Hot Diggety Dog!

 By Cindy Regnier

Anybody like hot dogs? Um, that’s a ‘NO’ from me. Definitely not on my favorite foods list, but apparently, it’s a very American thing to eat so somebody must like them. The actual origination of the hot dog is a rather disputed topic, though probably German. So how did it get to the United States and why is it such a popular item? Let’s take a look and see what we can find out.

Two European cities claim to be the birthplace of the sausage: Frankfurt Germany, (that’s where we get the name frankfurter), and Vienna, Austria, (hence the term wiener.) Wherever it started, German immigrants brought hot dogs to New York in the 1860s. Street vendors began selling them as “dachshund sausages,” presumably because of their long oblong shape. And that, my friends, is where the American term “hot dog” was derived. New York became the main location of hot dog sales for many years (and may still be today.) 

 In 1871 a German immigrant named Charles Feltman opened a popular hot dog stand at Coney Island, forever associating the sausage with that park. Mr. Feltman developed a hand-sliced, elongated bun that set the precedent for the modern hot dog bun. by the 1920s, Feltman’s Ocean Pavilion restaurant was serving roughly five million customers per year, and selling somewhere around 40,000 hot dogs a day.

 Nathan Handwerker. a Polish immigrant, was hired by Feltman as a ‘bun-slicer’ where he made a whopping $11 a week. Handwerker lived entirely on hot dogs and slept on the kitchen floor for a year until he’d saved $300. Mr. Handwerker then used his experience with Feltman to open Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Stand, also at Coney Island in 1916. Knowing his former boss charged 10 cents apiece for dogs, Handwerker charged only 5 cents. Customers flocked to him, his competitor went out of business, and Nathan’s Famous was born.

By the Depression, Nathan’s hot dogs were known throughout the United States. Handwerker promoted his stand by sponsoring a Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, a tradition that continues today. As a side note; the winner in 2020 set a record of eating 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes. I don’t even want to think about how sick that guy must have felt afterwards. 

 By this time, hot dogs were widespread throughout the United States. They were served by the thousands at the 1893 World Expo in Chicago, and became standard fare at baseball parks around the country. Sound familiar? Easy to serve at home and able to be eaten on the go, the hot dog became a definitive American dish, with regional variations that include the Chicago dog (an all-beef hot dog served in a poppy seed bun with mustard, pickle relish, chopped onion, sliced tomato, dill pickle,  peppers, and celery salt), the New York dog (with sauerkraut, brown mustard, and onions), and, from Mexico by way of Arizona, the Sonoran hot dog (with pinto beans, salsa, mayonnaise, and bacon). Wow - do any of those sound like something you’d eat? U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt served hot dogs at the White House in 1939 to a visiting king, George VI of Britain. Some thought this improper. but as the story goes, the king asked for a second hot dog after finishing the first. Not surprisingly, hot dogs abound in Great Britain today and nearly everywhere in the world.

So, the next time you eat a hot dog (if you still want to after reading this), remember the fascinating history behind your tube steak. I’d love to hear about YOUR hot dog history. Do you enjoy them? What do you put on them? Are they strictly a summer picnic food or do your kids clamor for them all year long?

 Scribbling in notebooks has been a habit of Cindy Regnier since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born and raised in Kansas, she writes stories of historical Kansas, especially the Flint Hills area where she spent much of her childhood. A graduate of Kansas State University, Cindy is active in her church and community. Her experiences with the Flint Hills setting, her natural love for history, farming and animals, along with her interest in genealogical research give her the background and passion to write heart-fluttering historical romance.