by Dale Williams » Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:26 pm
I have to say, Ball Parks just suck. I'd go for the Hebrew National. We didn't include the Ball Parks in the below study 7/4/2005 that was published on the old FLDG, because not all beef, but doubt they'd have shown well:
Purpose of study: To investigate and research the relative popularity of a variety of frankfurters available in the New York metro area in a head-to-head format.
The Weiners: 9 dogs were chosen for the competition.
Natural casing beef : Dines Farms, Nathan's, Wellshire Farms, Boar's Head, Papaya King, Fairway
Beef skinless: Sabretts
Kosher beef: Empire National, Hebrew National
Turkey, Pork & Chicken: Oscar Mayer Weiner
Some Intellig-Dogs/Tofu Pups arrived too late to be part of the judging.
Attempts were made to include Lobel's and Schaller and Weber, but time constraints kept the author from the Upper East Side. It should be noted the the Oscar Meyer entry was supposed to be the Beef Frank, somehow the author grabbed the wrong package. '
Methodology: A pool of 25+ potential tasters were lured to a backyard on July 4th with promises of free food, wine, beer, and juice. Tasters ranged from 4 to about 64 in age.
3 of each wiener were grilled, and sliced into 6-7 portions. Test was not blind, each plate was labeled. Judges were asked to try and get any condiments consistent across the contestant franks. Attempts were made to grill one dog lightly, one medium, and one with a good char to allow each taster to choose according to their preference. Tasters were given score sheets with each dog, with possible ratings of 1 (poor), 2 (OK), 3 (good), 4 (very good) or 5 (bodaciously great). 15 tasters filled out sheets, although several missed one or two franks. After scoring, each taster could order more of the frank of their choice.
Results: In a pretty tight race, Hebrew National edged Dines Farms (Hudson Valley product attained at a farmer's market). Final average scores were:
Hebrew National 3.86 (54 points, 14 voters)
Dines Farms 3.69 (48/13)
Nathan's 3 (42/14)
Wellshire Farms 2.85 (40/14)
Boar's Head 2.71 (38/14)
Empire National 2.64 (37/14)
Papaya King 2.64 (37/14)
Sabrett's 2.61` (34/13)
Fairway 2.46 (32/13)
Oscar Mayer 1.85 (26/14)
A few notes from the study's author:
While time and financial restraints prevent us from doing an intense statistical analysis including standard deviation, a few points seem to be obvious from the scoresheets:
1) Some voters have distinct preferences for casing vs. no casing
2) Sabretts & Wellshire Farms seem to cause the greatest variance of opinions, they are the only franks to have scored both 1s & 5s.
3) Papaya King, Hebrew National, and Dine's Farms had no 1 scores.
4) No scorer rated Oscar Meyer above 3.
The author makes no representation that this study is in any way indicative of quality. As a matter of fact, the author only ranked 2 dogs as "4", the Boar's Head and the Empire National. He ranked the top 2 vote-getters both as a 3.
