Hot Diggity Dog

Its heritage is European, but it's all American now

Sharie Knight clangs the dinner bell at Hillbilly Hot Dogs in Lesage, W.Va. "Three West Virginia dogs!" she hollers. "Come and git it!"

Steam rises from the hot dogs, smothered in homemade chili sauce, mustard, onions and coleslaw.

"They’re great. The sauce is just right—not too spicy or I wouldn’t like it," says Dora May Gillispie, 62, a regular from nearby Barboursville (pop. 3,183). "The atmosphere here is nostalgic and entertaining."

Childhood memories of his mother’s hot dog stand in the 1950s inspired owner Sonny Knight, 59, to build the roadside stand in 1999. He and his wife, Sharie, wondered if customers would find the country stand along the Ohio River.

"We sold 700 hot dogs the first day and ran out of sauce," recalls Sharie, 47. Cars have been lining up two blocks deep ever since.

Hot dog fans also love the come-as-you-are atmosphere at Hillbilly Hot Dogs where "indoor dining" is provided by two retired church buses and weekend customers can enjoy bluegrass music and bid on auction items to benefit neighbors in need.

"It’s brought the community together," Sonny says about the hot dog stand. "We’re just two people who had an idea." And Mom’s secret hot dog sauce.

From ballparks to backyards

Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs each year, which they order from roadside stands, purchase off pushcarts, roast over campfires, and savor at ballparks, county fairs and community festivals.

In Frankfort, Ind. (pop. 16,662), hot dog lovers consume 10,000 franks during the Hot Dog Festival the last weekend in July. The event includes a hot dog cooking contest.

"People put hot dogs in casseroles and kabobs and anything you can think of," says Kim Stevens, executive director of Frankfort Main Street, which sponsors the festival.

In Cable, Wis. (pop. 836), hundreds of people bundle up each March for the world’s longest weenie roast on Lake Namakagon at Lakewoods Resort. Hot dogs are roasted over charcoal-filled trenches, which extend up to 1,000 feet, on the frozen lake.

Lakewoods owner Kathy Rasmussen and other "weenie queens," as she calls the bunch, pre-poke the wieners on sticks the night before because "everyone’s hands are too cold otherwise," she says.

Summertime, though, is hot dog’s heyday. On July 4th alone, Americans eat 150 million hot dogs, many of them at family gatherings and backyard cookouts.

"Hot dogs are a convenience food, and Americans are all about convenience," says Ayoka Blandford, public affairs manager for the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council in Washington, D.C. "You don’t need silverware. Children enjoy hot dogs, and you can add lots of toppings."

Cooked & dressed

Hot dog hounds across the nation have their favorite ways to cook and dress their dogs. They can be grilled, deep-fried, steamed, boiled, dredged in corn batter, fried on a stick, and topped according to taste.

Two hot dog styles—Chicago and New York—dominate in the United States, says hot dog historian Bruce Kraig, a retired professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Both are all beef.

In Chicago, a classic steamed hot dog is topped with mustard, green relish, tomatoes, dill pickles, hot peppers and celery salt and served on a steamed poppy seed bun. "Never, ever, ever put ketchup on it," Kraig says.

A New York-style hot dog has a garlicky taste and is cooked on a flat griddle "and rolled around until it’s crispy." It’s topped with chopped onions, mustard, sometimes sauerkraut, and served on a plain bun. The most famous New York hot dog stand is Nathan’s Famous, a Coney Island landmark since 1916 and home to a July 4th hot dog eating contest.

Texans like chili or coney dogs, and Southerners eat nearly as many pork hot dogs as beef, Kraig says.

Beef or pork, a hot dog is a cooked sausage made from a mixture of ground meat (or meat byproducts and cereal filler), water, salt, curing agents and spices. Hot dogs can be made with cellulose casings, which later are removed for skinless hot dogs, or with natural edible intestine casings.

Most hot dog connoisseurs favor edible casings, which adds to the crunchiness. "A good hot dog has a real snap to it when you bite into it," Kraig says.

Water weenies & Rutt’s rippers

In Florida, hog dog fanatics can enjoy a tasty frank without leaving their boats. On the Caloosahatchee River in Cape Coral, Fla., you can order a Chicago-style hot dog from Bearon’s Water Weenie Wagon. Former Chicagoan Tom McGowan turned a pontoon boat into a floating hot dog and ice cream stand shaped like a giant ice cream cone. The German sausages and hot dogs are flown in from Chicago.

"We’re having a ball doing this," says McGowan, 67, a retired electrical contractor and avid fisherman. "We’re on the end of the river, and it’s a main drag into the Gulf of Mexico. Boats will be lined up eight, nine, 10 deep."

Hot dog lovers may wait an hour to order at Pink’s, a Hollywood, Calif., institution since 1939 and perhaps America’s most famous hot dog stand. Celebrity customers at Pink’s are as popular as the eatery’s 21 varieties of hot dogs.

"Nicolas Cage may show up in jeans and T-shirt and come in with his buddies," says owner Richard Pink, 61. "Bill Cosby’s a regular and always orders a chili dog with a hint of mustard."

Pink’s late parents, Betty and Paul Pink, borrowed $50 to buy a cart and go into the 10-cent chili dog business. They ran an extension cord to a hardware store a block away. In 1946, Pink built his stand on the spot where he’d parked his cart, Melrose and La Brea, and business has been on a roll ever since. Between 1,500 and 2,000 hot dogs are sold at Pink’s daily.

"It’s all about consistency; we’ve never changed suppliers," Pink says, "and also about variety."

It doesn’t hurt, either, that Tom Hanks may be waiting in line.

Some vendors have nicknames for the hot dogs they serve. At Rutt’s Hut in Clifton, N.J. (pop. 78,672), the deep-fried dogs have been called rippers since 1928.

"We dump them in a vat of oil and deep-fry them. The oil makes the skin rip," explains Gus Chrisafinis, 36, a second-generation owner. Rippers are topped with homemade relish and chili.

"We’re 15 minutes from the Newark (N.J.) airport, and people land and come here before they visit their family," Chrisafinis says. "I get people here for rippers for breakfast."

Such hot dog fanaticism sounds reasonable to Frank Webster of El Cajon, Calif., who has visited a thousand hot dog eateries nationwide, collected 4,000 wiener-related items and is scouting a permanent location for his Hog Dog Hall of Fame and Museum.

"I’m living in a wienie warehouse right now," says Webster, 56, of his hot dog memorabilia-filled home, where he publishes The Frankfurter Chronicles, a hot dog newsletter.

From Frankfurter to Hot Dog

The hot dog may be an American favorite, but it’s descended from a centuries-old European sausage-making tradition. Frankfurtam Main, Germany, celebrated the 500th anniversary of the frankfurter in 1987.

Immigrants from many European nations brought their sausage-making skills to America, but Germans were the first to sell their popular dachshund, or little-dog, sausages from pushcarts on New York City streets in the 1860s.

In 1893, sausage vendors popularized the fare at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Sausages also were served that year at baseball parks, including the St. Louis Browns’ ballpark.

The earliest references to "hot dog" appeared in 1890s college humor magazines and most likely began as a joke about the origin of the meat, hot dog historian Bruce Kraig says.

The culinary historian credits the Germans with first serving sausages on rolls, although popular lore has it that concessionaire Anton Feuchtwanger started the practice at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Feuchtwanger began using soft rolls (the precursor to today’s bun) after he ran out of gloves to give customers for handling the hot sausages.

In the 1920s and 1930s, marketing by Oscar Mayer with the rollout of the Weinermobile and catchy jingles further linked hot dogs with family and fun.

"Hot dogs have been fun street food from the beginning," Kraig says.

Marti Attoun is a frequent American Profile contributor.

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