CHELSEA, Mass. — Kayem Foods has been making hot dogs in Chelsea since 1909, which means the company has been making hot dogs through two world wars, the invention of the backyard, and the entire history of the American summer. This week, the company is recalling approximately 1,584,361 pounds of ready-to-eat meat — hot dogs, bacon, sausage, turkey breasts, and assorted other meats — because, in the precise language of the federal government, the products “may have experienced temperature abuse during storage.”

Temperature abuse. It is the most polite phrase in the English language. It means the hot dogs got warm. It means the refrigerator, at some point, was not a refrigerator. It means that 1.5 million pounds of meat, which is roughly the weight of six blue whales, spent some unholy hours at a temperature that the USDA has decided it does not like.

The recall is nationwide and international — the products shipped to retail and foodservice across the United States and as far as Hong Kong, which now has, statistically, some of the warm hot dogs.

The narrator spoke to a number of Americans on Saturday, and the national response can be summarized as follows: a long pause, a shrug, and the question “so which ones.”

THE RECALL, IN THE NUMBERS

  • Weight: 1,584,361 pounds of meat
  • Equivalent: about 6 blue whales, or 1.4 million average hot dogs
  • The crime: "temperature abuse" (the meat got warm)
  • Where: nationwide, plus Hong Kong
  • Your move: check the fridge, check the package, check the date

The company, which is family-owned and has been at this for 117 years, issued the recall on Saturday as a “health hazard” — the government’s term, not the company’s, and the government does not use the phrase “health hazard” about a hot dog it intends to leave alone.

The practical question for the American household is the one no recall can answer: which hot dogs. The affected products carry specific plant numbers on the package — M/P 7839, EST. P 20935A, EST. M 9520 — which is to say that the answer to “is my hot dog safe” is now “read the tiny print on the plastic, in the garage, in the dark, while holding a flashlight in your mouth,” which is the American way.

A gastroenterologist the narrator reached asked to be quoted, and the quote is: “Refrigerate your food.” This is the entire medical opinion on the matter, and it is, the narrator notes, correct.

At press time, the narrator’s own package, in the narrator’s own fridge, was cold, and the narrator is choosing to believe that this is the same as being safe.