Bob Clark, the head archivist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library agreed to dig deeper into this seminal event. He called back to report that a sample tray of hot dogs was served on a silver tray; the royal guests nevertheless joined everyone else in eating off paper plates; King George VI ate two hot dogs (“with gusto,” historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. later said). A more delicate diplomatic matter concerned Queen Elizabeth. According to The Roosevelts and the Royals, a 2004 book by Will Swift, the queen turned to President Roosevelt and asked: “How do you eat it?”

He is said to have answered: “Push it into your mouth and keep pushing it until it is all gone.” But the Queen of England is said to have used a knife and fork.

Twenty years later, in 1959, a hot dog again figured in American foreign relations when Nikita Khrushchev, the unpredictable leader of the Soviet Union, toured the United States. At one point, he stopped at a packing plant in Des Moines, where he ate his first hot dog.

The hot dog, it seems, figures in American diplomacy only when absolutely needed. In 1999, for example, Bill Clinton gathered at a table with Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to eat hot dogs. Kosher, of course.

Now it is needed again — on Independence Day, to help the Obama administration with the delicate matter of Iran. The administration might consider contacting the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council located in Washington for recipes beyond the traditional dog in a bun.

... contd.