The corn dog is considered by many in the technical professions nature's most perfect food because it's a rich source of
fat,
cholesterol,
calories,
salt, and preservatives. That and it can go from freezer to
microwave to mouth in roughly the same time it takes a computer to boot and load its
operating system.
In its most basic and rarely altered form (again demonstrating the elegance of its simple and perfect design), a corn dog is a
hot dog on a stick and wrapped in a thick batter of deep-fried
cornbread. Corn dogs are usually dipped in
ketchup or
mustard, although salsa and various forms of relish (
green relish,
hot dog relish,
hamburger relish,
red beat relish,
perky pear relish,
rhubarb relish,
coleslaw relish, honey corn relish,
Philadelphia Relish,
cucumber relish,
green tomato relish, hot
banana pepper relish, spicy
kumquat relish, tomato-olive relish, fresh herb and
sauerkraut relish,
mango relish, but not cranberry relish) can be used. Rarely are toppings combined, although sometimes a slice of
processed cheese is wrapped around or laid upon the corn dog prior to heating.
Once the corn dog is consumed, the remaining practically
inedible stick can be used by the corn dog manufacturer for promotional purposes. For example, if the corn dog eater collects 10,000 specially imprinted corn dog sticks, he can trade them in for his very own
Jarvik 7. Alternatively, the stick can be employed as an after-dinner
back scratcher. In some Southern states, scratching your back with a greasy corn dog stick can, in fact, be done in
polite company or in front of your wife.
Although seemingly a divinely inspired food (many times the literature wrongly attributes
Pythagoras himself as the corn dog's creator), the corn dog actually has a more recent
genesis. The corn dog first appeared as an American dietary staple in 1942. That's when Neil and Carl Fletcher first started offering them at the
Texas State fair. The Fletchers were vaudevillian actors first and chefs second (or third). The world might have never known the joys of eating a corn dog if matters were left up to a classically trained chef with little or no acting experience on the
vaudeville circuit. The Fletchers' original corn dog was called "Fletcher's Original State Fair Corny Dog". Yeah corny dog.
It's speculated that the Fletchers probably got the idea for the corn dog when encountering many German and Eastern European Jews on the vaudeville circuit. Sausages fried in egg and batter were a popular Germanic recipe.