In the seventeenth century in the town of Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, a sausage was created and given the rather unoriginal name of the Frankfurt sausage. It was shortly thereafter packaged in a casing and renamed the Frankfurter. It used to be fried in loads of hot oil (now it is almost always cooked/steamed). The preferred condiment used to be horseradish (try some!) and only changed to mustard much later on. Around the same time in
What the hell is that thing?
Austria, a similar sausage was created.
The story of how frankfurters became known as wieners is quite convoluted and no one really knows the true story but rest assured that both cities claim to have invented the real thing. Many people who saw and ate these new flavorful sausages thought they looked very much like the dachshund, the long, low, short legged breed of dog. Therefore the slang name for the wiener or frankfurter became the dachshund sausage.
These sausages were brought to the U.S. and sold in restaurants as early as 1871. As a matter of fact, long before Nathan's restaurant became a national icon in Coney Island, Brooklyn, there was Charles Feltman and his namesake restaurant. Feltman was a butcher who sold these new sausages in the first Coney island hot dog stand--actually an elegant place. From there the sausages made their way to the 1893 World's fair in Chicago, where they were consumed like mad. That was the beginning of the city of Chicago's love affair with the wiener.
Name That Doggy
So where did the term "hot dog" come from? America. More specifically--a baseball game. How American can you get? On a particularly chilly April day in 1901 at the Polo Grounds in New York, vendor Harry Stevens wanted to sell something warm to his patrons. The cold beer and ice cream were just not selling so he began selling wieners. They were an immediate sensation. One of the people who was impressed by the new ball game treat was a sports cartoonist for the New York Journal. He wanted to draw a cartoon of the sausage barking but he did not know how to spell dachshund, so he simply called them hot dogs. The name stuck.
At first these hot dogs were sold without a bun, and usually the buyer would burn their hands. That is, until an enterprising baker offered his bread as an insulator. The rest is hot dog history.
In 1939 the American hot dog went international. On their tour of the USA King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England were served hot dogs by none other than President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife. The hot dog was from then on international cuisine. U S A ! U S A !
Today hot dogs are available in millions of varieties. There are poultry dogs, veal dogs, beef dogs and even (blech!!) tofu dogs. There are dogs with cheese already inside and dogs with cornbread batter on them. Whatever dog you like, most go through the same process of creation.
The cold beer and ice cream were just not selling so he began selling wieners. They were an immediate sensation. One of the people who was impressed by the new ball game treat was a sports cartoonist for the New York Journal. He wanted to draw a cartoon of the sausage barking but he did not know how to spell dachshund, so he simply called them hot dogs. The name stuck.
