Hot Dog
We've all joked about what's IN a hot dog but have you ever read the history?
Authored by Linda Stradley, What's Cooking America
Whatscookingamerica.com
A hot dog is a cooked sausage that consists of a combination of beef and pork or all beef, which is cured, smoked, and cooked. Seasonings may include coriander, garlic, ground mustard, nutmeg, salt, sugar, and white pepper. Hot dogs are among America's favorite foods. Every year, Americans consume on average 60 hot dogs! Hot dogs are primarily regarded as a fun, summertime food, and most are eaten between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Want to know more? Here you go:
1st Century A.D. 64 - Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar's (54-68) cook, Gaius, is often credited with discovering the first sausage. It was the custom of the time to starve the pigs one week before cooking and eating them. According to legend, one pig was brought out well roasted, but it was noticed that somehow it had not been cleaned. Cook Gaius ran a knife into its belly to see if the pig was fit to eat. To his surprise, out popped the intestines and they were all puffed up and hollow. It was reported that he said, "I have discovered something of great importance." Gaius stuffed the intestines with ground venison and ground beef mixed with cooked ground wheat and spices. He ties them into sections and the wiener was born.
8th Century A.D. 850 - Sausage is one of the oldest forms of processed food, having been mentioned in Homer's Odyssey (an ancient Greek tale of adventure and heroism). Following is the line from the book: "As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it quickly roasted. . ."
1484 - It is said that the frankfurter was developed in Frankfurt, Germany (five years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world). In 1987, the city of Frankfurt celebrated the 500th birthday of the hot dog. In the 1850s, the Germans made thick, soft, and fatty sausages from which we get the fame "franks."
1690s - Another legend is that the popular sausage (known as "dachshund" or "little-dog" sausage) was created in the late 1600s by Johann Georghehner, a butcher living in Coburg, Germany. It is said that he later traveled to Frankfurt to promote his new product.
1805 - The people of Vienna (Wien), Austria point to the term "wiener" to prove their claim as the birthplace of the hot dog. It is said that the master sausage maker who made the first wiener got his early training in Frankfurt, Germany. He called his sausage the "wiener-frankfurter." But it was generally known as "wienerwurst." The wiener comes from Wien (the German name of Vienna) and wurst means sausage in German.
1852 - The butcher's guild in Frankfurt, Germany 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. German immigrants appear to have sold hot dogs, along with milk rolls and sauerkraut, from pushcarts in New York City's Bowery during the 1860s.
1867 - Charles Feltman (1841-1910), a German butcher, opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand in Brooklyn, New York.
1880 - A German peddler, Antonoine Feuchtwanger, sold hot sausages in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. His wife suggested that he put the sausages in a split bun. He reportedly asked his brother-in-law, a baker, for help. The baker improvised long soft rolls that fit the meat, thus inventing the hot dog bun. When he did that, the hot dog was born. He called them red hots.
1894 or 1895 - Sausage vendors would sell their wares outside the student dorms at major eastern universities, and their carts became known as "dog wagons." The name was a sarcastic comment on the source and quality of the meat. This slang term came from the popular belief that dog meat was used in making sausage. Many university magazines, such as Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell, all show that the term "hot dog" was well know before 1900.
1902 - Another story is that the term "hog dog" was coined in 1902 during a Giants baseball game at the New York Polo grounds. On a cold April day, concessionaire Harry Mozley Stevens (1855-1934) was losing money trying to sell ice cream and ice-cold sodas. He sent his salesmen out to buy up all the dachshund sausages they could find, and an equal number of rolls. In less than an hour, his vendors were hawking hot dogs from portable hot water tanks while yelling, "They're red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!"
1903 - Adolf Gehring was selling food at a ball game in St. Louis, Missouri. On this particular day, Adolf had a good day and sold out all his food and drinks. He went to a baker to buy some bread, but they had nothing left but some long dinner rolls which he bought. He then went to a butcher shop and bought all the sausages and wieners that the butcher had. With a portable wood stove, he cooked up the pork sausages and wieners and placed them in the rolls he had split. He started walking through the crowd offering his meat sandwiches as he called them. One man hollered at him, "Give me one of those damn hot dogs." The phrase caught on and everyone in the crowd was soon hollering for hot dogs."
1942 - Corn dogs, hot dogs in a fried cornmeal batter, were introduced at the Texas State Fair, created by Texan Neil Fletcher.
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