Seen in Gillette, Wyoming

[Jenise]

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"Artificially colored". No shit.

The left or the right?

Those look like those garishly colored fish paste things they sell in Japanese markets.

[Jenise]

Those look like those garishly colored fish paste things they sell in Japanese markets.

Don't they? And yet, as you can tell from the display, this grocer expects to sell as many of those shocking fake pink things as he does the other which are probably no less artificial but at least they look normal. Gillette was an odd place--it's a town run, and ruined by, coal. The interstate runs right through the middle of a jaw-droppingly ginormous and deep mining pit, and the people I saw have mostly come there because of it, covering that stretch of bald-ass prairie with the fast food drive-thrus, cheap motels and, ahem, 'tanning salons' typical of what, in modern times, amounts to a goldrush. Case in point, here's where you buy gas:

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My guess is that you would find similar products in 90% of large US grocery stores. Am I wrong?

At least gasoline is relatively cheap!

[Jenise]

My guess is that you would find similar products in 90% of large US grocery stores. Am I wrong?

Weiners yes. But not hideously bright pink weiners.

Case in point, here's where you go for gas:

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I think I've seen a bordello with that name, too.

Those look like those garishly colored fish paste things they sell in Japanese markets.

Don't they? And yet, as you can tell from the display, this grocer expects to sell as many of those shocking fake pink things as he does the other which are probably no less artificial but at least they look normal. Gillette was an odd place--it's a town run, and ruined by, coal. The interstate runs right through the middle of a jaw-droppingly ginormous and deep mining pit, and the people I saw have mostly come there because of it, covering that stretch of bald-ass prairie with the fast food drive-thrus, cheap motels and, ahem, 'tanning salons' typical of what, in modern times, amounts to a goldrush. Case in point, here's where you buy gas:

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Um..........wow.

I somehow have a vision of you running out of the store screaming.....

[Jenise]

I somehow have a vision of you running out of the store screaming.....

At the pink hot dogs or the gas station? Not sure which was scarier.

But hey, I'll tell you what I was doing in that department. I love tooling around grocery stores in other places to see what's different. Increasingly, the answer is very little, the regional differences that once existed having been homogenized by television advertising and industry giants like Kraft. One area where regional products still seem to have some traction is sausage, however, so I tend to cruise that department to see whazzup. On this trip, in which I passed through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana all over again, and visited supermarkets in most, I saw very little out of the ordinary except for these bright pink dogs. And Gillette was the only place I saw them. (Tom T, there's a more complete response to your statement.)

I can remember as a small child going on a trip with my parents through the southern states. As I recall all the hot dogs I saw were those nasty ones with a pinkish red exterior. This was in the late 1940's. It was quite a shock for this little boy to see what they had done to one of his favorite foods!

Not pink, but bright red ones are available throughout Northern New England; but not in our house!