101 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
101 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
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Subject: Re: Etymology of junk food names
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In article <1992Jun18.162539.9714@sbcs.sunysb.edu> prasad@sbcs.sunysb.edu
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(Prasad Rao) writes:
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+What is the origin of the names "hot dog" and "hamburgher"?
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Charles Panati traces the origins of "hamburger" as follows:
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1. Origins in a medieval culinary practice popular among the Tartars,
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who shredded the low quality (i.e., tough) beef. Whence we get
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steak tartare (they didn't use capers and eggs though).
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2. Russian Tartars introduced it to Germany prior to the 14th century.
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The Germans mixed in regional spices and the dish was eaten both
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cooked and raw and became common among the poorer classes. In
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Hamburg, the dish acquired the name "Hamburg steak" during a visit
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by a visiting Irish chieftan who was an ancestor of John F.
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Kennedy (well, I might be joking about the Chieftan part).
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3. The dish went to England and met with Dr. J.H. Salisbury. This guy
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was a food reformer and physician (popular combo in those days, it
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seems) who was big on shredding all foods prior to consumption to
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improve digestability. He was also big on eating beef 3 times a
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day, washed down by hot water. Now we get Salisbury steak which
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was no big deal until Swanson over promoted it (well I might be
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semi-kidding about Swanson).
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4. Concurrently, Hamburg steak travelled with German immigrants to
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the US in the 1880s and we get "hamburger steak," then "hamburger."
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The timing of the bun business is not known though Panati says that
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by the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, it was already a sandwich
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and was also known as "hamburg."
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Regarding the "hot dog", this delicacy is dated back to 1500 B.C. in
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Babylonia (I guess that explains the taste of many of the modern ones).
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Suffice it to say that stuff meat in animal intestines was (and still is)
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a pretty popular culinary approach.
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Some highlights though, included the big (heh) role played by sausage
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in the Roman festival Lupercalia where Panati says other writers alluded
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that the sausage may have played a role beyond mere foodstuff. Anyway,
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the early Roman Catholic Church made sausage eating a sin and Constantine
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banned its consumption.
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In the 1850s, the Germans made thick, soft, and fatty sausages from which
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we get "frank." In 1852, the butcher's guild in Frankfurt introduced a
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spiced and smoked sausage which was packed in a thin casing and they
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called it a "frankfurter" after their hometown. The sausage had a
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slightly curved shape supposedly due to the coaxing of a butcher who
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had a popular dachshund. The frankfurter was also known as a "dachshund
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sausage" and this name came with it to America.
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The two Frankfurters who introduced the frankfurter to the US were
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Antoine Feuchtwanger (in St. Louis, Mo.) and Charles Feltman, a baker
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who had a push cart on New York's Coney Island. Supposedly, Feltman's
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pie business couldn't compete with the hot dishes sold by the inns
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there, and decided to sell one kind of small hot sandwich, the frankfurter,
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since his cart couldn't handle anything fancier or offer greater variety.
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He served them with traditional mustard and sauerkraut, it was a hit,
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and he opened Feltman's German Beer Garden. In 1913, he hired Nathan
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Handwerker to help him out at US$11/week.
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Two frankfurter fanatics, Eddie Condon and Jimmy Durante (yep, the ones),
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were pissed that Feltman raised his franks to US$0.10 and convinced
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Handwerker to break off and sell 'em for US$0.05. And that's what
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that traitor, er, canny businessman did in 1916. So he opened a concession
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using his wife's Ida recipe. He promoted it by offering free dogs to
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the docs at Coney Island Hospital on condition that they eat at his
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stand with their dress whites and prominently displayed stethoscopes
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(obviously, the current of ethics in the medical profession go back
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a ways). This was a hit.
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As an aside, Handwerker then Clara Bowtinelli, who bagged out and
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turned down possible fame and fortune toiling in a dog joint to
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become Clara "The It Girl" Bow.
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Anyways, the sausage was known as frankfurters, red hots, dachshund
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sausages, wieners, etc. By this time, there was a guy, Harry Stevens,
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who owned a refreshment concessionaire who had made popular doggies
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at NYC baseball games. His vendors supposedly called out "Get your
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red-hot dachshund sausages!" (You can see why this became shorted
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later on.)
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In the summer of 1906, a Hearst paper cartoonist, Tad Dorgan was inspired
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by the shape of the sausage and the calls of the vendors to sketch a
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cartoon with a real dachshund, smeared with mustard, in a bun. Supposedly,
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while he was at the office refining the cartoon, he couldn't spell the
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name of the damn dog so he made the caption "get your hot dogs."
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Anyway, this guy Dorgan was considered a major cartoonist and has had
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retrospectives to his work, and historians, archivists, and curators
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generally credit him with the name, but the supposed cartoon has never
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been found.
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BTW, the US produces something like 16.5 billion hot dogs per annum.
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Terry "Gimme an 21 without the motor" Chan
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