The hot dog is a classic American symbol. Its name evokes memories of baseball games, summer barbecues, and the notorious Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Whatever one associates with the simple comfort food, one thing is certain: A hot dog is and should be considered a sandwich. It is necessary to look at both history and economics to understand why the debate over hot dog categorization is a tragic illustration of governmental manipulation.
First, let’s look at the food’s history.
When the hot dog was first created in the late 1800s, it was referred to as a “Coney Island Sandwich” or “Frankfurter sandwich.” Additionally, the first entry under “sandwich” in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “sandwich” as “two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between.”
Along the same lines, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has always defined sandwiches as “consisting of two slices of bread or the top and bottom sections of a sliced bun that enclose meat or poultry.”
Following these definitions as well as its original name, it is undeniable that a hot dog is a sandwich. It is a split roll with a filling (the sausage) in between.
New York Times food editor Sam Sifton succumbed to a contradiction: “A hot dog is not a sandwich. A lobster roll is a sandwich.” If one were to follow Sifton’s logic, any sub, hero, or hoagie would also be disqualified as a sandwich because it is one split roll, instead of two pieces of bread. So, the next time you go to Subway, you’re supposed to believe that the products they sell are not actually sandwiches.
Next, it’s economically prudent to call a hot dog a “sandwich” because it’ll save you money.
In 1971, the state of New York passed a law which imposed a state and city sales tax to restaurant bills that totaled more than a dime and less than a dollar. The price range earned the tax moniker “hot dog tax” because it boosted the tax on lunches, namely the most popular lunch item — the hot dog.
A Citizens Committee to Repeal the Hot Dog Tax was formed to urge the governor to ditch the tax because it directly targeted poor people who relied on low-priced hot dogs for sustenance. Other states have tragically followed suit on the tyrannical sausage tax: In Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, and South Carolina, just to name a few, hot dogs are taxable if served hot (basically from a cart in the form of a sandwich in a bun), but not taxed when sold packaged in stores.
Essentially, states purposely classified hot dogs as non-sandwiches in the mid-20th century with the express purpose of imposing sales taxes and extracting more money for the government. But a hot dog is and has historically always been a sandwich, despite what tax the government may deceive you into paying.
This debate may seem trivial, but it exemplifies how the government manipulates consumer interests to reap the largest possible profit for itself. The best way to keep your hard-earned money in your pockets is to fight against the coercion of unfair sales taxes, deregulate the meat market, and redeem hot dogs for what they were created to be — sandwiches.
Kathryn Paravano is an undergraduate student at Georgetown University and is currently interning at a Washington, D.C. think tank.
