Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Bogelbaum. Here, Americans love their hot dogs, and we
Speaker 1: may really love them. The National hot Dog and Sausage
Speaker 1: Council estimates that Americans eat twenty billion hot dogs a year.
Speaker 1: And yes, that's billion with a B. That's about seventy
Speaker 1: hot dogs per person. That's a lot of hot dogs.
Speaker 1: But hot dogs did not originate in the United States.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of stories about where the hot
Speaker 1: dog did come from, but we're pretty certain it's Germany.
Speaker 1: One story says its origin is the Frankfurter, which was
Speaker 1: first created in Frankfurt, but another story says that's not
Speaker 1: quite true, but that its roots are rather with the
Speaker 1: popular sausage known as the docks in or little dog sausage.
Speaker 1: That one was created in the late sixteen hundreds by
Speaker 1: a particular butcher who was from Kuborg, Germany, who supposedly
Speaker 1: later traveled to Frankfort to promote his creation. That one
Speaker 1: would explain the source for the name hot dog. Whichever
Speaker 1: story is true, was pivotal for the hot dog. That's
Speaker 1: because tons of them were sold that year at the
Speaker 1: Colombian Exposition in Chicago. They were tasty, easy to hold,
Speaker 1: and cheap. That same year was also when the hot
Speaker 1: dog became synonymous with baseball. That tradition was started by
Speaker 1: a St. Louis bar owner, one Chris vonder Aha, who
Speaker 1: was a German immigrant and the owner of the St.
Speaker 1: Louis Brown's Major League baseball team, though again there is
Speaker 1: some contention here. Others claim it was a New York concessionaire,
Speaker 1: Harry M. Stevens, who popularized the hot dog at baseball games.
Speaker 1: But all of this brings us to the question of
Speaker 1: the day. What exactly is in those seventy billion hot
Speaker 1: dogs that Americans scarfed down every year. Well, it depends
Speaker 1: on a lot of things, especially the brand you buy.
Speaker 1: Every brand, of course, uses their own recipe, which will
Speaker 1: include different ingredients, spices, binders, and flavorings. But according to
Speaker 1: the National hot Dog and Sausage Counsel, in general, hot
Speaker 1: dogs may include meats which could be pork, beef, poultry,
Speaker 1: or a combination of the above. Water, spices which could
Speaker 1: include pepper, garlic, coriander, cinnamon, human nutmeg, paprika, and allspice,
Speaker 1: beef stock for a meteor flavor, a cherry powder for color,
Speaker 1: citric acid which is used to help balance the flavor
Speaker 1: and as a preservative. Sugar or corn syrup to balance
Speaker 1: the flavor and help promote browning, and as a preservative.
Speaker 1: Sodium nitrate which is responsible for curing casing, including collagen
Speaker 1: as an alternative to hog or sheep intestines, modified food
Speaker 1: starts used as a thickener, and finally, yeast extract which
Speaker 1: adds a savory flavor. So not every hot dog will
Speaker 1: include every ingredient from this list. As we already mentioned,
Speaker 1: recipes will vary greatly depending on who's making the dog
Speaker 1: in question, But how hot dogs are made is pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: Here's how it works. First, selected meat trimmings are cut
Speaker 1: and round into small pieces and put into a mixer. Then,
Speaker 1: a high speed chopper blends the meat, spices, and curing
Speaker 1: ingredients into an emulsion. You can think of this as
Speaker 1: a batter. The mixture is then pumped into an automatic
Speaker 1: stuffer and linker machine and further into either temporary inedible
Speaker 1: casings or permanent edible ones. Once the casings are filled,
Speaker 1: they're twisted into long linked strands of hot dogs and
Speaker 1: then fully cooked. Some hot dogs are also smoked for
Speaker 1: extra flavor. Next, the hot dogs are cooled in water,
Speaker 1: and if it was a temporary casing, that protective casing
Speaker 1: is stripped away. Individual links are sent to the packaging lines,
Speaker 1: where the hot dogs are finally fed into the vacuum
Speaker 1: packaging equipment, wrapped and vacuum sealed in plastic film, packaged,
Speaker 1: and boxed. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Americans eat
Speaker 1: about seven billion hot dogs. On July fourth alone, Americans
Speaker 1: eat a hundred and fifty million hot dogs. That's enough
Speaker 1: to stretch from washing to d C to l A
Speaker 1: more than five times. Today's episode was written by Sarah
Speaker 1: Glin and produced by Tyler Clang. For more in this
Speaker 1: and lots of other linked topics, visit how stuffworks dot com.
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