"hot dog" and Hundewurst

[Gerald Cohen]

   Jonathon Green and Douglas Wilson have asked me to reproduce the
passage on German _Huendchen_ and _Pferdewurst_ from my _Comments on
Etymology_ XX nos. 5-6. Here it is (p.12):
        'The following letter was sent to the _[N.Y.]
Herald-Tribune_[June 6, 1931, p.10, col. 7] by F. H. Niles,
President, New York Stewards and Caterers' Association.  The letter
appears under the title: "'Hot Dogs' in the '60's," with the
subtitle:  "Germans of old New York Called Frankfurters Hundewurst":
        'You ask for information from a reliable source regarding the
origin of the name of "hot dogs," as applied to the smoked Frankfurt
sausage.  They were well known before 1868 in the German quarters of
old New York, where these sausages were made in numerous
wurstgeschaeften, large and small.  They were called by the German
hundewurst or huendchen, meaning "little dogs." A larger, longer
bologna was called pferdewurst, or horse bologna.  At first they were
used in family meals and restaurants.  Later in that decade, when the
hot corn season ended in the fall, an enterprising German Civil War
veteran, a member of Franz Sigel Post, G.A.R., thought out the kettle
with three compartments, heated by charcoal underneath.  With this
kettle and a basket he stationed himself at the corner of the Bowery
and Grand Street, appearing every night at about 1 o'clock.  The
sausage was heated in the center kettle, which was filled with hot
water to heat the frankfurters.  In the other two kettles on either
side were the kraut and rolls, the same long milk rolls which are
used today, only they tasted better.

        'The name "hot dogs" in English was conferred on them at Coney Island
[G. Cohen: No! The term is first attested in college slang], where,
heated on hot griddles, they were sold on the beach.  The Bowery at
that period was covered on its east curb from Houston to Grand Street
with stands which sold smoked eels and smoked sturgeon...Rich and
poor alike patronized and ate at these stands and enjoyed the foods
they sold.  The name "wieners" came from the Mid-West.'
*******
    That's the newspaper article. I would now just add that whatever
was going on with the German Hundewurst or Pferdewurst, the immediate
inspiration for coining  the sausage-term "hot dog" came from the
19th century popular belief that dog meat occasionally turned up in
sausages; and at first the term was appropriately regarded as
disgusting by at least some people.
    Also, Irving Allen's book appeared in 1993, and since then much
additional research on "hot dog" has taken place, most notably by
Barry Popik, David Shulman, and DARE's Leonard Zwilling; Zwilling
examined every single one of T.A. Dorgan's cartoons and notified me
that Dorgan's supposed Polo Grounds "hot dog" cartoon never existed.

---Gerald Cohen

>
>Maybe Gerald Cohen will be so kind as to quote his source for "dog-sausage"
>and "horse-sausage"? (I have a subscription to COE but I don't have access
>to back issues.)
>
>-- Doug Wilson