searching for half-smokes

Philly cheesesteak, Chicago-style hot dog, New York-style pizza, but what about DC? If DC has a signature street food, it has to be the half-smoke. If you've been to Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street, then you'll know what I'm talking about. But what is a half-smoke, exactly? It's not quite a hot dog, but not quite a sausage either. (Do I really want to know the answer?) And where can I buy them to grill on my own? It turns out the answers aren't so easy to find.

To satisfy a craving for half-smokes over the weekend, I went to several local grocery stores to try to find half-smokes to put on the grill and that's when it all started. Should I be looking in the sausage section or the hot dog section? At Ben's Chili Bowl, they were well-formed like hot dogs, but tasted more like sausage. It didn't really matter because I didn't find it in either section at any store. I picked up some sausage that looked like hot dogs, which ended up tasting nothing like a half-smoke. Despite good times grilling, I still had more questions than answers.

Where does every research dig begin nowadays? Google, of course! Man, was I disappointed. Even trusty wikipedia came up empty! Turns out the bulk of what I found were forums where people were asking (1) what half-smokes are, and (2) where to find them in the store. After going to some hot dog fan sites like watchmeeatahotdog.com, I figured out a few hints, albeit unverified. So here is the unconfirmed information, as if it appeared on a truthful PowerPoint slide.

Half-Smokes are:

• some kind of spicy sausage that looks like a hot dog
• part pork, part beef
• ubiquitous at downtown street vendors
• rumored to appear at RFK soon
• virtually unknown outside of DC
• produced by some company named Briggs
• unhealthfully delicious

This week, I found out that half-smokes are also served on many golf courses in the area. Through a friend of a friend who works on a golf course that serves half-smokes, we now know that half-smokes can be ordered through Sysco food distribution. Yeah, the mega-corporation with the silver semis driving around to every restaurant, dining hall, and snack shop. Through a restaurant connection, one can order a six pound, 30-pack of half smokes. That's a lot of half-smokes.

I'm convinced that the casual griller at home isn't going to be able to have half-smokes available in retail. The only solution is to buy the restaurant-sized pack and throw a half-smoke party. (Note: For you out-of-towners, half-smoke is not the same as half-bake.) So if you're looking for the real deal half-smokes, head over to Ben's Chili Bowl or some street vendor on the National Mall and make yourself comfortable with the pigeons on the park bench.

This really begs for an in-depth story on half-smokes though. What's the history behind the half-smoke? Who is Briggs? What's the story at Ben's? Really, what is in a half-smoke? The search for answers is on... Think of it as my first photojournalistic foray.