Hot Dog

First mentioned in Homer's epic adventure, The Odyssey, the sausage is one of the oldest forms of processed food. Sausage-making can be traced back to many cultures. But the hot dog is as American as apple pie.

Frankfurt, Germany claims to have first invented the "frankfurter". In the 1600s, a German butcher created the dachshund, or "little dog sausage".¯ Later, "wienerwurst"¯ was created in Vienna (or Wien), Austria. By the mid-1800s, immigrants from Europe had brought wienerwurst to America. Here, the name was shorted to wiener.

In the 1860s, wieners were sold from pushcarts on the streets of New York City. They became known as "dog wagons." Visitors to Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition enjoyed large quantities of wieners. At the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, a vendor created the hot dog bun to keep hot dog lovers' hands and gloves clean.

The term "hot dog"¯was first considered a slur. During the early 1900s, a sports cartoonist created talking wiener dog cartoons that belittled the cheap wieners sold at Coney Island, NY. They suggested that wieners contained dog meat. Eventually, hot dogs became standard fare at baseball games. On a cold day at the baseball park, the German immigrant who owned the St. Louis Browns had an idea that is still in use today. He instructed vendors to cry out, "Red hots! Get your red hots while they're still hot!" From that moment on, wieners became known as red hots.

It doesn't matter what they are called: sausages, frankfurters, wieners, hot dogs or red hots. It doesn't matter how they are prepared: Chicago-style, Coney Island, corn dog or Polish. Americans love their hot dogs!









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