AmazingRibs.com is supported by our Pitmaster Club. Also, when you buy with links on our site we may earn a finder’s fee. Click to see how we test and review products.

My Most Memorable Hot Dog: The French Chien Blanc

Share on:

I have had some extraordinary meals around the world, but one stands out. It was in the late 1970s, and I was in Burgundy in central France researching the wines and cuisine for an article in the Chicago Tribune.

It was well past noon, and I was hungry and thirsty. I had just visited the vineyard village of Vougeot, home of a parcel of vines hallowed throughout winedom: Clos Vougeot. It is an ancient castle floating in a sea of vines that are divided among many small owners.

After visiting the tasting room of one of the larger owners, and enjoying the gustatory delights of the fruit grown just outside that door, I hit the road in search of a meal. Just around the corner I noticed a short grizzled unshaven old man in a flannel shirt in a rickety old chair beside a barrel that was standing on end. On the head of the barrel was an open bottle, a single wine glass, and a sign: “Degustation.” Tasting.

This winemaker had an unfamous name, but the wine was marvelous, far better than the renowned vigneron from whose caves I had just come. I bought a bottle for about $20, a lot of money in those days at that location.

I drove my rental Renault north seeking sustenance. Parked beside the road I noticed a trailer, not much bigger than a minivan. As I sped past I could smell them. Saucisse. Chien blanc. Pommes frites. French hot dogs and French fries. I wheeled around and drove back. The trailer had a window with an awning, and a shelf for passing the hot food through. Fast food, French wine country style.

I was second in line behind another short grizzled unshaven old man in a flannel shirt. Through an open window in the trailer still another short grizzled unshaven old man in a flannel shirt was mounting a freshly shaven potato onto a grid of metal blades. He pulled down a handle and pushed the potato through the blades extruding it into a bouquet of quarter inch shoestrings and propelling them directly into a cauldron of hot oil. Gurrrrrrglllllle. Hisssssss.

He produced a long skinny baguette of crusty bread, cut off an 8″ section, and impaled it lengthwise on a stainless steel hot poker. It went right up the center of the soft white bread, and warmed it, toasting it slightly.

He then turned around and with his bare fingers plucked a white sausage from a griddle. Holding it between thumb and forefinger he dipped it in a widemouth jar of mustard made just up the road in Dijon. He wriggled the dog lubed with mustard into the impaled bread, and wrapped it in tissue paper. Then he scooped out the fries, dumped them all in brown bag, and handed it all to the man in front of me.

I had what he had.

Moments later I found myself sitting on a stone wall overlooking The Great Chateau in Clos Vougeot (above), eating the world’s best chien and pommes frites made just over there, and drinking nectar straight from the neck of the bottle, made from the vines at my feet. Here’s a picture I took that day.

Mon dieu!

In June 2009 I stopped in Brasserie Jo for a meeting, a very nice bistro in Chicago with the distinct Alsace flavor of the owner, Chef Jean Joho. Alas, it is now closed.

I sidled up to the bar for a cold one, and there, right next to me, was the same kind of device I had seen 30 years earlier in Burgundy. The chien blanc they sell at Brasserie Jo, nestled in the baguette with Dijon mustard, was pretty close to the one I had in France: Delicious!

making chien blanc sausage at Brasserie Jo   eating chien blanc sausage at Brasserie Jo

Related articles

Published On: 4/20/2014 Last Modified: 10/11/2022

Share on:
  • Meathead, BBQ Hall of Famer - Founder and publisher of AmazingRibs.com, Meathead is known as the site's Hedonism Evangelist and BBQ Whisperer. He is also the author of the New York Times Best Seller "Meathead, The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling", named one of the "100 Best Cookbooks of All Time" by Southern Living.

 

High quality websites are expensive to run. If you help us, we’ll pay you back bigtime with an ad-free experience and a lot of freebies!

Millions come to AmazingRibs.com every month for high quality tested recipes, tips on technique, science, mythbusting, product reviews, and inspiration. But it is expensive to run a website with more than 2,000 pages and we don’t have a big corporate partner to subsidize us.

Our most important source of sustenance is people who join our Pitmaster Club. But please don’t think of it as a donation. Members get MANY great benefits. We block all third-party ads, we give members free ebooks, magazines, interviews, webinars, more recipes, a monthly sweepstakes with prizes worth up to $2,000, discounts on products, and best of all a community of like-minded cooks free of flame wars. Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial, and help keep this site alive.


Post comments and questions below

grouchy?

1) Please try the search box at the top of every page before you ask for help.

2) Try to post your question to the appropriate page.

3) Tell us everything we need to know to help such as the type of cooker and thermometer. Dial thermometers are often off by as much as 50°F so if you are not using a good digital thermometer we probably can’t help you with time and temp questions. Please read this article about thermometers.

4) If you are a member of the Pitmaster Club, your comments login is probably different.

5) Posts with links in them may not appear immediately.

Moderators

  Max

Click to comment or ask a question...

Spotlight

These are not paid ads, they are a curated selection of products we love.

All of the products below have been tested and are highly recommended. Click here to read more about our review process.

Use Our Links To Help Keep Us Alive

Many merchants pay us a small referral fee when you click our “buy now” links. This has zero impact on the price you pay but helps support the site.