The Hot Dog

Often recognized as Frankfurter or Wiener, the history of a hot dog is claimed by the community of Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, as well as by a butcher residing in Coburg, Germany, who travelled to Frankfurt to advertise his latest product sometime in the late 1600s. This way, German settlers brought not only the sausage with them in the 1800s, but also their beloved dachshund puppies, and the name actually originated as a joke about the little, long, skinny puppies.

Food researchers at Yale University suggest the term "hot dog" started to feature in college publications back in the 1890s. As students began naming wagons outside their dormitories, selling hot sausages as "dog wagons." It didn't take long for the term "dog" to become "hot dog." In the 1860s, German immigrants first marketed them from push carts in Bowery, New York City. Another tale recalls the German butcher, Charles Feltman, who, in 1871, hawked sausages with milk rolls from his stand on Coney Island, started the tradition to this day of the ubiquitous "Coney Dog" (usually topped with savory meat sauce). A couple of years back, the bun made its appearance at the Colombian Fair, where tourists gobbled it down.

Yes of course, statistics don't lie. Americans love their hot dogs, so they have their own special style of cooking and eating them. If you prefer sauerkraut, chili, bacon, mustard, relish, onions, ketchup or any of the above, nothing is as good as a hot dog. Eat on the go, wolfed down from a street vendor or savored by a backyard bbq, they're pure American, so anybody can eat them whenever, anywhere. Now you're going to pile up on the condiments and chow down.