"HOTDOGS"

I guess that being on a diet makes everything I do lately revolve around food. I’ve even turned my food thoughts into a church event. As President of our church Men’s group I’ve even scheduled a “Hotdog Night” after one of our Masses in February. It appears to me that almost everyone loves a hotdog. A dog with ketchup satisfies us when we’re young, then a graduation to one with mustard and even some relish. Finally the big steps we take to dogs with chili, onions and even sauerkraut. Today there are hour long documentaries on the Travel Channel showing nothing but visits to hotdog places and extolling the virtues of their sometimes strange toppings. PS., I love them all. But how did this frankfurter craze begin.
In 1852, a butchers' guild in Frankfurt produced a spiced, smoked sausage product which they named frankfurter after their hometown. It was slightly curved in shape and was often called the dachshund sausage. The product was brought over to America by Charles Feltman and Antoine Feuchtwanger. Feltman sold frankfurters and sauerkraut from a pushcart in New York's Coney Island. He opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand in 1871. Shortly thereafter, he started selling the frankfurters with milk rolls, which were the precursors to hot dog buns. The buns that we use today were probably first introduced in St. Louis by Feuchtwanger in 1904. He was a sausage concessionaire who loaned white gloves to his customers to hold the hot sausages. Since most of his customers did not return his gloves he worked with a baker to develop a bun, which people could use to hold their sausages.
You’ll notice that everything I’ve written so far refer to the sausages as “frankfurters”, but when did they become “hotdogs”? The term "hot dog" is credited to sports cartoonist Tad Dorgan. At a 1901 baseball game at the Polo Grounds in New York, vendors began selling hot dachshund sausages in rolls. From the press box, Dorgan could hear the vendors yelling, "Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" He sketched a cartoon depicting the scene but wasn't sure how to spell "dachshund" so he called them simply, "hot dogs." And the rest is history.
If all this hotdog talk has made you hungry, you’re welcome to stop by my church around 6:00 PM this coming February 21st and scoff down a couple.