A Brief History Of The Hot Dog And Its Bun

Whether it's a Frankfurter (which is different from a hot dog), bratwurst, or any other encased meat enjoyed on a bun, it's commonly understood that their history began in Germany. However, the story of the hot dog and its bun, a quintessentially American dish, is still debated today.

The North American hot dog is best characterized as either all-beef or containing a mix of various meat trimmings, and historians attribute its birth to European butchers of different nationalities. Frankfurt, Germany, and Vienna, Austria (home to the Frankfurter and the Vienna wiener respectively), both claim to be the originators of the hot dog.

Regardless, after German immigrants brought the sausage to the States in the 1860s, a few different tales cropped up explaining why they're called hot dogs and why we eat them on a bun. Here's why you ask for a hot dog at the and not a "dachshund," and why that meat is served nestled between pieces of bread instead of all alone.

One of the most commonly known (but also debunked) stories behind the hot dog name credits a cartoonist at the New York Journal with coining the term. The story goes that Tad Dorgan saw vendor Harry Stevens selling sausages during a 1901 polo game while shouting "Get your red-hot dachshund sausages!"

Dorgan then drew a cartoon of what he saw featuring an actual dachshund dog between a bun. The illustration has never been found, though, and many say the story came from the fact that Dorgan and Stevens were friends. Bruce Kraig, professor emeritus at Roosevelt University in Illinois and hot dog historian, has fully discredited this story, citing that mentions of the term "hot dog" appeared long before this tale.

Most historians surmise that the name began as a comment on the shape of the sausage, which resembles the dachshund dog breed that was also brought to the U.S. by German immigrants. Prior to being called "hot dogs," they were referred to as "dachshund sausages." There is documentation that shows the term "hot dog" was in use as early as 1884. 

You would think the hot dog and its bun have always gone hand in hand, but one legend points to the two coming together in a serendipitous sort of way. A Bavarian concessionaire, Anton Feuchtwanger, was selling his dachshund dogs in 1904 at the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The vendor was handing out white gloves for people to use while enjoying the sausages, but they were not being returned.

Feuchtwanger supposedly turned to his brother-in-law, a baker, when the white glove supply started running low. The baker fashioned a bun that would hold the sausages, and the rest was allegedly history. Once again though, historians like Kraig contest this tale. Rather, many maintain that Germans enjoyed their sausages with bread since the beginning and had been selling them in buns from pushcarts since the 1860s in New York. 

Other stories suggest that Charles Feltman, a German butcher, served the dachshunds with milk rolls in 1871 from a stand in Coney Island. Others say the bun debuted at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Whichever history you choose to believe (or whether you think a hot dog is a sandwich), we can all agree that the hot dog and its bun were always meant to be together.