Fun Facts

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

• Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, is traditionally credited with originating the frankfurter. However, Coburg, Germany, claims the hot dog was born there and the people of Wien, Austria, also claim it began there.

• In 1987, the city of Frankfurt celebrated the 500th birthday of the hot dog in that city. It's said the frankfurter was developed there in 1484, five years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world.

• In 1871, a German butcher opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand, selling 3,684 dachshund sausages in a milk roll during his first year in business.

• In 1893, sausages became the standard food at baseball parks.
• Some say the word "hot dog" was coined in 1901 when N.Y. vendors selling hot dogs shouted, "They're red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" A New York Journal cartoonist observed the scene and hastily drew a cartoon of barking dachshund sausages. Not sure how to spell "dachshund," he simply wrote "hot dog." The cartoon is said to have been a sensation, thus coining the term "hot dog." However, historians have been unable to find the cartoon to prove the story.

• Culinary historians say the term "hot dog" appeared in college magazines in the 1890s. At Yale, in 1894, "dog wagons" sold hot dogs in the dorms.