CULINARY
MAY 3, 2021
A Brief Story Of Hot Dog
Hot dog is a very popular food around the world especially in the United States. You can find hot dog sold in a big franchise restaurant or buy it from a small hot dog cart in a park. You can call them hot dogs, red hots, wieners, franks or frankfurters. Whatever the name is, it’s a delicious meal yet cheap and easy to make by yourself. But when was the first hot dog made and who did it ?
There has been debate about the origin of hot dog, a kind of sausage. Homer mentioned a sausage in his epic poem The Odyssey from 7th Century BC. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council set the time of initial hot dog appearance back to 9th Century BC. While some historians believe its beginnings can be traced back to era of the notorious Roman emperor, Nero.
It is believed that the first hot dogs were sold by a German immigrant in the 1860s in New York on a food cart. It is called “dachsund sausages” or “little-dog” sausage. German immigrants not only brought the sausage but also dachsund dogs and Viena sausages called wienerwurst in German.
Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany is usually credited with the place of birth of the hot dog. But this claim is in dispute as the popular sausage, according to some reports, was created in the late 1600’s by Johann Georghehner, a butcher living in Coburg, Germany. The report then mentioned that Georghehner later traveled to Frankfurt in order to gain much promotion of his invention.
A story suggests that Nathan Handwerker, a Jewish immigrant from Poland was responsible for popularizing the hot dog in United States. He had a hot dog stand on Coney Island and his business went to the top.
There are many stories about the hot dog with the bun like we know today. One report tells that it was probably introduced by a Bavarian Concessionaire, Anton Feuchtwanger in 1880’s.
It was during the St. Louis “Louisiana Purchase Exposition” that he wrapped the hot sausages with a long soft roll of bread that fit the length of the meat – inventing the hot dog bun. The idea came from his brother-in-law’s improvisation, who was a baker. In St. Louis hot dogs weren’t called “hot dogs” but were instead called red hots or frankfurters.
Harry Magely, catering director of New York City’s Polo Grounds, was reportedly told his vendor to cry out ” Red hot ! Get your hot dachsund !”in 1901. The “hot dachsund” coined the term “hot dog”.
Another story takes place on Coney Island in 1867 with a man named Charles Feltman. He sold sandwiches on his cart and wanted to sell something else along with it. He wondered if he could add a bun to the red hots or frankfurters so they would be held like the way sandwiches are. With this improvisation he created what we refer to as the hot dogs today.
Coney Island is now famous for a hot dog destination and has been hosting the annually Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog eating contest for more than 100 year in every summer.
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