Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island, New York, is home to the world’s biggest hot dog-eating
contest—but no one really knows how it got started. According to Nathan’s website,
it originated in 1916 from a bet between four immigrants. Each one claimed to be more patriotic
than the other, and they allegedly settled the argument by holding a hot dog-eating competition
at Nathan’s on the Fourth of July. But this story is likely a load of bologna—or a load
of beef, natural flavorings, sodium phosphates, hydrolyzed corn protein, and paprika, as the
case may be. In 2010, a public relations professional who worked with Nathan’s told The New York
Times that the story was merely a piece of marketing made up “in Coney Island pitchman
style.” Some of the first reports of a hot dog eating contest at Nathan’s are from
1967, when—supposedly to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the hot dog (which, spoiler
alert, it wasn’t)—newspapers reported that truck driver Walter Paul downed 127 hot
dogs in an hour. That said, some sources speculate that Paul didn’t even exist. And it doesn’t
help that Nathan’s have since given differing years and total number of hot dogs for Paul.
There were hot dog eating contests happening in New York at least as far back as the 1920s.
A piece in the New York Tribune from December 1922 discusses a parade in lower Manhattan.
As the piece tells it, after the parade the “participants adjourned to their headquarters
. . . to witness the grand frankfurter devouring contest.” The contest was won “by the
redoubtable Val Menges,” who consumed fifty-one hot dogs “both nude and in dough kimonos.”
Dough. Kimonos. I am speechless.
The modern contest at Nathan’s is thought to have emerged in 1972, but even back then
it’s being described as the “23rd annual,” so it’s a bit hard to be sure what’s real
and what’s being said in “Coney Island pitchman style.”
Regardless of its origins, the event is famous today, and people travel from across the world
to take part. The current reigning champion is competitive eater Joey Chestnut, who consumed
a gut-busting 76 hot dogs at 2021’s contest. For that he won a prize of $10,000, Nathan’s
coveted Mustard Belt, and hopefully some antacid tablets for the road.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. Hot dogs have a surprisingly complicated and
controversial history. What’s in a hot dog? Why do we call it a hot dog? And is it a sandwich?
Oh, no. We’re not doing this again, are we?
The story of this quintessential American food begins with the invention of sausages
thousands of years ago. A sausage is a product usually made from seasoned, processed meats,
and different versions are eaten around the world. They can be fresh or cured, smoked
or dried, making them an important form of food preservation in many cultures. Some of
the first records of sausage come from Ancient Mesopotamia roughly 4000 years ago. Texts
from this era describe meat stuffed into intestinal casings, which is how many sausages continue
to be made today. An early reference to what very well may be some kind of blood sausage
also appears in Homer’s Odyssey. When Odysseus returns from his journey and finds his home
flooded with suitors, he expresses his annoyance, at least in one translation, by “rolling
from side to side as a cook turns a sausage.”
The line between hot dogs and other sausages isn’t always clear, which makes the hot
dog’s origin hard to identify. Germany claims to be the birthplace of the modern hot dog.
One story traces their invention to Frankfurt in the late 15th century, just a few years
before Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas. The city even celebrated the frankfurter’s
500th birthday in 1987. The German town of Coburg disputes this provenance, however,
and claims that a butcher living there in the 1600s invented the hot dog before importing
his creation to Frankfurt. To make matters more complicated, Vienna also insists that
its wienerwurst was the world’s introduction to hot dogs.
No matter where they originated, food historians agree that German immigrants were responsible
for popularizing hot dogs in the U.S. Back in the 1800s, after moving to New York City,
many Germans sold sausages out of pushcarts to make a living. This was the start of the
hot dog’s connection to both street food and the Big Apple.
Here in the States we view hot dogs as quintessentially American, but their reach extends across the
globe. The Sonora dog, from the Mexican state of the same name, consists of a sausage wrapped
in bacon and stuffed inside a bolillo. It's topped with pinto beans, onions, tomatoes,
jalapenos, mayo, and mustard. In Thailand, the Khanom Tokyo hot dog is served in a thin
crepe (the aforementioned Khanom Tokyo) with either sweet or savory condiments. One of
the most popular interpretations of the food may be Salchipapas, which are found in Peru,
Ecuador, and other Latin American countries. The dish does away with the bun altogether
and opts for fried sausage slices served on top of french fries.
So when did the name hot dog become associated with street meat? One legend traces its etymology
to cartoonist ‘Tad’ Dorgan. In this origin story, Dorgan was attending a Giants game
in 1901 where hot Frankfurter sandwiches were being sold. This inspired him to later draw
a cartoon of a dachshund on a roll. Because he couldn’t spell the breed’s name, he
wrote “hot dog” instead. It’s a cute story, but it has a few issues. Though Dorgan
did eventually draw a hot dog cartoon, it appeared in 1906 and it was in connection
to a bicycle race, not a Giants game. There’s also the pesky fact that the term hot dog
was already popular by the time Dorgon allegedly attended the baseball game. Sorry dorgon you
just got dog'd, which is a new verb I’m trying out.
Another theory credits a food vendor named Thomas Francis Xavier Morris. Originally from
the Caribbean, Morris toured Europe as a strongman before moving to Patterson, New Jersey. There
he started a business selling frankfurters and adopted the nickname “Hot Dog Morris.”
Though it’s difficult to prove, his marketing strategy may have helped the name catch on
in the late 1800s.
There’s a third origin story, and it’s less wholesome than the first two. It’s
also, I regret to inform you, the story that’s most widely accepted by food historians. It’s
that hot dogs were once thought to contain actual dog. In 19th-century Germany, consuming
dog meat was not unheard of. This led to rumors about the true contents of the mystery meat
tubes German immigrants were selling on street corners. Prejudice against German-Americans,
who made up one of the largest immigrant groups in the country in the 19th and early 20th
centuries, likely stoked these fears. According to writer and sometime-etymologist H. L. Mencken,
the belief was so widespread by 1913 that the Coney Island Chamber of Commerce banned
the word hot dog from signage so that guests wouldn’t get the wrong idea about the food’s
ingredients.
So what are hot dogs made of, if not actual dog? It depends. Pork and beef are the most
common meats, but we’re not necessarily talking prime cuts. Typical hot dogs start
as “trimmings,” which is an industry euphemism for the parts leftover from meat production.
Once the trimmings are precooked to kill bacteria, they are emulsified into a meat paste, ground
up, and forced through a mesh sieve. Next, flavorings and preservatives are added and
the whole thing gets pureed a second time. Finally, the meat amalgamation is cooked in
tubular casings to give it its signature shape.
But rest assured that hot dogs approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture aren’t
made from earthworms. This urban legend originates with sodium erythorbate, which is used in
curing processed meat products. Due to similarities between the words earthworm and erythorbate,
rumors spread about the true nature of the hot dog ingredient. The USDA reportedly gets
a lot of questions about sodium erythorbate’s true source, and they insist that it isn’t
made from ground-up creepy crawlies.
According to some, a hot dog’s most important ingredient is its bun. Merriam-Webster describes
hot dogs as usually being served on long split rolls, which could make the fluffy vehicle
a distinguishing factor between hot dogs and other sausages. It’s unclear where the hot
dog bun originated, but many food historians point to Coney Island. In the 19th century,
an Austrian -born baker there named Ignatz Frischmann developed an oblong Vienna roll
specifically for holding hot dogs. Prior to this innovation, boardwalk sausages were typically
served between two slices of bread. For some reason, that mental image horrifies me. Frischmann
supplied his unique rolls to vendors around Coney Island, and when he died in 1904, he
was credited with the invention of the hot dog bun in his New York Times obituary.
The introduction of the bun eventually led to an inflammatory question: Is a hot dog
a sandwich? If you ask the California legislature, the answer is yes. Its tax code mentions “hot
dog and hamburger sandwiches” served from “sandwich stands or booths,” which means
a hot dog is legally a sandwich in the state. Oscar Meyer and Merriam-Webster also fall
on the pro-sandwich side of the debate. Among those arguing that hot dogs deserve their
own category is the National Hot Dog And Sausage Council. In 2015, the organization said that
“limiting the hot dog’s significance by saying it’s ‘just a sandwich’ is like
calling the Dalai Lama ‘just a guy.’” According to their statement: “… a hot
dog is an exclamation of joy, a food, a verb describing one ‘showing off’ and even
an emoji. It is truly a category unto its own.” My own feelings on this matter, along
with my very grip on reality, were shaken to the core when I posed this question back
on our video about ketchup and mustard. YouTube commenter Sean Collins suggested that a hot
dog should be properly categorized as a taco, and I have not been the same since.
Perhaps just as controversial is the New-York-versus-Chicago-dog debate. Like New York, Chicago saw an influx
of German immigrants in the 19th century, and those transplants brought sausage recipes
from their home country with them. By the early 1900s, hot dogs were an important part
of the city’s cuisine, but the Chicago dog as we know it didn’t become popular until
later. A traditional Chicago hot dog that’s been ‘dragged through the garden’ comes
with yellow mustard, onion, tomato, relish, sport peppers, celery salt, and a pickle spear—all
served on a poppy seed bun. That bun, incidentally, originated with Sam Rosen, a Polish immigrant
who brought his baking skills to Chicago in 1909.
French’s popularized yellow mustard as a hot dog condiment at the St. Louis World’s
Fair in 1904. The other toppings that make Chicago hot dogs unique came out of the immigrant
community of the city’s West Side. Adding unique flavors to their dogs was a way for
vendors to appeal to the diverse tastes of different ethnic groups. This style of hot
dog really took off during the Great Depression. Cash-strapped Chicagoans needed cheap food,
but one hot dog wasn’t filling enough to make a meal. Vendors met this need by adding
ingredients to the hot dog. The item was still affordable, and the extra toppings made it
hearty and nutritious enough to sustain customers. As for whether the Chicago dog’s role in
history makes it better than the Coney Island version, I can’t say. I personally have
no dog in the race, pun intended, because I am, and I’m sorry to admit, not the biggest
hot dog fan, but my best friend lives and dies by the Chicago hot dog so I guess I’ll
throw my hat in for the windy city. Which is truly better? Are hot dogs sandwiches?
I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Am I a taco? It’s impossible
to say.
For our next video, we’re going from the hot dog to hot sauce. If you’ve got a burning
question you’ve always wanted answered about the spicy condiment, drop it in the comments
below for a chance to be featured in that episode. We’ll see you then!