Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

A NEW YORK TIMES AND INDIE BESTSELLER! Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critiquecomedian Jamie Loftus's debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now. A Best Book of the Year from NPR and Vulture. Featured in: NPR Weekend Edition Bon Apptit Oprah Daily Glamour NY Mag Splendid Table The Wall Street Journal Eater Betches USA Today Boston Globe Eater Slate The Next Big Idea Club Buzzfeed and more Wise and funny ANDY RICHTER Revealing, funny, sad, horny, and insatiably curious SARAH MARSHALL A wild ride ROBERT EVANS Deeply incisive and hilariously honest JACK OBRIEN Gonzo yet vulnerable GABE DUNN Hot dog Moby-Dick BRANSON REESE One of the freshest and most insightful new comedic voices of this decade. LINDSAY ELLIS Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. Theyre high culture, theyre low culture, theyre sports food, theyre kids' food, theyre hangover food, and theyre deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you cant avoid the great American hot dog. Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelog documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as theyre served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. Its a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest. So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven. The hardcover edition of Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs includes gorgeous endpapers, an illustrated case, as well as illustrations by the author throughout. "Raw Dog will leave you nourished." BuzzFeed "You will certainly never read a funnier book about taking a hot dog-themed road trip across America." Glamour "A journey both silly and profound." Vulture, Best Books of 2023