A hot dog is a bun baked from wheat flour with a sausage or two inside, topped with fresh or pickled vegetables, and dressed with mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard.
Nowadays, many different variations of this dish have been invented, but all of them are certainly tasty, although unhealthy.
The history of the Hot Dog
In the second half of the nineteenth century in Frankfurt am Main, a butcher created his own recipe for making delicious sausages and came up with the original name “Dachshundwurst”, which translates as “dachshund sausage”. Sandwiches appeared in America only in 1860, brought by German immigrants. In 1871, German Charles Feltmann decided to sell a sausage sandwiched between two slices of bread. This innovation gained unexpected popularity. More than ten pieces were sold in a day.
The first mass production was launched in Brooklyn. In 1901, illustrator Dargan noticed that a vendor was putting sausages in a carefully cut bun instead of traditional bread slices to make it easier to hold. Dargan decided to draw what he saw and signed his illustration “Hot Dog” because he did not know how to spell “Dachshundwurst” correctly. In 1910, after Charles Feltmann’s death, his business empire was valued at one million dollars.
Interesting facts about the Hot Dog
- In 1957, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce officially declared 23 July as Hot Dog Day.
- In 1987, residents of Frankfurt am Main celebrated the 100th anniversary of the hot dog.
- In 1994, the US established the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, which studies product quality, promotes advertising and conducts tastings.
- Hot dog lovers periodically hold competitions to eat this product in a limited time.
- According to statistics, an American eats more than sixty hot dogs a year.
- In his poem The Odyssey, Homer wrote that the Greeks put meat between slices of bread.
