This article appeared in ReadyMade Mag just in time for the Fourth of July, 2008.
A Brief History of the Hot Dog: The wiener gets frank
• 9th Century BC
Homer outlines the preferred barbequing method for the world’s oldest-known processed food in The Odyssey. “Turn it this way and that”, he instructs.
• 1690
Johann Georghehner peddles his “little dachshund” sausage in Frankfurt where it will be inventively renamed the “Frankfurter” by the Butcher’s Guild of Germany in 1852. The Austrian Camp of hot dog historians refuses to accredit Georghehner with the hot dog’s creation, and attributes the birth of the wienerwurst to Vienna.
• 1867
Charles Feltman, a German immigrant and pie seller, commissions the construction of a mobile tin-lined chest with a charcoal stove inside. He sells 3,684 hot dogs his first year in business from his Coney Island stand.
• 1895
Students at Yale University begin referring to the cooked sausages sold outside their dorm rooms as “Hot Dogs” for the nefarious ingredients they are purportedly composed of.
• 1916
Nathan Handwerker crushes the Coney Island competition by pricing his new Nathan’s hot dogs five cents lower than the 10 cent dogs of his former employer, Charles Feltman.
• 1939
The New York Times publishes the scandalous picnic menu requested by FDR for his outdoor lunch with George VI of England. The menu includes “Nathan’s Hot Dogs (if weather permits)”. King VI has seconds.
• 2003
In a heated battle between man and beast, Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi, 6 time winner of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, is crushingly defeated by a 1,089-pound Kodiak bear, managing 31 bunless dogs in 2:36 minutes to the “Alaskan Cruncher’s” 50.
• 2007
The 27 foot-long Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is stopped in Arizona for displaying the stolen license plate, “YUMMY”. The driver is detained until police declare “Wienermobiles” exempt from Public Safety laws governing stolen plates.
• Today
From Memorial Day until Labor Day, 818 hot dogs are eaten every second in America. The use of ketchup is currently discouraged by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council’s Department of Hot Dog Etiquette after age 18.
