Hot Dog!! Today is national Hot Dog Day! If for some unfortunate reason, you do not know what a hot dog is (let’s hope not), allow me to provide you with a brief history of this ball park delicacy, and perhaps even some fun facts! How does that sound?
Sausages go way back into history, and are even mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey as far back as the 9th century B.C.! Though there is some controversy concerning the origin of the hot dog, it is one of the oldest forms of processed food that is still enjoyed today. And no one disagrees with that!
The North American hot dog that we enjoy today comes from a widespread common European sausage brought here by butchers of several nationalities.
Flash forward to the year 1893. In that year sausages seemed to be the standard fare at baseball parks. In 1901 the phrase “hot dog” was coined by a concessionaire at the New York Polo grounds. It was a cold day in April, and one of the vendor’s cold foods were not selling well, so he decided to sell “dachshund sausages” that were piping hot. A nearby sport’s cartoonist was not sure how to spell “dachshund” so he simply wrote “hot dog”! The cartoon was a hit and the name “hot dog” was born!
Hot Dog Facts!
- Sports cartoonist Tad Dorgan is credited with the coinage of the term “hot dog” in 1901 at the New York Polo Grounds.
- The first words that Walt Disney’s immortal creation Mickey Mouse ever uttered in a cartoon were “hot dogs” (in “The Karnival Kid, 1929). The cartoons he was featured in were silent ones up until that point.
- New Yorkers consume more hot dogs than any other city, beating out Chicago and Los Angeles.
- According to a study in 1999, Americans consumed 7 billion hot dogs or 818 hot dogs every second during the Hot Dog Season.
Hot dogs are yummy! No matter what’s in them :S
Enough about hot dogs. Who’s going to the State Fair?