Page semi-protected

Hot dog

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Hotdog (disambiguation).
Hot dog
Hot dog with mustard.png
A cooked hot dog on bun with mustard
Alternative namesFrankfurters, Frankfurts, franks, wieners, weenies, tube steak, sausage
Place of originGermany
Serving temperatureHot
Main ingredientsPork, beef, chicken, or combinations thereof, and bread
VariationsMultiple
Food energy
(per serving)
210[1] kcal
Other informationHot dogs are often red, but may be brown
 Cookbook: Hot dog   Media: Hot dog
A hot dog (also spelled hotdog) is a cooked sausage, traditionally grilled or steamed and served in a sliced bun.[2][3][4][5]Hot dog variants include the corn dog and pigs in blankets. Typical hot dog garnishes include mustard, ketchup, onions,mayonnaise, relish, cheese, chili, olives, and sauerkraut.
The sausages were culturally imported from Germany and popularized in the United States, where they were a working class street food sold at hot dog stands that came to be associated with baseball and America. Hot dog preparation and condiment styles also vary regionally across the United States. The hot dog's cultural traditions include the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest and Wienermobile.

History

File:Coney Island Hot Dogs (1940).webm
Hot dogs cooked, served, and eaten at Coney Island in 1940
Claims about hot dog invention are difficult to assess, as stories assert the creation of the sausage, the placing of the sausage (or another kind of sausage) on bread or a bun as finger food, the popularization of the existing dish, or the application of the name "hot dog" to a sausage and bun combination most commonly used with ketchup or mustard and sometimes relish.
The word frankfurter comes from Frankfurt, Germany, where pork sausages similar to hot dogs originated.[6] These sausages,Frankfurter Würstchen, were known since the 13th century and given to the people on the event of imperial coronations, starting with the coronation of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor as King. Wiener refers to Vienna, Austria, whose Germanname is "Wien", home to a sausage made of a mixture of pork and beef[7] (cf. Hamburger, whose name also derives from a German-speaking city). Johann Georg Lahner, an 18th/19th century butcher from the Franconian city of Coburg, is said to have brought the Frankfurter Würstchen to Vienna, where he added beef to the mixture and simply called it Frankfurter.[8] Nowadays, in German speaking countries, except Austria, hot dog sausages are called Wiener or Wiener Würstchen (Würstchen means "little sausage"), in differentiation to the original pork only mixture from Frankfurt. In Swiss German, it is called Wienerli, while in Austria the terms Frankfurter or Frankfurter Würstel are used.
Around 1870, on Coney Island, German immigrant Charles Feltman began selling sausages in rolls.[9][10][11]

Carts selling frankfurters in New York City, circa 1906. The price is listed as "3 cents each or 2 for 5 cents".
Others are credited with first serving hot dogs on rolls. A Bavarian immigrant named Feuchtwanger allegedly pioneered the practice in the American midwest; there are several versions of the story with varying details. According to one account, Antonoine Feuchtwanger's wife proposed the use of a bun in 1880: Feuchtwanger sold hot dogs on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and provided gloves to his customers so that they could handle the sausages without burning their hands. Losing money when customers did not return the gloves, Feuchtwanger's wife suggested serving the food in a roll instead.[12] In another version, Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger served sausages in rolls at the World's Fair–either the 1893World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago or the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis[13]–again allegedly because the white gloves provided to customers to protect their hands were being kept as souvenirs.[14]
The association between hot dogs and baseball began as early as 1893 with Chris von der Ahe, a German immigrant who owned not only the St. Louis Browns, but also an amusement park.[15]
Another claim of inventing the hot dog is told by Harry M. Stevens, an American sports concessionaire whose vendors sold German sausages and rolls to spectators at the old New York Polo Grounds during the winter.[16] He called them "Dachshund sandwiches", but a New York Post cartoonist "couldn't spell dachshund, so when he drew the cartoon, he called them hot dogs."[17]
In 1916, a Polish American employee of Feltman's named Nathan Handwerker was encouraged by Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante, both working as waiters/musicians, to go into business in competition with his former employer.[18] Handwerker undercut Feltman's by charging five cents for a hot dog when his former employer was charging ten.[18]
At an earlier time in food regulation, when the hot dog was suspect, Handwerker made sure that men wearing surgeon's smocks were seen eating at Nathan's Famousto reassure potential customers.[14]

Etymology

File:Dog Factory (1904).ogv
Dog Factory (1904), a short film that joked with contemporary dual connotations for the word "dog"
The term dog has been used as a synonym for sausage since 1884 and accusations that sausage makers used dog meat date to at least 1845.[19] In the early 20th century, consumption of dog meat in Germany was common.[20][21] The suspicion that sausages contained dog meat was "occasionally justified".[22]
According to a myth, the use of the complete phrase hot dog in reference to sausage was coined by the newspaper cartoonistThomas Aloysius "TAD" Dorgan around 1900 in a cartoon recording the sale of hot dogs during a New York Giants baseball game at the Polo Grounds.[19] However, TAD's earliest usage of hot dog was not in reference to a baseball game at the Polo Grounds, but to a bicycle race at Madison Square Garden, in The New York Evening Journal December 12, 1906, by which time the term hot dog in reference to sausage was already in use.[19][23] In addition, no copy of the apocryphal cartoon has ever been found.[24]
Early uses of hot dog in reference to sausage appeared in the New Brunswick (New Jersey) Daily Times (May 20, 1893), theNew York World (May 26, 1893), and the Knoxville (Tennessee) Journal (September 28, 1893).[23]

General description


Grilled hot dogs

Ingredients

Common hot dog ingredients include:[25]
Pork and beef are the traditional meats used in hot dogs. Less expensive hot dogs are often made from chicken or turkey, using low-cost mechanically separated poultry. Hot dogs often have high sodium, fat and nitrite content, ingredients linked to health problems. Changes in meat technology and dietary preferences have led manufacturers to use turkey, chicken,vegetarian meat substitutes, and to lower the salt content.
If a manufacturer produces two types of hot dogs, "wieners" tend to contain pork and are blander, while "franks" tend to be all beef and more strongly seasoned.[citation needed]

Commercial preparation

File:This Is Hormel (1964) hot dog segment.webm
The making of a Hormel hot dog (1964)
Hot dogs are prepared commercially by mixing the ingredients (meats, spices, binders and fillers) in vats where rapidly moving blades grind and mix the ingredients in the same operation. This mixture is forced through tubes into casings for cooking. Most hot dogs sold in the US are "skinless" as opposed to more expensive "natural casing" hot dogs.

Natural casing hot dogs

As with most sausages, hot dogs must be in a casing to be cooked. Traditional casing is made from the small intestines ofsheep. The products are known as "natural casing" hot dogs or frankfurters.[26] These hot dogs have firmer texture and a "snap" that releases juices and flavor when the product is bitten.[26]
Kosher casings are expensive in commercial quantities in the US, so kosher hot dogs are usually skinless or made with reconstituted collagen casings.[26]

Skinless hot dogs

"Skinless" hot dogs must use a casing in the cooking process when the product is manufactured, but the casing is usually a long tube of thin cellulose that is removed between cooking and packaging. This process was invented in Chicago in 1925[27] by Erwin O. Freund, founder of Visking which would later become ViskaseCompanies.[28]
The first skinless hot dog casings were produced by Freund's new company under the name "Nojax", short for "no jackets" and sold to local Chicago sausage makers.
Skinless hot dogs vary in the texture of the product surface but have a softer "bite" than natural casing hot dogs. Skinless hot dogs are more uniform in shape and size than natural casing hot dogs and less expensive.

Home cooking hot dogs

Hot dogs are prepared and eaten in a variety of ways. The wieners may be boiled, grilled, fried, steamed, broiled, baked, or microwaved.[29] The cooked wiener may be served on a bun (usually topped with condiments), or it may be used as an ingredient in another dish. Various models of hot dog toasters exist that cook the hot dog and buns by toasting. 
    zHealth effects
File:A Mark of Wholesome Meat (1964).ogv
United States Department of Agriculture 1964 film on hot dog and other meat inspection
Unlike other sausages which may be sold uncooked, hot dogs are cooked before packaging. Hot dogs can be eaten without additional cooking, although they are usually warmed before serving. An unopened package of hot dogs contains ingredients that have the potential for promoting the growth of Listeria bacteria. Listeria monocytogenes can also cause serious infectionsin infants and pregnant women, and can be transmitted to her infant in utero or after birth. Adults with suppressed immune systems can also be negatively affected.[30] Listeria infections have the potential to seriously harm or even cause the death of apreterm infant, an infant of low or very low birth weight, or an infant with an immune system deficiency or a congenital defect of the immune system.The presence of this pathogen can sometimes be determined by the symptoms of a gastrointestinal illnessin the mother. The mother can also acquire infection from ingesting food that contains other animal products such asunpasteurized milk, delicatessen meats, and cheese.[31] Prevention involves heating the hot dogs to a temperature that will kill pathogens.
An American Institute for Cancer Research report found that consuming one 50-gram serving of processed meat — about one hot dog — every day increases risk of colorectal cancer by 20 percent.[32][33] The Cancer Project group filed a class-action lawsuit demanding warning labels on packages and at sporting events.[34] Hot dogs are high in fat and salt and have preservatives sodium nitrate and nitrite, which are possible contributors to nitrate-containing chemicals believed to cause cancer.[35] According to the AICR, the average risk of colorectal cancer is 5.8 percent, but 7 percent when a hot dog is consumed daily over years.[35]
Hot dogs have relatively low heterocyclic amines (HCA) levels compared to other types of ready-to-eat meat products, because they are manufactured at low temperatures.[36]

Choking risk

Hot dogs present a significant choking risk, especially for children. A study in the US found that 17% of food-related asphyxiations among children younger than 10 years of age were caused by hot dogs.[37] Their size, shape and texture make them difficult to expel from the windpipe. This risk can be reduced by cutting a hot dog into small pieces or lengthwise strips before serving to young children. It is suggested that redesign of size, shape and texture would reduce the risk.[38]

In the United States


A "home-cooked" hot dog with ketchup, mustard, raw onion, fried onion, artificial bacon bits, and pickle relish
In the US, "hot dog" may refer to just the sausage or to the combination of a sausage in a bun. Many nicknames for hot dogs have popped up over the years. A hot dog can often be seen under the names of frankfurter, frank, red hot, wiener, weenie, durger, coney, or just "dog".