The Frugal Feast

Today's recipe comes from  - who else - our friends at the Culinary Institute.  In 1940, the country had yet to recover from the Great Depression and times were tough - so what to do when pesky relatives or other unwelcome guests continued to invite themselves to your table?  Stuffed Crown Roast is the answer!  "It can't be", you think, "Crown Roast is much too expensive." Well, if you are referring to Crown Roast of Beef, why yes it is.  But the editors of 250 Ways to Prepare Meat have a clever alternative:
"A crown roast of wieners is an ideal solution for guest problems when the budget is low." 

Serving hot dogs and sauerkraut is a reasonable choice when you have many mouths to feed and money is tight.  But trying to make it look like a Crown Roast? That has a certain whiff of self-delusion.  Really, do you think anyone will be fooled?  You can use a string to sew through hotdogs and make them stand on their own, stuff the middle with sauerkraut and say you are serving a Crown Roast, but WHY? (Yes, that is the technique. "Using large needle and string sew through all the frankfurters 1/2" from the top, and again 1/2 " from the bottom" - tie the ends together, and voila!).

Hmmmm... are you sure those are frankfurters?