HOT DOGS ..... GET YOUR HOT DOGS!

There is not really much about baseball that interests me. I guess that makes me almost un-American. After all, it is America’s National Pastime. But while searching for a related topic, I came across something else that is highly American. It’s not apple pie, but the hot dog.

Actually, the roots of the hot dog did not originate in the USA, but in Frankfurt, Germany during the 15^th century as a slightly curved spiced, smoked pork sausage. The wiener, a sausage made of pork and beef, started in Vienna, in German known as Wien, in 1805.

The addition of the bun turns the sausage into the ‘hot dog.’ Originally sausages were served piping hot without a bun. Some peddlers in the USA, like Antoine Feuchtwanger of St. Louis, offered white gloves to his customers to protect their hands. Doing so, however, lessened his profits dramatically when the customers kept walking off with his gloves. His wife in 1883 came up with the idea of a long, soft roll that perfectly fit his sausages. They called them ‘red hots.’

Still another vendor, also a German, Charles Feltman, sold hot sausages on rolls out of his pie wagon up and down Brooklyn’s Coney Island. He was so successful that he expanded into a restaurant, a beer garden and multiple mobile stands.

One of Feltman’s employees, encouraged by celebrities Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante, opened his own stand in 1916, and undercut Feltman’s price by half. His name was Nathan Handwerker, and he went on to found Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, now sold at more than 20,000 food service and retail outlets across the United States.

Cantor and Durante as well as other famous celebrities frequented Nathan’s place, and his first international exposure came when in 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt served Nathan’s Famous hot dogs to the King and Queen of England. Later the President had Nathan’s hot dogs sent to Yalta where he was meeting with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

Celebrities over the years have often been photographed munching Nathan’s hot dogs. Jacqueline Kennedy loved Nathan’s and served them at the White House. Actor Walter Matthau per his last will and testament had Nathan’s served at his funeral!

Every year since 1916 Nathan’s has sponsored World Championship Hot Dog Eating contests. Last year nearly 30,000 fans enjoyed watching the July 4^th annual event. By the way, the male champion 5 years running, Joey Chestnut of San Jose CA ate 62 dogs including the buns, while Sonya Thomas, in the first-ever female championship, of Alexandria VA downed 40 in her 10-minute allotment. Over 360 million Nathan’s Famous hot dogs were sold last year alone.

Pink’s is another famous American hot dog. Located first as a mere hot dog stand, Paul and Betty Pink built a permanent building where they had parked their stand and have therefore remained in the same location at Melrose and LaBrea in Los Angeles for 71 years. Pink’s has its own parking lot attendant, and it is not unusual to see a Rolls Royce parked there. Musicians, movie stars, struggling actors and even well known dignitaries frequent Pink’s. Actor Bruce Willis actually proposed to Demi Moore at Pink’s in Hollywood. The pinkshollywood.com website is filled with magazine articles and photographs of the company’s achievements. Zagat’s Restaurant Survey in 2009 called Pink’s Famous Chili Dog "as quintessentially LA as the seashore and the freeways."

The association between hot dogs and baseball began as early as 1893 with a German immigrant, Chris von der Ahe, owner of the St. Louis Brown Stockings and later an amusement park. Some historians dispute that von der Ahe was the first to sell hot dogs at a ballpark. Harry M. Stevens had founded his company in 1889, serviced major sports venues with hot dogs and other refreshments, and won the title of ‘King of Sports Concessions’ in the United States.

Some baseball parks have signature hot dogs, like Fenway Franks and Dodger Dogs. Dodger Stadium and its Dodger Dog, a grilled or steamed foot-long topped with mustard and relish, is predicted to be the Number 1 seller in ballpark hot dogs this year. Yankee Stadium is number two serving Nathan’s Famous ‘water dog’ boiled and served on a steamed bun. Fans at the number three Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, prefer the South Philly Dog topped with broccoli rabe (or rapini), roasted peppers, and sharp provolone on a crusty Italian roll. Miller Park in Milwaukee, home of the Brewers, is known for its world-famous Klement’s Sausage Race in the 6^th inning of each game. Miller Park is the only MLB stadium in which sausages outsell hot dogs.

Eating hot dogs is not just plopping a hot dog on a bun. There is hot dog etiquette, you know, like always ‘dress the dog,’ not the bun. Condiments in between the bun and the dog are a no-no. Don’t use ketchup on your dog after you are 18, and don't bring wine to a hot dog barbecue. Beer, lemonade, soda and iced tea are preferred. Utensils should never touch a hot dog, and condiments remaining on fingers after eating a hot dog should be licked off not washed off.

Americans consume 20 billion hot dogs a year. The Hot Dog and Sausage Council predicts that MLB ballparks will sell as many as 22,435,400 hot dogs during the 2011 season, 1.06 million more than 2010. That far outweighs sales of the "peanuts and Cracker Jack" immortalized in the song.