Une Envie de Sel

Corner View: Menu al dia!I had a hard time coming up with my corner view this week, because for one thing, Denver is a "new" city when it comes to the history of our country. As such, it has been influenced by everything from high-plains Mexico to the Canada's French fur trappers, from New York to L.A. and back again. Does Denver have a native cuisine? Good question.

Furthermore, exploring new and innovative restaurants in our city has been a hobby of ours (my husbands and mine) since we first moved here from the rarefied climes of the Vail Valley some three (or four) years ago. We are serious foodies (my husband was a chef when we first moved here from the mountains) and though Denver isn't exactly NY or Budapest, it does have a fine selection of restaurants, in its own way. We have sampled so many beautiful and imaginative menus since arriving here that my head spins a bit at the idea of picking one to epitomizes our city.

So...I decided on the simplest of options for this post: The Sonoran hot dog.

The one pictured came from our favorite authentic corner taco joint, the kind that could have been transplanted directly from Mexico. Denver has a massive and very genuine Mexican presence. We are not exactly "on the border", but we are directly in the path of immigration from the South. New Mexico (our neighbor to the South) was once, of course, "old Mexico", and I know this as well as anyone, since my father's family had resided in New Mexico long before it became a part of the US of A. You might know me as French and Dutch, but I am also Mexican by heritage. My father's mother's family, in fact, had been such an established entity in Wagonmound, NM (just south of the Colorado border), that their erstwhile home is now a museum there.

My father cooked recipes from his mother's family throughout my childhood, and I myself lived in central Mexico for a fondly-remembered time in my late teens, so Mexican food has always been a big part of my life. Central Mexico, however, is much different animal from the borderlands, so the Sonoran hot dog was never a part of my consciousness.

I think I heard of the Sonoran hot dog for the first time on an NPR food show this past year. In any case, my husband and I were both eager to try it as soon as we heard tell of it...especially after learning it involved bacon. Little did we know until this past week that it was on the menu at our very own neighborhood hot dog joint...just two and a half blocks from our front doorstep.

My husband brought one home three days ago, and I had to shoot a picture for the blog...very quickly before we devoured it.

Ingredients (roughly):

A delicately grilled hot dog wrapped in bacon, twice-fried pinto beans, chopped tomatoes, onions, mustard, mayonnaise, jalapeños, queso fresco, salsa verde and cotija.

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