ATLANTA — If your Memorial Day cookout includes hot dogs, you’ve no doubt wondered why your dogs and buns come packaged with a touch of inequality.
The times are changing, but often your grocery store shelves are stocked with hot dogs packaged in one amount and buns packaged in another.
Why?
In the movie "Father of the Bride", Steve Martin’s character goes on a tirade, angrily tearing buns out of their plastic wrapper in an odd fight for equality.
Typically, hot dog buns come in packages of eight. Hot dogs are all over the place. It is now possible to find them in packs of eight, but there are also packs of six, 10, and even 24 dogs.
For years, shoppers most often found packages of eight buns and 10 hot dogs, the motivation for Steve Martin’s movie rant.
The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council tells us it was the 1940s when hot dog manufacturers settled on 10 dogs to a pack. Independently, bakers were creating buns in pans designed to hold eight. Those pans now come in different sizes, but the eight-bun pan is still the most popular.
There is hope for this marriage.
Despite the history, manufacturers are now offering variety. You can find an eight pack of dogs to go with your eight buns. There are sometimes 10 buns to go with your 10-pack of dogs.
It’s taking stress off of shoppers, and the father of the bride.