Request for info on hot dogs in literature

[Wilson Gray]

On Nov 21, 2004, at 11:21 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature
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>
> Ms. Aviv,
>     I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect Society. Maybe
> someone there will be able to help you. Offhand I don't know of any
> works of literature in which hot dogs figure prominently, although
> independent scholar Barry Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog"
> stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're
> interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David Shulman
> is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the Term "Hot Dog_"---
> limited edition; currently at the print shop.  If you're interested in
> that sort of material just let me know. (I'll be out of the office and
> away from my computer for a few days.)
>
> Sincerely,
> Gerald Cohen
>
>> ----------
>> From:         Rachel Aviv
>> Reply To:     Rachel Aviv
>> Sent:         Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM
>> To:   Cohen, Gerald Leonard
>> Subject:      hot dogs in literature
>>
>> Dear Professor Cohen,
>>
>> Bruce Kraig suggested I write you.  I am writing an article for the
>> Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about fat heroes in
>> literature.  I'm interested in talking about the role the hot dog has
>> played in novels and poems -- I was wondering if you knew any early
>> or current works in which hot dogs figure prominently.  So far the
>> only ones I can think of are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife
>> Diet.
>> I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad
>> ("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and
>> blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it
>> quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true?  And, if so - you
>> don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be,
>> do you?

This line is actually from the Odyssey,  not the Iliad. The word
translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho],
whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the
Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some
animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the
sausage. Another word, orua [omicron-rho-upsilon-nu], dating from
around 500 BCE, supposedly was used as the name of the completed
sausage.

-Wilson Gray

>>
>> At this point, my research has been pretty limited to google
>> searches, so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to
>> a text or two, it would be a
>> great help --
>>
>> Thanks very much!
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Rachel
>>
>>
>>
>