Hot Dog Facts


 

 

Top 10 Hot Dog Baseball Stadiums for 2005

1. Dodger Stadium – 1,674,400 
2. Coors Field – 1,545,000 
3. Wrigley Field – 1,543,500
4. Yankees Stadium – 1,365,000 
5. Minute Maid Park – 1,248,000 
6. Edison Field – 1,133,000 
7. HHH Metrodome – 850,000 
8. Citizens Bank Park – 800,000
9. Shea Stadium – 745,000 
10. U.S. Cellular Field – 495,000

 

Hot dog buns and garnishing differ from place to place.


Chicago Dogs - this type of hot dog is served on a poppy seed bun and is garnished with yellow mustard, dark green relish, chopped raw onions, tomato slices and celery salt.

Kansas City Dogs - these are served with sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese on a sesame seed bun.

New York City Dogs - these contain steamed onions and pale yellow mustard.

Coney Island Dogs - created by the Original Coney Island company5, this type of dog comes topped with a spicy meat mixture.

Southern Slaw Dogs - these are probably the only ones served with coleslaw.

Corn Dogs - these are placed on a stick, dipped in corn bread batter and deep-fried.

Tex-Mex Dogs - these are topped with salsa, Monterey Jack cheese and chopped jalapeno peppers.

Pigs in a Blanket - these come wrapped in pastry and are baked. More commonly known as plain sausage buns.

Baltimore Frizzled - split and deep-fried.

Lilies/Lilliputians - these cocktail-sized sausages are usually served as an appetizer, and come with a sauce.

WARNING - don't play this clip unless you want to be humming the tune all day!

WARNING - don't play this clip unless you want to be humming the tune all day!

Hot Dog Etiquette

The Dos and Don't s of Hot Dog Dining

Do...
 

  • Serve sesame seed, poppy seed and plain buns with hot dogs. Sun-dried tomato buns or basil buns are considered gauche with franks.
  • Eat hot dogs on buns with your hands. Utensils should not touch hot dogs on buns.
  • Use paper plates to serve hot dogs. Every day dishes are acceptable; china is a no-no.
  • Condiments remaining on the fingers after eating a hot dog should be licked away, not washed.
  • Use multicolored toothpicks to serve cocktail wieners. Cocktail forks are in poor taste.



Don't...
 

  • Put hot dog toppings between the hot dog and the bun. Always "dress the dog," not the bun.
  • Use a cloth napkin to wipe your mouth when eating a hot dog. Paper is always preferable.
  • Take more than five bites to finish a hot dog. For foot-long wiener, seven bites are acceptable.
  • Leave bits of bun on your plate. Eat it all.
  • Use fresh herbs on the same plate with hot dogs. It over does the presentation.
  • Use ketchup on your hot dog after the age of 18.Mustard, relish, onions, cheese and chili are acceptable.
  • Send a thank you note following a hot dog barbecue. It would not be in keeping with the unpretentious nature of hot dogs.
  • Bring wine to a hot dog barbecue. Beer, soda, lemonade and iced tea are preferable.
  • Ever think there is a wrong time to serve hot dogs.

A short history of the Hot Dog

9th Century B.C. - Sausage is one of the oldest forms of processed food, having been mentioned in the novel Homer's Odyssey.

15th Century - In 1484 the frankfurter was developed in Frankfurt, Germany.

 

19th Century - A master sausage maker made his first "wiener" in Vienna (Wien), Austria.  He called his sausage the "wiener-frankfurter." The "wiener" comes from Wien (the German name of Vienna) and "wurst" means sausage in German.

 

Who first served the first hot dog!

 

Wieners and frankfurters don't become hot dogs until someone puts them in a roll or a bun. There are several stories as to how that first happened.

1860s Theory 1 -German immigrants sold them, along with milk rolls and sauerkraut, from a push cart in New York City's Bowery during the 1860s.

1880  Theory 2 - A German peddler, named Antonoine Feuchtwanger, sold hot sausages in the streets of St. Louis, Missouri. He would supply white gloves with each purchase so that his customers would not burn their hands while eating the sausage. Customers kept taking the gloves and walking off with them. He reportedly asked his brother-in-law, a baker, for help. The baker improvised long soft rolls that fit the meat, thus inventing the hot dog bun. When he did that, the hot dog was born. He called them "red hots."

 

1893 Theory 3 - In Chicago, the Columbian Exposition brought hordes of visitors who consumed large quantities of sausage sold by vendors. People liked this food that was easy to eat, convenient, and inexpensive. In the same year, sausages became the standard fare at baseball parks. This tradition was begun by a St. Louis bar owner, Chris Von de Ahe, who also owned the St. Louis Browns major league baseball team.

1900 Theory 4 - Charles Feltman, a German butcher, opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand in Brooklyn, New York. He installed a small charcoal stove in his pushcard, boiled the sausages in a kettle, and advertised them as "frankfurter sandwiches." He sold 3,684 sausages in a roll during his first year in business. He is also credited with the idea of the warm bun. The hard-working Feltman built a mini-empire with a hotel, beer gardens, restaurants, food stands, and various rides to amuse his customers. At his death in 1910, he left a business worth over one million dollars which all started with selling hot dogs.

1916 - An employee of Charles Feltman, Nathan Handwerker, broke away from Feltman in 1916 and, with his wife Ida, started Nathan's Famous, Inc., which now calls itself the world's greatest hot dog purveyor. He opened his stand in Coney Island near the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues and called it "Nathan's."

1902  Theory 5 - Another story is that the term "hog dog" was coined in 1902 during a Giants baseball game at the New York Polo rounds. Vendors were hawking hot dogs and yelling "They're red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" In the press box, sports cartoonist, T.A. (Tad) Dorgan, a Hearst newspaper cartoonist, was nearing his deadline and desperate for an idea. Hearing the vendors, he hastily drew a cartoon of barking dachshund sausages nestled warmly in rolls. However, his spelling was fairly poor, a problem he solved by simply writing 'hot dogs'! Although historians generally credit him with the name, the supposed cartoon has never been found.

1942 - Corn dogs, hot dogs in a fried cornmeal batter, were introduced at the Texas State Fair, created by Texan Neil Fletcher.

Sources:

http://www.answers.com/topic/hot-dog

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/A1021834

http://mymfva.org/

http://www.hot-dog.org/ht/d/sp/i/38570/pid/38570

http://www.hotdogu.com