Everyone has heard of comfort food, being well, comforting. When one is upset or stressed for whatever reason, we like to eat a dish, that we can shut off our brain for a bit and just chew. While there are sometimes some very odd toppings, for example Pimento cheese on hotdogs, in this example in 2015. This year hotdogs have been very “normal” meaning Americans are stressed out, and sticking to the typical Mustard dog, comfort food.

Key Takeaways:

• That makes sense, since summer is the height of hot dog season: Some seven billion of them are eaten in the United States between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council.
• Burgers and fried chicken were pushed, too. As the recession continued, that’s when we saw the emergence of meatballs, hot dogs and other sausages, red velvet cake and all those grilled cheese sandwich concepts that came and went.
• Dog Haus has done Thai curry dogs and foie gras dogs, but as you might expect, spicy Italian sausage and bratwurst are their most popular dogs. In third place is the not-at-all-surprising bacon-wrapped dog.

“As I wrote in that encyclopedia, comfort food “can be anything that takes its eaters to a safe emotional place, that allows them simply to turn off their brain and chew.””

http://nrn.com/blog/how-hot-dog-toppings-can-predict-economic-downturn