Hot Dog

Hot dog

A hot dog is a type of fully-cooked, cured and/or smoked moist sausage of soft, even, texture and flavor. It is usually placed hot in a soft, sliced bun of approximately the same length as the sausage, and optionally garnished with condiments and toppings.

The flavor of hot dog sausages varies widely by region and by personal preference, as do the toppings on the sandwich. The flavor of the sausage can resemble a range of similar meat products from bologna on the bland side to the German bockwurst in the spicier varieties.

Hot dogs are traditionally made from beef, pork, or a combination. Kosher hot dogs are also available, usually all-beef. Unlike many other sausages (which may be sold cooked or uncooked), hot dogs are always cooked before being offered commercially. Unless they have spoiled, hot dogs may be eaten safely without further cooking, although they are usually warmed before serving. Vegetarian hot dogs and sausages, made from meat analogue, are also widely available in most areas where hot dogs are popular.

Hot dogs are also called frankfurters, or franks for short, named for the city of Frankfurt, Germany where sausages in a bun originated (these are similar to the hot dog, but made exclusively of pork). Another term for hot dogs is wieners or weenies’, referring to the city of Vienna, Austria, whose German name is “Wien” (those are made of a mixture of pork and beef). Hot dogs are sometimes derisively called tube steaks. In Australia, the term frankfurt is used rather than frankfurter. Tiny frankfurts, called cocktail franks or cheerios, are sometimes served at parties on the end of a toothpick. In the German speaking countries, except Austria, hot dog sausages are generally called Wiener or Wiener Würstchen (Würstchen means “little sausage”). In Swiss German, it is called Wienerli, while in Austria the terms Frankfurter or Frankfurter Würstel are used.

In the United Kingdom hot dogs are sometimes made with British sausages. Most of the time they are sold and marketed as German or American-style hot dogs. However, a hot dog sausage is always precooked at the factory before packaging, which is generally not true of regional British sausages.

History

Claims of invention of the hot dog are difficult to assess, because various stories assert the creation of the sausage, the placing of the sausage (or another kind of sausage) on bread or a bun as finger food, the popularization of the existing dish, or the application of the name “hot dog” to a sausage and bun combination.

The city of Vienna traces the lineage of the hot dog to the wienerwurst or Viennese sausage, the city of Frankfurt to the frankfurter wurst, which it claims was invented in the 1480s; the hot dog has also been attributed to Johann Georghehner, a 17th century butcher from the Bavarian city of Coburg who is said to have invented the “dachshund” or “little-dog” sausage and brought it to Frankfurt.

Around 1870, on Coney Island, a German immigrant named Charles Feltman began selling sausages in rolls.

Others also have been acknowledged for supposedly having invented the hot dog, including Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger, a Bavarian sausage seller who is said to have started serving sausages in rolls at the World’s Fair—either the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago or the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis—because the white gloves he gave to customers so that they could eat his hot sausages in comfort began to disappear as souvenirs.

The association between hot dogs and baseball may have begun as early as 1893 with Chris von der Ahe, a German immigrant who owned not only the St. Louis Browns, but also an amusement park, beer garden and brewery near Sportsman’s Park, where he sold his beer.

In 1916, an employee of Feltman’s named Nathan Handwerker was encouraged by celebrity clients Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante to go into business in competition with his former employer. Handwerker undercut Feltman’s by charging five cents for a hot dog when his former employer was charging ten. At a time when food regulation was in its infancy, and the pedigree of the hot dog particularly suspect, Handwerker made sure that men wearing surgeon’s smocks were seen eating at Nathan’s Famous to reassure potential customers.

Etymology

The term “dog” has been used as a synonym for sausage since at least 1884 (‘A sausage-maker…is continually dunning us for a motto. The following, we hope, will suit him to a hair: “Love me, love my dog.”‘) and accusations that sausage-makers used dog meat date to at least 1845 (“Dogs…they retails the latter, tails and all, as sassenger meat.”)

According to a popular myth, the use of the complete phrase “hot dog” in reference to sausage was coined by the newspaper cartoonist Thomas Aloysius “TAD” Dorgan around 1900 in a cartoon recording the sale of hot dogs during a New York Giants baseball game at the Polo Grounds. However, TAD’s earliest usage of “hot dog” was not in reference to a baseball game at the Polo Grounds, but to a bicycle race at Madison Square Garden, in the The New York Evening Journal [December 12, 1906], by which time the term “hot dog” in reference to sausage was already in use. In addition, no copy of the apocryphal cartoon has ever been found.

The earliest usage of “hot dog” in clear reference to sausage found by Barry Popik appeared in the 28 September 1893 edition of The Knoxville Journal.^[11]

It was so cool last night that the appearance of overcoats was common, and stoves and grates were again brought into comfortable use. Even the weinerwurst men began preparing to get the “hot dogs” ready for sale Saturday night.

—28 September 1893, Knoxville (TN) Journal, “The [sic] Wore Overcoats,” pg. 5

Another early use of the complete phrase “hot dog” in reference to sausage appeared on page 4 of the October 19, 1895 issue of The Yale Record: “they contentedly munched hot dogs during the whole service.”

General description

A hot dog is typically distinguishable from other sausages by its smaller size and relative lack of spicing. A regular hot dog of the kind popular at sporting events, and readily available in supermarkets, is roughly 6-in (15-cm) long, although thickness and length can vary. The mild seasoning and smaller size allow children to eat hot dogs more easily than other sausages, although a typical hot dog, ironically, is about the same diameter as a child’s trachea and should be sliced lengthwise to reduce the risk of choking.

There are many nationally-distributed brands that provide similar products to all geographical areas, but many local brands survive due to wide variations in regional hot dog preferences. For example, 12-in (30-cm) “footlong” hot dogs are popular in some regions.

Ingredients

There is no fixed specification for hot dog meat, with pork and beef being the most popular ingredients. Less expensive hot dogs typically contain some pork, but are primarily chicken, due to the low cost and availability of mechanically separated chicken. Hot dogs are generally regarded as unhealthy insofar as most have high sodium, fat and nitrate content. In recent years, due to changing dietary preferences in the U.S., manufacturers have turned to turkey, chicken, or vegetarian meat substitutes, and have begun lowering salt content.

In general, if a manufacturer produces two types of hot dog sausages, “wieners” tend to contain pork and are the blander of the two, while “franks” tend to be all beef and more-strongly seasoned. This is particularly true of Oscar Mayer products.

Condiments

Throughout the world, there are numerous variations in hot dog condiments. The most common are mustard, ketchup, chili, sauerkraut, cole slaw, pickle relish and chopped onion. Others include mayonnaise, chopped lettuce, tomato (chopped, sliced, or in wedges), pickle spear, celery salt, cheese, avocado, canned corn, deep-fried potato sticks, and chili peppers, baked beans, and usually served in a bun.

In the United States, the National Sausage and Hot Dog Council conducted a poll in 2005, which found mustard to be the most popular condiment (32 percent). “Twenty-three percent of Americans said they preferred ketchup. [...] Chili came in third at 17 percent, followed by relish (9 percent) and onions (7 percent). Southerners showed the strongest preference for Chili, while Midwesterners showed the greatest affinity for ketchup. Nationwide, however, mustard prevailed.”^[13]

Some Americans believe that a properly made hot dog should never be topped with ketchup, since it overpowers and destroys the taste of the hot dog instead of complementing it. In Chicago, some restaurants and hot dog stands that consider themselves to be “true” Chicago hot dog grills do not, as a rule, carry ketchup in stock, even if they serve other food items that use this condiment, such as French fries. The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, in its tongue-in-cheek recommendations for proper Hot Dog Etiquette capitulates only slightly to the public’s general regard for ketchup, saying, “Don’t use ketchup on your hot dog after the age of 18.” (This alludes to the fact that many children like ketchup on their hot dogs due to the sweet taste, but adults are expected to have a more sophisticated palate).

The Coney Island hot dog, which is topped with a special “Coney sauce” (generally a beanless chili), also is a favorite in the US Midwest. Several restaurants in Michigan claim to have invented the Coney dog, which is virtually unknown in Coney Island, New York. It is known in parts of Upstate New York and Québec simply as a “Michigan,” and the name stuck to many fast-food meals (namely poutine) that were served with the sauce (although it evolved in Québec more into a meat spaghetti sauce than a chili).

Commercial Preparation

Hot dogs are typically prepared commercially by mixing all of the ingredients (meats, spices, binders and fillers, if any) in large vats where rapidly moving blades grind and mix the ingredients in the same operation, ensuring a homogeneous product. This mixture is then forced through tubes into casings for cooking. Most hot dogs sold in the US are called “skinless” as opposed to more expensive “natural casing” hot dogs.

Natural Casing Hot Dogs

As with virtually all sausages, hot dogs must be in a casing to be cooked. Traditionally, this casing is made from the thoroughly cleaned small intestines of sheep, and the products are known as “natural casing” hot dogs or frankfurters. These kinds of hot dogs are preferred by some for their firmer texture and the “snap” that releases juices and flavor when the product is bitten.

Kosher natural casings are difficult to obtain in commercial quantities in the USA, and therefore kosher hot dogs are usually either skinless or made with artificial collagen casings.

Skinless Hot Dogs

“Skinless” hot dogs also must use a casing in the cooking process when the product is manufactured, but here the casing is usually a long tube of thin cooking plastic that is completely removed between cooking and packaging. Skinless hot dogs vary in the texture of the product surface but have a softer “bite” than natural casing hot dogs. Skinless hot dogs are more uniform in shape and size than natural casing hot dogs and less expensive to produce.

Final Preparation

Hot dogs may be grilled, steamed, boiled, barbecued, pan fried, deep fried, broiled, microwaved, or eaten cold as the sausages are always cooked before packaging. Some cooks prefer to boil their hot dogs in beer.