Snack Bar

Hot dog!

We’re not going to lie to you. The history of the hot dog is a little bit gross. We’ll start by telling you that the hot dog, or at least the sausage, has been around for about 3,000 years. We know this because in 850 BC the famous writer Homer (not that Homer) wrote in his epic poem Odyssey about a sausage “filled with fat and blood.” Yum.

Almost a thousand years later, in 64 AD, the Roman Emperor’s cook, Gaius, is said to have slit open a roasted pig only to find that its intestines were puffed up with air. He took those intestines and filled them with a combination of ground venison (deer meat), wheat and spices and tied it into sections, or links, resembling the sausages we have today.

But a hot dog really isn’t a hot dog until someone puts that sausage in a bun, right? That started happening in the late 1800s. Exactly when and where is up for debate, but one popular story is about Charles Feltman, who sold pies from a wagon on New York’s Coney Island. In 1867, Mr. Feltman wanted to sell a hot sandwich from his cart, but had to keep things simple, so just stuck a sausage on a roll, and was done. It was a huge hit.

Another story tells about a German immigrant named Antonoine Feuchtwanger who sold hot sausages on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, in the 1880s. At first, he sold them without a bun and gave everyone white gloves to wear while eating the finger food so they didn’t burn their hands. Unfortunately, too many people stole the gloves, so Feuchtwanger asked his brother-in-law, a baker, to bake a bun that would fit the sausages perfectly.

Today, hot dogs are a staple of the North American diet and are  popular on children’s menus at restaurants and at baseball parks.

Extra Garnish

• The hot dog also goes by the names frankfurter, frank, wiener and red hot.
• Popular toppings include ketchup, mustard, relish, onions, sour kraut and pickles.
• Corn dogs are sausages that are deep-fried in a cornmeal batter.
• Hot dogs are already fully cooked by the time you buy them at the grocery store, but it’s a good idea to cook them again to kill any bacteria.
• Joey Chestnut holds the world record for eating the most hot dogs in a 12-minute period. On July 4, 2007, he ate 66 dogs in that short time.