By Brad Johnson
For the Salisbury Post
SALISBURY — As Independence Day is in the rear-view mirror and Mother Nature has firmly established that summer is here to stay, let’s have some fun with a food — hot dogs — that approximately 155 million Americans consumed on July 4. Yes, July is National Hot Dog Month and, according to the National Hog Dog and Sausage Council, Americans eat more than 7 billion hot dogs between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Due to being the subject of much humor, rumor and rampant speculation, a question everyone always seems to ask is: “What exactly is in a hot dog?” According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, all hot dogs are cured and cooked sausages that consist of mainly pork, beef, chicken, and turkey or a combination of meat and poultry.
Meats used in hot dogs come from the muscle of the animal and look much like what you buy in the grocer’s case. Other ingredients include water, curing agents and spices, such as garlic, salt, sugar, ground mustard, coriander and white pepper.
If variety meats, such as liver and hearts, are used in processed meats, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires the manufacturer to declare those ingredients on the package with the statement, “with variety meats” or “with meat by-products.” The manufacturer must then specify which variety meat is included. In the U.S., companies are required to list ingredients in order, from the main ingredient to the least ingredient.
So, how did the hot dog get its name? The term “hot dog” is generally credited to sports cartoonist Tad Dorgan, who was employed by a Hearst newspaper. At a 1906 baseball game at the Polo Grounds in New York, vendors began selling hot dachshund sausages in rolls. From the press box, Dorgan could hear the vendors yelling, “Get your red-hot dachshund sausages.” The legend states that Dorgan was inspired by the scene and sketched a cartoon with a real dachshund dog, smeared with mustard, in a bun. But, Dorgan was not sure how to spell dachshund, instead writing “get your hot dogs” for the caption.
It’s believed that hot dogs became standard fare at ballparks in 1893, when St. Louis bar owner and German immigrant Chris Von de Ahe, put the sausages on the concession menu of the St. Louis Browns baseball team, which he owned.
One of the more vexing questions ever (yes, I’ve wanted to know this answer for years): Why are there typically 10 hot dogs per package, but eight hot dog buns per bag? When hot dog buns were introduced, hot dogs were sold in varying quantities at the butcher shop. Not until 1940 were hot dogs packaged the way we currently see them in the grocery store. When manufacturers began packaging hot dogs, they chose the 10-to- the-package formula. Today, hot dogs are sold most often in eight or 10 to the pound packages, but some are sold in other quantities as well.
Sandwich rolls, or hot dog buns, most often come eight to the bag because the buns are baked in clusters of four in pans designed to hold eight rolls. While baking pans now come in configurations that allow baking 10, and even 12 at a time, the eight roll pan remains the most popular.
There is an excellent chance that the hot dogs consumed in this area are actually “locally” grown, due to North Carolina currently ranking second nationally in pork production with 8.6 million head. Iowa leads the nation with 19.7 million hogs and pigs.
Brad Johnson is an agriculture, livestock and dairy agent with Rowan County Cooperative Extension.