Pot of simmering chilli dog sauce
Temperance — Family Recipes & Simmering Traditions

Ellwood Chilli Dog Sauce

A Bet, a Garage, and a Grandmothers Recipe Box

You might think a hot dog eating contest belongs to Coney Island, but I have one from a little community called Frisco, just outside Ellwood City in western Pennsylvania. My mom told me this story more than once, and I have no reason to doubt her. Sometime after he came home from WWII, her dad — my grandfather — owned a local garage, one my grandmother had built for him next to the house while he was overseas. This had to be sometime in the 1940s; Mom was born in 1932, so she would have been about fifteen or sixteen. She was outside working in the garage, keeping the books and handling billing, when a man brought his truck in for repairs. He bet her the price of the whole job that he could eat more chili dogs than she could. Long story short — he lost. She won the contest fair and square, though Gramps would not let her bill him twice.

The Recipe

Going through Grandma's recipe box, I found this one written down — Ellwood Chilli Dog Sauce, given to her years ago by an old Pennsylvania friend named Mirna. I made a batch myself not long ago, and it may be the best hot dog topping I have ever had. This recipe makes a big pot of it, the kind meant for feeding a crowd, and now it belongs here in the Temperance chapter with the rest of the recipes worth keeping.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. In a 10-quart stock pot, add the ground meat and garlic powder. Fill the pot ¾ of the way with water and squish the meat to break it up.
  2. Bring to a boil, stirring often and continuing to break up the meat as it cooks.
  3. Add the chili powder, red pepper flakes, ground cumin, and cayenne pepper. Stir frequently and simmer until it cooks down to about half the pot.
  4. Add the paprika for color. Mix the cornstarch with cold water in a pitcher until fully dissolved, then pour it into the pot.
  5. Simmer and stir until it thickens up.
  6. Cover the pot, take it off the burner, and let it cool.

Makes a big pot — plenty for a crowd of hot dogs. Scale it down for a smaller batch if you don't need quite that much.

· ✦ ·
He bet the whole repair bill that he could out-eat a sixteen-year-old girl. He should have asked around first.

I think about that garage in Frisco whenever this sauce is simmering on the stove — my mom, keeping the books, taking a bet nobody expected her to win. Recipes like this one carry more than a family sometimes realizes. A friend hands it to your grandmother, your grandmother tucks it in a box, and decades later it is still feeding people, still starting stories.

From the Table Some recipes come with a story.
Some come with a bet you win
before anyone thinks to warn the other side.

"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works." — Ecclesiastes 9:7 (KJV)