This style of hot dog is slowly appearing in America (as of 2009) and can now be found in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, on street carts at night.
The wieners are wrapped in bacon, then grilled, then put into a roll.
The roll is a “bolillo” roll, which is a bit sturdier than a regular hot dog roll. The roll is long and oval, about 6 inches (15 cm) long, with a firm crust outside and a soft crumb inside. The rolls are split on the top for use.
When the cooked bacon-wiener is in the roll, it is topped with a spoonful of cooked ground beef.
The street vendors then offer you such an overwhelming variety of toppings as to make Chicago’s “dragged through the garden” hot dog look like it saw a very small backyard garden indeed.
Sonoran toppings include mayonnaise, chopped fresh tomato, chopped fresh onion, fried onion, cooked pinto beans, salsa verde, sliced mushrooms, yellow mustard, cotija cheese, chopped jalapeño peppers, chopped fresh cilantro, chopped fresh lettuce, red salsa, green salsa, sliced avocado, crumbled chorizo sausage, bacon bits, chipotle sauce, guacamole, crumbled potato chips, cucumbers in sour cream… etc.
Ketchup is not generally offered as a topping.
History Notes
No one is sure how the bacon-wrapping of the wieners began — Sonora is a cattle area, not a pig-farming area.
As to when it began, the best guess is that it probably started in the 1950s. Starting in 1953, Oscar Mayer was running ads in America promoting wrapping wieners in bacon, and the advertisements would surely have trickled across the border.
But the full-blown Sonorran style — everything including the kitchen sink — didn’t start, some people estimate, until the late 1980s [1]
Language Notes
In Mexico, “dogos” are hot dogs; “hotdogueros” or just “dogueros” are hot dog vendors.
Sources
[1] “It originated about 20 years ago in Hermosillo, the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora. Garcia was a college student there at the time. He remembers the hot dog being a novelty from the U.S. sold on the street.” Robbins, Ted. The Sonoran Hotdog Crosses The Border. National Public Radio. 6 August 2009. Transcript retrieved September 2010 from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106366080 . [Ed: About 20 years ago from 2009 puts the date about 1989.]
Edge, John T. In Praise of the All-American Mexican Hot Dog. New York Times. 25 August 2009.
Leroux, Charles. Tucson’s Mexican-style hot dog gains a following. Chicago Tribune. 2 May 2007.
Rocca, Mo. How Far Would You Go For A Hot Dog? CBS News. 22 November 2009. Retrieved August 2010 from http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5737873n