Hot Dog!

My fair and frantic Baltimore, to paraphrase Earl Leaf, becomes the most frantic when our food is involved - specifically, if one of our favorite comestibles is taken away from us.

And now we are losing two of our beloved foods!

If you haven't heard about this, I hope you're sitting down, eating a hot dog.  Chances are, it's not an Esskay Oriole frank, a local favorite around here for many a year, because they ain't making them no more.

The name Esskay goes a long way back here, back to 1919 William when William Schluderberg and Thomas Kurdle merged their meatpacking plants to form Esskay Meats. S-K, OK?

And all was fine until Esskay was bought out by Smithfield Meats, and now Smithfield will only produce Esskay brand deli meats and chipped beef. They sold their hotdogs under the Oriole logo and did great business for years.

To be quite honest, we switched to Nathan's here at the Lazy 'C' Ranch a couple of years ago, because they looked so tasty on the Fourth of July.

“Our organization has made the difficult decision to discontinue Esskay hotdogs,” said Chad McFadden, Esskay brand manager for Smithfield Foods, in an email to the Baltimore Sun. He went on to say that Esskay frankfurters represent less than 1 percent of the volume of the company’s packaged meats. And based on that, maybe it wasn't all that difficult a decision, but we'll miss them at the ballpark.

Maybe the Orioles will start having Nathan's hot dogs at Oriole Park!

And for another bygone treat, remember getting those little candy hearts at Valentine's Day? Oh man, I remember them!





But I never saw this brand.  The ones I got had slogans such as NO and NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS and GET AWAY FROM ME, I MEAN IT!

But they still tasted just as sweet, and didn't even begin to dampen my ardor.

Because what good is dampened ardor?

The deal with the candy hearts is that they will return to your favorite store next year.  It's all involved with the sale of their manufacturer, New England Confectionery Company, makers of the dreaded NECCO wafer - the only candy that is also suitable for use as poker chips.

The company that bought the candy hearts line from NECCO is also the company that makes Dum-Dum Pops, but they didn't acquire the brand until September, and that did not leave them enough time to meet this year's candy heart demands.

Give your love a Dum-Dum! Just don't call him or her "Dum-Dum" or else you'll be sad-sad.