Hot Dog
Quick facts
- Kind of food
- Fast food, finger food
- Comes from
- Germany (early version), United States (modern version)
Facts from Wikipedia’s “Hot dog” page (CC BY-SA 4.0).
A hot dog (or hotdog) is a food created in Frankfurt, Germany. In the United States, hot dogs are very popular in areas with large numbers of European immigrants, such as Chicago, Brooklyn and Detroit. The word “hot dog” refers to the belief that many people thought hot dogs had actual dog meat. In a few places, hot dogs are also called red-hots.
A hot dog is made of the remains of the pig after other parts are cut off and sold as bacon, sausage patties, and ham. Hot dogs can be boiled, grilled, or fried. The most common type of hot dogs are made from beef, sometimes mixed with pork. Chicken and vegetarian hot dogs are popular as well. Hot dogs and other sausage products were first developed as a way to sell these parts that people would not normally eat. Nearly 20% of the weight of a hot dog is usually non-meat ingredients including water, sugar, and spices. Some legal categories of hot dogs, such as “frankfurters” can contain up to 3.5% of non-meat fillers as well, such as corn meal.
To add to the taste, various toppings and sauces are often added. The most common sauces in the United States are ketchup, mustard and pickle relish. Onions, chopped pickles, peppers, hot sauce and cheese are also sometimes added to the food. Onions cooked in tomato sauce and Sauerkraut are popular toppings, as is chili.
In the United States, there are many different types of hot dogs, with different combinations of chili, cheese, onions, mustard, and other products. One of the most popular types of hot dogs is a chili dog. There are many different types of chili dogs. One of the most well-known is a Coney Island dog, a dog topped with a blend of chili, cheese, mustard and onions that is originally from Michigan. Other types of chili dogs include Michigan dogs, which are from upstate New York, and Texas dogs, which are from Pennsylvania. Both Michigan and Texas dogs are spicy; the Texas dog has spicy sauce and the Michigan dog has a spicy weiner. Chili dogs are also popular in the Southwestern United States. Another type of hot dog is a Chicago dog, which is a Vienna beef weiner topped with mustard, onion, neon green pickle relish, peppers, tomatoes and a pickle.
A type of hot dog called a “kosher hot dog” is very common in parts of the United States and overseas. It is similar to most hot dogs except that it is always made of Kosher beef, has more spice added to it. Kosher hotdogs contain less of the less desirable sounding ingredients (such as rectum) as these parts are not considered to be Kosher beef.
Though hot dogs are most popular in the United States, they are served in many places around the world. People in England eat many hot dogs, and the world’s largest hot dog ever was made there. In some countries, “hot dog” is the name of a completely different sausage dish; for example, in New Zealand it is used to mean corn dog, and hot dogs are called “American hot dogs” instead. Hot dogs are also popular in Australian elections, where they are called “democracy sausages”.
Written for younger readers
Hot Dog, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: How Things Are Made
Frankfurter wurst.JPG|Hot dogs sealed inside a bottle Hot dogs are known by many different names including frankfurters, franks, red hots, and wieners.
Hot dogs are primarily made of meat, salt, curing solutions, flavouring and extenders.
Meat type that is most often used is pork, other types may be used such as beef, chicken or turkey.
Salt is used to make the meat easier to work with, improve flavor, and inhibit bacterial growth.
Curing solution have some components such as water that functions including helping create the necessary meat emulsion and adding to the meat’s juiciness. Sodium nitrite is included in the curing solution to retard the development of rancidity and stabilize the meat color. Sugar and corn syrup are used to give hot dogs a sweeter taste.
Flavouring are used to enhance taste of the hotdog and usually includes pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cumin, and dill.
Extenders are non-meat ingredients (usually are from non-fat milk, cereal, soy protein and whole milk) that increase the number of hot dogs that can be made from a set amount of meat and improve the nutritive value.
Step by step (Preferable in bullet point list)
- Step 1: The production of hot dogs begins with the preparation of meat. After it passes inspection, the incoming meat is chop into small pieces and placed in a stainless steel mixing container. The container is equipped with high-speed choppers, which can reduce the size of the meat pieces even further. The other raw materials including the curing ingredients, salt and flavorings are blended in this container until batter is produced.
- Step 2: The meat batter is pumped into an automatic linker machine. In this machine, batter is put into tube-shaped, cellulose casings .These casing are then twisted at precise points to produce a long linked strand of equally sized hot dogs. Most casing are natural casings, which remain on and are eaten along with the hot dog.
- Step 3: The linked hot dog strands are then conveyed to a large smokehouse. Here, they are thoroughly smoked under controlled conditions. The cooking times vary depending on the recipe however, typically it takes about an hour.
Russian_Sausage_Making.jpg |Step 1a: The meat and ingredients are put inside the mixer KochVakuumKutter.jpg|Step 1b: The ingredients are chop inside meat grinders Pemrosesan Daging Sosej.png|Step 2: The meat are passing through the linker machine to form long tube of hot dog Salame in fume.jpg|Step 3: The hotdogs are smoked inside smoke house
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Hot Dog” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
Both sources are published under CC BY-SA 4.0, so this page is published under the same licence. You may share and adapt it, including commercially, as long as you credit the original and keep the same licence.
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