The History of the Hot Dog
There is a good deal of disagreement regarding the origin of the Hot
Dog. People in Frankfurt am Main, Germany claim they discovered the Hot
Dog in 1487. Others argue, the Sausage sometimes called the Dachshund
for its shape, was created in the late 1600's by Johann Georg Hehner, a
butcher from Coburg in Breisgau, who is said to have traveled to Frankfurt to promote
his product. Others in Vienna, (Wien) Austria claim originating the Hot
Dog as they point to the name Wiener as evidence of the Hot Dog's true
heritage.
In any case it is known that Charles Feltman, a German Butcher
opened up the first Coney Island Hot Dog stand in 1871. He sold 3,684
Dachshunds in his first year. In 1893 Chris Ahe, the owner of the St.
Louis browns started selling Hot Dogs at the Ballpark. In 1901 the
phrase Hot Dog was coined. On a cold April day Concessionaire Harry
Stevens was losing money, selling Ice Cream and soda. He ordered his
salesmen to buy all the long skinny sausages they could find and sell
them from portable Hot Water tanks while shouting get your Red Hot
Dachshund sausages while they last. Sports Cartoonist Ted Dorgan could
not spell Dachshund so he used the term Hot Dog instead in his strip.
Hence the name stuck and is the term we still use today.
Anton Feuchtwanger would loan his patrons
gloves to handle the Hot little items. When he realized that his
customers were little inclined to return the gloves he got together with
his Brother in Law, a baker, and hence the concept of the Hot Dog Bun
was born.
In 1936, Oscar Mayer rolled out the first portable Hot Dog
cart, they called it the Wienermobile and the rest as they say is
history.
Regarding the hot dog, this delicacy dated back to 1500 B.C. in
Babylonia. Suffice it to say that stuffing meat in animal intestines was
a pretty popular culinary approach.
Some highlights though, included the big role played by sausage in
the Roman festival Lupercalia where Panati says other writers alluded
that the sausage may have played a role beyond mere foodstuff. The early
Roman Catholic Church made sausage eating a sin and Constantine banned
its consumption.
In the 1850’s, the Germans made thick, soft and fatty sausages from
which we get "frank". In 1852, the butcher’s guild in
Frankfurt introduced a spiced and smoked sausage, which was packed in a
thin casing, and they called it a "frankfurter" after their
hometown. The sausage had a slightly curved shape supposedly due to the
coaxing of a butcher who had a popular dachshund. The frankfurter was
also known as a "dachshund sausage" and this name came with it
to America.
The two Frankfurters who introduced the frankfurter to the U.S. were
Antoine Feuchtwanger (in St. Louis, Mo.) and Charles Feltman, a baker
who had a push cart on New York’s Coney Island. Supposedly,
Feltman’s pie business couldn’t compete with the hot dishes sold by
the inns there, and decided to sell one kind of small hot sandwich, the
frankfurter, since his cart couldn’t handle anything fancier or offer
greater variety. He served them with traditional mustard and sauerkraut,
it was a hit, and he opened Feltman’s German Beer Garden.
The sausage was known as frankfurters, red hots, dachshund sausages,
wieners, etc. By this time, there was a guy, Harry Stevens, who owned a
refreshment concessionaire who had made popular doggies at NYC baseball
games. His vendors supposedly called out "get your red-hot
dachshund sausages!"
Hot Dog Facts
450 Hot Dogs are eaten every second of every day in the United States
or an average of 65 per year/per person.
Hot Dogs are served in 95% of homes in the USA.
Most Hot Dogs are eaten at home, 15% are purchased from street
vendors, 9% are purchased at ballparks.
Mustard remains the most popular Hot Dog topping. 87% of Hot Dog
eaters use Mustard.
Most people still prefer the good old 6" Hot Dog; it is
preferred by 46.3% of Hot Dog eaters. 26% prefer the 7" Hot Dog.
Only 4% prefer the foot long version.
Chicago's O’Hare International Airport sells more Hot Dogs than any
other location in the USA, over 2 Million a year.
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