WV Hot Dog Culture Creeps to the (Old) Northwest

Some WV Hot Dog Blog fans may be old enough to recall that almost an entire generation of WVians in the 1940s-1960s moved to Ohio to find work. Today, you can't go to Cleveland, Akron, Dayton, or Toledo without bumping into multiple folks with at least one Mountaineer grandparent and there are a fair amount of folks names "Adkins" and "Mullens" mixed in with the Polish and German surnames up in the "Land of Left Turn on Red."

Well, yesterday I was online helping a friend find a good place to eat in Toledo and stumbled across Tony Packo's (of M*A*S*H fame). On their homepage, they feature something of a slide show of four pictures of their products; one of pickles and three of hot dogs. Two of those dog pics look like standard Midwestern fare: dawgs with chili sauce (with some beans), mustard, and onions. One pic, however, almost made my eyes pop out. Yup, there was a Toledo hot dog with a big helpin' of slaw on it.

While the sauce and slaw weren't quite what us Weenie Wonks would define as ideal, there is only one place that the idea of slaw on hot dogs in Toledo could have come from. Yup, it traveled up US 23 with our Great-Aunts and Uncles 50-odd years ago.

As soon as Stanton replenishes his frequent flyier miles, you can count on me to hack into his account and book a trip to the Glass City. This deserves further investigation...