Spiral Cut Hot Dog Sweeps the Web: Try This One Neat Trick to Improve Your Grill Parties Tenfold

Okay, maybe not tenfold but seriously, is the spiral cut hot dog the first time in ever someone has come up with a way to class up a hot dog?

Well before the spiral cut hot dog hit the web and changed the way we look at other people’s grilling habits forever, there was a scene in Uncle Buck where John Candy’s character made an oft-repeated and unflattering remark about the composition of hot dogs. And while we all still love the meat tubes of indeterminate origin, there is a bit of a stigma attached to them.

Case in point — every city is besieged by high-end burger joints, shilling one of America’s humblest dishes with foie gras, truffled aioli, balsamic ketchup, lobster topping… the list goes on. Surely if you reside in Chicago or New York, you’ve come across at least one fancy-pants burger joint that even without caviar burgers, pushes the envelope (and check cost) of what you expect from a hamburger restaurant.

Hot dogs haven’t gotten nearly the same treatment in restaurants, with perhaps a few high-end dogs to grace the fancy-casual scene of the past few years — and this attitude has trickled to home chefs as well, most of whom would only serve a hot dog to kids when they didn’t have time to pick up actual meat or when there’s a lot of activities that evening.

But home cooks also know that there are few visually appealing ways to present a hot dog — and spiral cuts achieve that. Before, basically all you could do grilling out was slap it on a bun, and maybe drizzle some ketchup in a fancy pattern upon its face. But now, thanks to the innovators over at Chow.com, you too can serve a fancy hot dog at home during an outdoor dinner party and still convey some degree of forethought and ability.

Chow’s “Why You Should Spiral-Cut Your Wiener,” below.