Raw Dog: The Naked Truth about Hot Dogs

A NEW YORK TIMES AND INDIE BESTSELLER!

Now in paperback with a brand-new author introduction!

Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critique--comedian Jamie Loftus's debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now.

A Best Book of the Year from NPR and Vulture. Featured in: NPR Weekend Edition - Bon Appétit - Oprah Daily - Glamour - NY Mag - Splendid Table - The Wall Street Journal - Eater - Betches - USA Today - Boston Globe - Eater - Slate - The Next Big Idea Club - Buzzfeed and more

"Wise and funny" --ANDY RICHTER - "Revealing, funny, sad, horny, and insatiably curious" --SARAH MARSHALL - "A wild ride" --ROBERT EVANS - "Deeply incisive and hilariously honest" --JACK O'BRIEN - "Gonzo yet vulnerable" --GABE DUNN - "Hot dog Moby-Dick" --BRANSON REESE - "One of the freshest and most insightful new comedic voices of this decade." --LINDSAY ELLIS

Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They're high culture, they're low culture, they're sports food, they're kids' food, they're hangover food, and they're deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can't avoid the great American hot dog.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelogue documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they're served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. It's a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest.

So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.

This paperback edition includes Jamie's road trip map and illustrations by the author throughout, in addition to a brand-new author introduction.

"Raw Dog will leave you nourished." --BuzzFeed

"You will certainly never read a funnier book about taking a hot dog-themed road trip across America." --Glamour

"A journey both silly and profound." --Vulture, Best Books of 2023

Author: Jamie Loftus
Publisher: Forge
Published: 05/13/2025
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.19h x 5.40w x 0.84d
ISBN: 9781250847768

About the Author
JAMIE LOFTUS is a comedian, Emmy-nominated TV writer, and podcaster. She's worked as a staff writer on Teenage Euthanasia, Robot Chicken, and Star Trek: Lower Decks, and wrote and starred in her own web series for Comedy Central. She writes and hosts popular limited-run podcasts--"My Year In Mensa" (2019), "Lolita Podcast" (2020), "Aack Cast" (2021), and "Ghost Church" (2022)--and cohosts, with screenwriter Caitlin Durante, a podcast on the How Stuff Works Network called "The Bechdel Cast." She has her baby teeth bronzed and loaded into a slingshot.