B-Bar Brand Corn Dogs, Tasty Eating for Hard Times

Sure enough, near record temperatures hereabouts today, in the mid-60s. Plus gusting wind. This being garbage collection day on my street, that meant wingéd bits of trash traveling with the wind, and at one point me chasing one of my trash-can lids.

Recession Food. I was a tightwad before tightwad was cool, so I'm already versed in the cheap eats. As an example, I offer B-Bar brand Corn Dogs. A box of six is available at Aldi for about $1.50 for feeding children or even older members of the household. In fact, if B-Bar brand is any indication, frozen corn-dog technique has improved mightily since my younger days. Ann had one for lunch today, so I decided to have one too. Nuking it for 1:30 does it up just about right, and the battered stick emerges warm throughout with a fine corn taste and a tender meat core.

What am I getting with each bite? The tag line on the box says "made with chicken, pork and beef," but a closer look at the ingredients lets us know that chicken and pork are first and second on the list of the "frankfurter" subsection, but beef is ninth, after water, dextrose, salt, corn syrup, flavorings and sodium phosphate, but ahead of sodium erythorbate.

I'd heard of sodium phosphate as a food additive, typically used to prevent fats from running all over the place, but I had to look up sodium erythorbate, which is a color preservative for meat, and also the subject of a food rumor I'd never heard before. Anyway, ninth place tells me that there isn't much beef in the dog, but I can't say that bothers me particularly, since chicken and pork and perfectly respectable meats.

One more ingredient of note: oleoresin of paprika. I like saying that just for fun. It sounds like the title of a bogus Near Eastern potentate, the sort Curly Howard might have played.

This site claims that National Corndog Day (styled as one word) is calculated as the Saturday before the Paschal full moon. Strike that, it's actually on "the Saturday of the final 32 teams in NCAA basketball tournament," according to the site. Tater tots and beer are also on the menu for the day.