trying to get her 10-year-old niece to carry on the legacy. Sitting across from her aunt and grandmother, Bernadette Winters of Gardiner, Jasmine James looked like she was off to a good start. She had two Famous Franks in front of her – just like her older relatives.

“I’ve only been here like twice,” Jasmine said.

“She’s learning the tradition from her aunt,” Crabtree piped in, smiling.

“She’s the one who’s more Bolley-oriented,” Winters said, pointing to her daughter and sipping a chocolate milk.

I didn’t want to interrupt this family frankfurter experience any further, so I thanked them for sharing their stories and let them get back to their dogs.

Outside Bolley’s, it had stopped raining, and my frank friend and I got into the car full and happy. We rolled down the windows and drove toward the civic center, hoping to squeeze in one more stop: Don’s Famous Franks, an offshoot of Bolley’s in Augusta. But the windows of the red and yellow building were dark.

I guess it was for the best. Although I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as too many hot dogs in one day, I didn’t want to press my luck.

The safari was a success. I ate more than my share of great hot dogs. It stopped pouring. And as we drove on Interstate 95 back to Bangor, a wisp of a rainbow appeared to the east. It was, by all accounts, the perfect ending to a perfect day.