The great American hot dog; staple of barbecues, beach parties, baseball games, and feeding the kids on a budget. They are cheap, delicious, and have an infinite variety of configurations in which one can assemble them.
But where did they come from, and how? They didn't just fall off the hot dog tree one day. Yes, sausage has been around for thousands of years, first being mentioned as far back as Homer's "The Odyssey" in the 9th century BC, but as anyone who has ever had one knows, a hot dog is not a true sausage, outside of its form factor as a tube made of meat. I am going to do some research to see if I can discover the origins of the mysterious meat rods we know and love.
First, we have to define what we mean by "hot dog"—I will be sticking with the more-or-less standard industry definition of skinless cured meat formed into a sausage-like shape and pre-cooked. The USDA, of note, calls them "frankfurters" but acknowledges that they are also known as hot dogs, wieners, or even bologna. I wouldn't ever call a hot dog bologna, but I digress. Also, according to them, "the finished products may not contain more than 30% fat or no more than 10% water, or a combination of 40% fat and added water." Good looking out for us hot dog consumers, I guess? Anyway, now we know what we're talking about here.
Why are hot dogs called hot dogs, though? It seems, as mentioned above, that they were initially named either frankfurters or wieners. This has led to some lively discussion about just where the modern hot dog originated, as people from Vienna, Austria (Wien is what they call Vienna in German; thus, a Wiener is a person from Wien) claim to have invented it. Likewise, Frankfurt is a city in Germany, and Frankfurter is a term for people from that city who also claim to have invented it. Having been to both of these places, I can tell you that, for the most part, the people are not long, skinny tubes. They are made of meat, though.
That said, where did "hot dog" come from? The matter is not conclusively settled, but one hypothesis is that during the mid-19th century, when Germans started pouring into the USA in droves, they called them "dachshund" sausages due to their love of those little dogs, and it eventually got bastardized into "dog," and eventually "hot dog," as German immigrants picked up more English and tried harder to appeal to Americans. Seems reasonable. Another hypothesis is that in the early 1900s, vendors of these little devils would shout, "Red hot! Get 'em while they're red hot!" and then people started calling them "red hot dogs" and eventually just "hot dogs." Makes sense. A third hypothesis is related to a popular newspaper cartoonist, who drew a picture of a vendor selling dachshunds at a park in 1906 but didn't know how to spell "dachshund," and so just filled in "hot dog." It...could happen. There are many more, but those are the three dominant stories. Even the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council is not sure, and if they don't know, we just may never find out. Also, I should like to get a seat on that council, even though they will never grant me the rank of master.
Now, for the real question: what is in them? To get this out of the way, there is not, nor was there ever, any dog meat in hot dogs. Your typical hot dog is made of "meat trimmings," which consists of bits of the animal's head, feet, liver, fatty tissue, lower-grade muscle, and various odds and ends—people who say "lips and assholes" aren't that far off. The typical animals used for hot dogs are pork (of course), beef (oy vey! Kosher), and if you get something truly bottom-of-the-barrel, like Bar S brand, it will likely be a smattering of pork and poultry wads, swept off the floor, then duly processed and squeezed into shape. Beef hot dogs tend to have better quality to them, and they must pay to Kosher-certify them because why miss out on the market? Thus, they usually cost a bit more.
As for buns, it's hard to believe that those weren't always part of the hot dog experience, but indeed they came later. Naturally, there are competing tales ascribing their creation to different people in different places. The most popular story is that a fellow named Harry Stevens was selling dogs at the Polo Grounds when the Giants played there (it was their stadium at the time) and used to just hand them to people in a thick piece of wax paper. Ostensibly, one day, he ran out of wax paper and, in a panic, started putting them in French rolls, and it caught on from there. The other story is that around 1893, a street vendor in St. Louis named Antoine Feuchtwanger (another German immigrant—surprise!) would provide the treats with a white glove to hold them, expecting the glove returned after the dog was consumed. However, he kept losing the gloves, so he had to improvise. He discussed his problem with his wife, who suggested he serve them in bread so that he didn't have to worry about having a glove budget. The third most popular story states that in 1867, a guy named Charles Feltman just said to himself, "I'm gonna serve these in split rolls with toppings." No struggle to overcome...he just saw the internal logic of meat and bread and ran with it.
Charles Feltman, by the way, was the very first hot dog vendor on Coney Island, which is now famous for its hot dogs. He allegedly sold over 3,600 hot dogs in a year. He is also responsible for creating another New York hot dog institution. In the early 1900s, he hired a Polish immigrant with the unfortunate name of Nathan Handwerker. In 1916, Handwerker started his own hot dog shop with blackjack and hookers. Well, not really, but he did start his own shop. It stands to this day: the famous Nathan's Hot Dogs. I think it was a good business decision that he did not call it "Handwerker's." By 1920, most of the country knew of Nathan's, and his shops were everywhere.
Feltman’s on Coney Island still exists but did not expand like Nathan's did. To their credit, though, they did receive a Guinness record for making the world’s largest hot dog.
After Nathan's, hot dog stands and joints were pretty much everywhere, and the modern concept of a hot dog and what to expect from one was established in the collective consciousness. They even made it all the way to the White House. In 1939, the Roosevelts were hosting King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Eleanor, in her practical wisdom, decided to serve up hot dogs. The Queen, somewhat flummoxed, took her aside and asked, "How...do you eat these?" with our common American backyard food being foreign to those from across the pond. The king ate two. Sadly, there are no photos of this royal hot dog chompin’ that I could find.
To this day, the Brits still aren't keen on hot dogs. They simply never took off. However, you can buy American hot dogs over there. Not subscribing to the "plastic pack of 8" logic, their take is to sell them in a can—a can full of hot dog water. I'll just opt for the curry at that point, no matter how nostalgic I might feel. That is as concise as I could make hot dog history, and what a ride the research was! Given that it's July, I imagine many of you will be making hot dogs. Remember their humble beginnings as you bite into yours.
• Americans spent $8.3 billion dollars on hot dogs in 2022 (No data yet on 2023)
• That $8.3 billion buys around 20 billion hot dogs
• During peak hot dog season (Memorial Day to Labor Day), Americans eat 7 billion hot dogs
• Los Angeles is the #1 city for hot dog consumption, with Dodger fans alone eating about 2.7 million per year, based on data since 2019
• On Independence Day alone, Americans eat 150 million hot dogs
• 150 million hot dogs of average length would stretch from Washington DC to LA and back five times
• Hot dogs were one of the first foods to be eaten on the moon
• According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, “A hot dog without meat or poultry cannot be called a hot dog"—sorry vegans
• If you are over age 18, it is illegal to put ketchup on a hot dog
• Why do the kids call a hot dog a “glizzy?”
Eat in good health,
-Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a hot dog enthusiast, furter of franks, schnitzel of wieners, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at his website, Wombstretcha.com, on X as @wombstretcha503, and on MeWe and (begrudgingly) Facebook as "Wombstretcha the Magnificent."
