Rolf’s at Christmas feels like you’re eating in an advent calendar. The festive decorations in the Manhattan German restaurant bloom like mold across the walls and ceilings. You will be made cozy whether you like it or not, and you’ll eat like it, too. The last time I went, in winter, I scanned the German menu and came upon one that the restaurant described as a delicately spiced and smoked pork and beef sausage with the meat in a fine mince. It sounded good and somewhat familiar. Of course it did. Because when my dinner arrived, I realized, despite the lack of a bun, I’d ordered hot dogs.
Like most Americans, I associate hot dogs with being hot and outside. They are the food of baseball games and boardwalks, camping trips, and emergency dinners on the sidewalk. They are summer in a way no other summer food is. A hamburger is found at a backyard grill, sure, but also at McDonald’s year-round. Potato salad is in tubs at the grocery store. There’s the seasonality of corn, but corn is in everything. Meanwhile, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, what the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council calls “peak hot dog season,” Americans consume around seven billion hot dogs.
Why? Sitting in a cozy Manhattan restaurant on a winter’s day, I could no longer ignore the incongruity of the association. This was sausage, heavy and salty and leaking fatty juices, completely at home with mashed potatoes and a glass of mulled wine. It seemed ridiculous that this is something I’m told to reach for in the summer — you mean when I have boob sweat??