Celebrating the Hot Dog

Celebrating the Hot Dog

Celebrating the Hot Dog. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.

Ok. This one is just for fun but I couldn't resist. Did you know that July is National Hot Dog Month? There are different stories regarding who created the first hot dog - as well as the creation of the term hot dog. Eric Mittenthal of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says one story connects hot dogs with baseball.

MITTENTHAL: One of the most popular stories out there is from the New York Polo Grounds baseball game back in the early 1900's and one of the hot dog salesmen there was selling Red Hot Dachshund Dogs, that's what they were called then. A cartoonist who heard the vendor selling didn't know how to spell Dachshund so he just called it a Hot Dog instead.

Mittenthal says it took a while before the hot dog was given its own bun. Buns got their start by accident at a World's Fair.

MITTENTHAL: Sausages were actually eaten while wearing gloves so when you bought one you got a glove too and one of the vendors ran out of gloves. They happened to have some rolls with them so they put a sausage on a roll and that was the start of hot dog on a bun.

Eating hot dogs can be serious business. The council has a guide to hot dog etiquette that is closely followed.

MITTENTHAL: One of the tips of hot dog etiquette is that you should not put catsup on your hot dog after the age of 18. So for the kids in the Oscar Meyer commercials to put catsup on a hot dog is perfectly fine but once you hit the age of 18 we say, no more catsup. We follow the rules that Dirty Harry set forth and said never put catsup on a hot dog.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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