Ah, the memories... I remember my high school physics teacher tripping the braker to the whole wing as the sossage cooked an bended it self enough to bring the two forks in contact with each other. The trick, we all learned, is to avoid perpendicular insertion of electrodes of combined lenght greater than the subject wiener in question.
I also remember building my own version with two nails hammered through a piece of wood; and how the much to small contact surface made the instrument a very effective arc based sossage burner. I imagine the resulting stinking smoke cloud in my dear mother's kitchen would have drawn sentimental tears from the guys working the switches on Death Row during the happy fifties...
