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The hot dog is a favorite food at sporting events and cookouts, especially among children. There are a variety of toppings for it, including ketchup, mustard, onions, and pickle relish. Over the years, several varities have evolved, so the hot dog has company with the cheese dog, the chili dog, and the corn dog.
The hot dog was originally called the frankfurter or the wienerwurst. These names came from the two places that claim to have invented the hot dog: Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany and Vienna in Austria. So how did they become an American food? That story starts in 1880 in St. Louis, Missouri. There was a sausage vendor named Antoine Feuchtwanger who didn't want his customers to burn their fingers while eating the sausage. He started loaning gloves to the people, but they never brought the gloves back. Finally, he just put the sausage in a sliced dinner roll and served it like that.
So now they had a hot dog, but they still called them sausages. The name didn't change until 1903 when a sports cartoonist went to a baseball game in New York City. He heard the sausage vendors yelling, "Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" He found this silly, so he drew a cartoon of a dachshund in a hot dog bun. (The dachshund is the short, long dog.) Then he realized he didn't know how to spell "dachshund," so he labeled the cartoon "hot dog" instead.
Hot dogs come in many forms, from beef to chicken. The most common, however, contains a mixture of meats ground together and formed into the familiar form.
Hot dogs, while part of the meat group, are not really nutritious because of all the filler ingredients and preservatives they have.
Variations on the hotdog include cheese dogs, chilidogs, corn dogs, minifranks, and pigs in a blanket.
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