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From Ancient Sausages to German Innovation
The story really begins with the invention of the sausage itself. While pinning down an exact date is impossible, historians trace encased meats back thousands of years. Ancient civilizations like the Sumerians, Romans, and Greeks all had methods of preserving and preparing seasoned ground meats stuffed into casings, often animal intestines. Homer even mentions a type of blood sausage in the Odyssey. These early sausages were practical ways to use up scraps of meat and preserve them. However, the direct ancestor of the modern hot dog sausage owes much to German culinary tradition. Two cities, in particular, lay claim to its invention, sparking a friendly rivalry that persists. Frankfurt-am-Main proudly points to its “Frankfurter,” a pork sausage traditionally served warm, claiming its creation dates back as far as the 13th century. Vienna (Wien in German), on the other hand, champions the “Wiener,” typically a mixture of pork and beef. Viennese lore suggests a butcher trained in Frankfurt moved to Vienna and created his own version, hence “Wienerwurst” (Vienna sausage). Regardless of who got there first, these slender, smoked, and cooked sausages gained immense popularity in German-speaking lands. They were portable, flavorful, and relatively inexpensive – perfect street food long before the term existed.Crossing the Atlantic: Sausages Arrive in America
It was the wave of German immigration to the United States in the 19th century that brought these beloved sausages across the ocean. Settling in cities like New York, St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee, these immigrants brought their food traditions with them. Butchers began making and selling Frankfurters and Wieners, often from pushcarts on city streets, particularly in German neighborhoods. Initially, these vendors faced a practical problem: the sausages were served piping hot, making them difficult to handle. Anecdotes abound, though often hard to verify, of vendors lending out white gloves to customers to hold the hot sausages, only to find the gloves weren’t always returned. This costly inconvenience supposedly spurred the search for an edible solution.The Bun: A Simple Stroke of Genius
Enter the humble bun. While pinpointing the exact moment the first sausage was placed in a sliced roll is tricky, several figures are often credited. One prominent story centers on Charles Feltman, a German immigrant baker. In 1867 or shortly thereafter, Feltman reportedly began selling sausages served in custom-made elongated rolls from a pushcart on Coney Island, Brooklyn. This allowed customers to eat the hot sausage easily without burning their fingers or needing gloves. His business boomed, eventually growing into a massive restaurant complex, Feltman’s Ocean Pavilion, establishing Coney Island as an early hot dog hotspot. Another contender often mentioned is Anton Feuchtwanger, a Bavarian immigrant selling sausages at the St. Louis “Louisiana Purchase Exposition” in 1904 (though some versions place him earlier). The story mirrors Feltman’s: he allegedly lent gloves, lost them, and asked his brother-in-law, a baker, to devise a soft roll to hold the sausages instead. While Feltman’s Coney Island operation seems to have earlier roots in popularizing the bun combination, the St. Louis story highlights how the practical need likely led multiple vendors to similar solutions around the same time.What’s in a Name? The “Hot Dog” Moniker
How did these “Frankfurters” or “Wieners” served in a bun become universally known as “hot dogs”? This is perhaps the most mythologized part of the story. The most famous, oft-repeated tale involves sports cartoonist Thomas Aloysius “Tad” Dorgan at a New York Giants baseball game at the Polo Grounds around 1901. Legend says vendors were shouting, “Get your dachshund sausages while they’re red hot!” Dorgan, inspired, supposedly sketched barking dachshund dogs nestled in rolls but, unsure how to spell “dachshund,” simply wrote “hot dog” in the caption. It’s a charming story, but historians have found little evidence to support it, and earlier printed uses of “hot dog” referring to sausages have been discovered. A more plausible origin lies in college slang from the late 19th century. Sausages were sometimes humorously referred to as “dogs,” partly because of their resemblance to the long, thin dachshund breed (often called “sausage dogs”), and partly due to persistent, often unfounded, suspicions about the quality and origin of the meat used in cheaper sausages sold from “dog wagons” near campuses like Yale. The term “hot dog” likely emerged naturally from this slang, referring to a hot sausage served ready to eat.Verified Information: While the popular story crediting cartoonist Tad Dorgan for coining “hot dog” is widely circulated, historical evidence suggests otherwise. References linking sausages to “dogs” existed in college slang and print publications in the 1890s, well before Dorgan’s alleged 1901 cartoon. The term likely evolved from nicknames for dachshund sausages and the wagons they were sold from.
