Ignatz Frischman arrived in New York from Austria before 1850. As Europeans came to the United States throughout the late 19th century, sausage vending became a relatively inexpensive startup business for upwardly mobile immigrants. An early reference to what very well may be some kind of blood sausage also appears in Homers Odyssey. This story has been adapted from an episode of the Mental Floss series Food History on YouTube. 2022 The Galardi Group Inc, All Rights Reserved. Prejudice against German-Americans, who made up one of the largest immigrant groups in the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries, likely stoked these fears. When Odysseus returns from his journey and finds his home flooded with suitors, he expresses his annoyance, at least in one translation, by rolling from side to side as a cook turns a sausage.. In those days the frankfurter was served to the hungry pleasure seekers between two slices of bread. So when did the name hot dog become associated with street meat? You will need to temporarily disable your Ad-blocker to view this page. The hot dog was invented in Germany and named after the German word for dachshund, which literally translates to badger dog. The dachshund is a type of short-legged, elongated dog bred for hunting badgers. If you are using an Ad-Blocker, it might have mistakenly blocked our content. Business at his stand began booming and his stand became what we know today as Nathans Famous Hot Dogs, which is arguably the most famous hot dog vendor in the world. Eventually, he saved up enough money and in 1916, he opened up his hot dog stand. His creation was emulated by many afterward. Well, hot diggety dog! At the time, pigs were customarily starved the week before they were to be cooked and served. As the story goes, the concessionaire then went on to sell them at the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis, and voil! In Chile, try el completo, a hot dog thats twice the size of the American version, served with chopped tomatoes, avocados, sauerkraut, and a huge dollop of mayonnaise.
It depends. His team began selling their hot dogs to local stores. By the 1860s, German beer gardens became common in American cities and these restaurants sold many of the German food staples like sausages, bread and potatoes. Hot dog history continues to evolve, as the beloved American treat is enjoyed at home and across the world. Are you ready for more lies? If you're using HTTPS Everywhere or you're unable to access any article on Wikiwand, please consider switching to HTTPS (https://www.wikiwand.com). The story behind Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest isn't the only part of hot dog history that's hazy. The German town of Coburg disputes this provenance, however, and claims that a butcher living there in the 1600s invented the hot dog before importing his creation to Frankfurt. The people of Frankfurt, Germany, claim it was invented there in 1487, which is where the name frankfurter comes from. So what are hot dogs made of, if not actual dog? The next time you bite into a juicy frank wrapped in a fluffy bun, take a moment to thank all the people throughout history who helped bring it to your grill. For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for, Note: preferences and languages are saved separately in https mode. Reichel and Ladany are the cofounders of Vienna Beef, the Chicago-based hot dog manufacturer that remains at the heart of the citys cuisine even today, over a century since it began. Hot dogs are called wieners because they may have begun in Vienna, Austria, which is wien in German. Mayer appeared at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, which gave his product considerable exposure, hot dog historian Kraig says. After World War II, with the growth of factories and manufacturing, hot dogs started being made in large scale. They still hold the contest every year, and its why the hot dog is such a popular tradition on Independence Day. Hawkers, after all, got their food straight from the wholesale markets and had no means to store it overnight. Its a charming piece of Americana, Dr. Gerald Cohen, co-author of the 2004 book Origin of the Term Hot Dog, said. The problem? There are several myths about how the hot dog got its name, but the most likely origin is 19th century college humor, when students would make crude jokes pertaining to the questionable origin of the meat in hot dogs. In 19th-century Germany, consuming dog meat was not unheard of. The average American eats 70 hot dogs per year. It turns out, the history of the hot dog is as much the mystery of the hot dog, as its origins are shrouded in controversy and competing claims. The hot dog bun was born. Hot dog buns, on the other hand, are sold in packs of eight. To make matters more complicated, Vienna also insists that its wienerwurst was the worlds introduction to hot dogs. 
(Prior to this innovation, boardwalk sausages were typically served between two slices of bread.) 2022 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved, attending a New York Giants baseball game in 1901. The introduction of the bun eventually led to an inflammatory question: Is a hot dog a sandwich? In 1867, Charles Feltman began selling sausages from a push cart along the Coney Island boardwalk, according to Bruce Kraig, author of Hot Dog: A Global History.. Many university humor magazines, such as those from Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell, demonstrate that the term hot dog was well-known by 1900. But the sausage didnt really become a hot dog until it was paired with its signature bun. Georghehner was a butcher who lived in Coburg, Germany in the late 1600s, more than 100 years after the 1487 date touted by the city of Frankfurt. You can make more money that way, if you want, because if you sell 1.6 ounces rather than 2 ounces for $1, youre going to make more money, Kraig said.
Feltman consulted with the wheel-wright who had built the original pie-wagon. Sausage is a broad term that can describe any ground meat encased with herbs and spices. It's hot dog season, friends! A less well-circulated story takes us back to St. Louis. While it may seem easy enough to just add two more buns into a pack, eight really is the magic number. Feltman went on to build something of an empire on the Coney Island boardwalk, consisting of a hotel, beer gardens, restaurants, rides, and even a ballroom. The meat in a hot dog is more finely ground than the meat in a sausage, giving the hot dog a smoother texture. Customers hoped the baker would add hot sandwiches to his offerings, but the wagon was too small to accommodate the variety of ingredients. The dish does away with the bun altogether and opts for fried sausage slices served on top of french fries. Therefore, said Cohen, the term was based on a popular 19th-century belief that dog meat could turn up in sausages, and this belief had basis in fact. If this seems far-fetched, meat-packers at the time also added sawdust, formaldehyde, and other fillers to sausages. His business was so successful that he was able to expand into several other locations throughout Brooklyn and New York City before it was bought out by Oscar Mayer (the company behind Ball Park Franks) in 1990 for $20 million. While we can credit Handwerker with creating that iconic image of a hot dog that captured Americans hearts, it was another man who brought the humble hot dog into our homes. Cover photo is available under {{::mainImage.info.license.name || 'Unknown'}} license. In fact, its estimated that Americans consume 20 billion hot dogs each year and theres even a holiday to, well, eat hot dogs National Hot Dog Day. So whom should we credit for that innovation? By then, the whole country had embraced hot dogs, but in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it official when he served hot dogs to King George VI of England at a picnic in Hyde Park, New York. The Sonora dog, from the Mexican state of the same name, consists of a sausage wrapped in bacon and stuffed inside a bolillo. Another story says the hot dog bun was invented at the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. You can also find hot dog varieties made of chicken or turkey. According to historian Bruce Kraig, author of Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America, there is no good evidence of Feltmans sausage cart. According to one myth, the hot dog roll was introduced around 1880, when German peddler Antoine Feuchtwanger sold hot sausages on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. Oscar Mayer quickly became the leader in the market, partly because of that signature yellow packaging, but also because they became innovators of the industry. But this story is likely a load of bolognaor a load of beef, natural flavorings, sodium phosphates, hydrolyzed corn protein, and paprika, as the case may be. Antons brother-in-law, who was a baker, created some long rolls for him to use instead. From the press box, T.A. Here in the States, we view hot dogs as quintessentially American, but their reach extends across the globe. The main difference between kosher style hot dogs and regular hot dogs is that kosher style hot dogs are made with ingredients that are permissible under Jewish dietary laws, while regular hot dogs do not. The exact birthplace of hot dogs may never be known for sure, but historians agree European immigrants who came to America in the 1800s were already eating dachshund sausages, or little dog sausages. 
She also managed KERAs internship program and curated content for the Think website, Twitter and Facebook account. As for whether the Chicago dogs role in history makes it better than the Coney Island version, we can't say. Where did the hot dog get its name? Around 1867, Charles Feltman opened what may have been the first hot dog cart on Coney Island. According to Nathans website, it originated in 1916 from a bet between four immigrants. And National Chili Dog Day. He insisted that we try it out for a few days, and at last I consented.
Even earlier instances of the term hot dog may be found in print, including one from December 1892 in Paterson, New Jerseys Daily Press. Sausage carts were a fixture of urban life. In this milieu, pushcarts would congregate near college dorms where they became known as dog wagons, a name deriding the questionable origin of the meat. Why Do Hot Dogs Come in Packs of 10 and Buns in 8? Former KERA staffer Samantha Guzman was associate producer for "Think" and "Anything You Ever Wanted to Know." But he was a few decades too late. Frankfurt (officially Frankfurt am Main) claims that the hot dog was invented there in 1487, pointing to the word frankfurter as proof of the hot dogs roots in the city. Then, he invented a cartridge, which was a yellow band that they could put on every single sausage. But whether he invented the hot dog or not, Feltman is an important part of the story because he hired a Polish immigrant named Nathan Handwerker to work in his restaurant in New York. This style of hot dog really took off during the Great Depression. Where do hot dogs come from? Then there are people in Vienna, Austria, who say the hot dog comes from their home town. Its said that Feltman designed a special roll to serve his sausages in, which inspired what we know as the hot dog bun today. Hot dogs quickly spread from the boardwalk to baseball games to all across America. 
