Book Review: Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus
"Think about how you feel about hot dogs right now, and let me know how you feel at the end. If it's exactly the same, I promise I won't write another one of these things."
I'd love Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus for its chapter titles alone ('The Five Hot Dogs You Can Easily Purchase In Heaven'; 'We Are In Fucking New Jersey'; 'Alone But Not Alone Because Hot Dog'), but every word in this book is extraordinarily wonderful. Damn, she can write so well I can't even envy her.
Anyway, this is one of those wonderful that melds the classic road trip genre with food history, memoir (described on Reddit as 'interpersonal weirdness'), acute observation and mind-bending cultural analysis. It begins with a content warning (there are discussions of drug use, violence, slaughterhouse practice, disordered eating and horniness), but this is so sharply written, you'll not mind even if you are a free-speech libertarian 'snowflake'-hating hot dog fiend.
I've read this book twice and I'm about to go in again. It's that good.
Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs by Jamie Loftus (published in 2023)
Jamie's interview with The Takeout.
