Eat Your Pork, Drink Your Liquor
The NYT is out ahead of the curve again:
Andrew Fenton of Philadelphia stumped, thrilled and mildly sickened the cocktail wing of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts and Letters, an online forum, by posting news of a creation he called Weeniecello. The concoction, he said, results from soaking Hebrew National hot dogs in 100-proof vodka for five weeks, yielding an infused vodka with, according to Mr. Fenton, “a fine beefy taste, with a hint of salt and gentle spiciness.”
Anyone familiar with the pure goodness of vodka and the meaty savor of a good Hebrew National dog (toasted bun, with mustard and Heinz India Relish, if you please) would, you would think, be asking the question on all of our minds right at the moment, which is, in God’s name, why?
His inspiration, he said, came at a barbecue, when he realized that the only thing detracting from the experience was that he was continually forced to put his cocktail down in order to eat. “You can see the dilemma,” he wrote.
No. No, I can’t. Meat is meat, liquor is liquor. They’re not meant to be enjoyed as one and the same item. And just because you can have, say, veal in a wine sauce doesn’t mean you should add a sidecar of gravy to your pinot noir. We’re not animals here. The great traditions of Western Civilization must be honored and respected, and one of the many things that means is that you don’t put weenies in your vodka, and (the NYT provides a recipe for this) you don’t put pork rinds in your margarita. Ever. I cannot make this clearer.
20061125 8:29 pm
You realize that there is no pork in a Hebrew National hot dog, don’t you? It’s a shame about my people and the no pork thing. Can’t make a decent stew without bacon fat, I say.
20061126 11:37 am
And yet, it manages to be pretty good. I don’t demand pork in my hot dogs (especially given the kind of pork that goes into hot dogs). But pork is a major food group, and my respect for the part of the Jewish people that abstains grows daily.