When Fast Food Became Popular (And Where To Find The Best Options Worldwide!)
The month of July boasts three national awareness days - one for hot dogs, one for French fries and one for ice cream. Here's a brief history about all of them - and where to find the best options around the world!
Fast food is having a moment. Yup, the month of July boasts not one, not two but three national awareness days - one for hot dogs, one for French fries and one for ice cream. Naturally, it would be irresponsible of us to just let this pass without a blog dedicated to those foods we love the most so ... here we are! Bon appetit!
Hot dogs
Ah … the good old sausage - one of the oldest forms of processed food. Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, is traditionally credited with creating the frankfurter in 1487 (well, the clue is kinda in the name), but the earliest mention of it actually seems to date back as far as 700 B.C. in Homer’s Odyssey. Other legends speak of Roman emperor Nero, whose cook stuck a knife into a roasted pig and exclaimed at the empty and puffed intestines he deemed perfect for filingl with meat and spices.
Nonetheless, some assert that what ‘originated’ in Frankfurt was actually the brainchild of a 1600s German butcher named Johann Georghehner who lived in Coburg but traveled to Frankfurt to promote his product. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, but we should probably breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn’t called a Coburger as just imagine the confusion that would have caused when making an order in a noisy McDonald’s!
But it’s not just Germany that lays claim to its origins. The people of Vienna/Wien (wienerwurst) also point to these other names for the sausage to take ownership over its creation, although the master sausage maker of Vienna got his training in Frankfurt so … you can make your own conclusion!
Roll with it
Confusing, huh? And that’s before we even consider the roll part of the hot dog! According to one report, German immigrant, Charles Feltman, first sold them from a pushcart in 1860s Coney Island (and sold over 3,600 that year!). Hot dog historian Bruce Kraig (can we just take a moment to appreciate that title!) is also reported to have said that the Germans always ate sausages with bread. Given the hefty claim by the Germans over the hot dog, it is likely that the bun part originated over there, too (sorry, Vienna). However, another story speaks of an 1880s vendor who - on running out of white gloves to protect his customers’ hands from heat and grease - decided to start sticking the sausages in rolls instead. Fortunately for him, his brother-in-law was a baker and the rest, as they say, is history!
So, where the Americanization? That’s thanks to the fast-food favorite becoming a standard at baseball parks as far back as 1893 courtesy, again, of Charles Feltman. We can’t imagine he was too happy having to close up shop in response to one of his Polish employees, Nathan Handwerker, going alone and undercutting him by almost half, but that’s precisely what happened (eek). By the 1920s, Nathan’s hot dogs were sold nationwide and a staple at every fourth of July barbeque, laying the foundations for a much-loved tradition today.
It seems that everyone wants to claim the hot dog as their own invention (and we can’t say we blame them!), but no matter how you slice it, it’s pretty clear that the Germans can probably own this one.
What’s in a name?
Some believe that the name was coined in 1901 by vendors yelling, “They’re red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they’re red hot!”, which led a New York Journal cartoonist to draw a cartoon of barking sausages nestled in rolls. Unsure how to spell “dachshund”, he wrote “hot dog” instead. It’s a cute story but is unlikely to be true - historians have never been able to find this cartoon, despite his popularity and vast body of work.
In fact, hot dog historians tend to point to the wave of 1800s German immigrants who not only brought sausages to America but dachshund dogs, which are small, long and thin. An alternative explanation points to the sarcastic questioning of the sausages’ quality, with many joking - particularly among college circles - that they may well have been made from dog meat. Magazines from Harvard, Princeton and Cornell all demonstrate that the name was well-known by 1900 - further disproving the baseball/cartoonist myth above.
If nothing else, therefore, we can at least assume that the name “hot dog” originated in the U.S!
Walk in the footsteps of Johann Georghehner in this sausage-inspired escape tour in Frankfurt!
French fries
Because what’s a hot dog without French fries?
Ready to get your mind blown? The French fry may not have actually originated in France but … Belgium. “It’s not a French fry”, chef Albert Verdeyen is reported to have said. “It’s a Francophone fry.”
The 17th-century story goes that villagers along the river traditionally ate fried fish but when it came to winter, the river froze, leading them to fry potatoes instead. American soldiers are said to have discovered this in Belgium during World War I and - since the leading language of southern Belgium is French - they dubbed them French fries. However, culinary historian, Pierre Leclercq, is reported to have said that this story is “not plausible”, explaining that not potatoes were not introduced to the region until later and that fat was a luxury for people of limited means at this time.
Yet if you expected France to just take this all lying down, you’d be mistaken; many claim that the popular snack - in an earlier form - was first sold by pushcart vendors on Pont Neuf in the 18th century - despite the first written reference of it being in a 20th-century Belgian guide.
Another legend touts Thomas Jefferson - possibly the first American foodie - as introducing them, along with ice cream and mac and cheese, when he served as American Minister to France from 1784 to 1789. He was said to have asked for “potatoes served in the French manner.”
Despite Jefferson’s backing, the French fry did not actually become popular until the 1900s - possibly following World War I.
Belgium, meanwhile, has been petitioning Unesco for years to endorse the fry as an official icon of Belgian cultural heritage.
Belgium or France for some homemade French fries? The choice is yours!
Ice cream
Ready for a spot of dessert?
Ice cream goes back to the beginning of time, with Biblical references showing that King Solomon enjoyed iced drinks (albeit not entirely of the Starbucks standard). Alexander the Great was also said to eat snow and ice flavored with honey and nectar, while our good friend, Emperor Nero, also flavored snow with fruits and juices.
Some accounts detail the Venetian merchant, Marco Polo, returning to Italy from China in the 13th century with a recipe closely resembling today’s sherbet, and some historians believe that this evolved into ice cream during the 16th century. However, others refute this outright, claiming he never went to China, simultaneously concurring with the notion that - with or without Marco Polo - ice cream probably did originate in the Far East.
Thanks to its trade dealings with the Middle East and Asia, the technique of mixing salt with ice to reduce the freezing point made its way to Italy in the 16th century, playing its part in both sorbets and ice cream towards the end of the 17th century. However, the first mention of this chemical process actually dates back to a 4th-century collection of Indian folk tales (and Indian ice cream - Kulfi - remains much the same as it did back in the 16th century!).
In 1686, a Sicilian named Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened a cafe in Paris that introduced gelato - the Italian version of the sorbet - to the French public, including many famous intellectuals such as Benjamin Franklin, Victor Hugo and Napoleon.
From Italy, the delicious delicacy slowly spread throughout Europe, but England can also lay claim to being early purveyors of the treat, with King Charles II the first British Monarch known to have eaten it! Meanwhile, adding egg yolks to make a custard-based ice cream started in France in the middle of the 18th century. American colonists also brought recipes back from Europe around this time.
Commercial success
In the late 19th century, poor Italian immigrants made their way to both the UK and the USA, bringing their own traditions with them and taking advantage of the new working-class seaside holidays enabled by railways.
Ice cream remained a rare and exotic treat enjoyed mainly by the ‘cream’ of society until America did what it does best and invented a way to commercialize the treat, setting up manufacturing ice houses in the early 19th century. Thanks to technological advances, such as steam power, mechanical refrigeration and freezing processes - along with the importation of ice from Norway, Canada and America - ice cream production increased exponentially, and the world’s first ice cream factory was set up in 1851 in Pennsylvania by Jacob Fussell. In no time at all he was the head of a formidable empire and is today regarded as ‘the father of the wholesale ice cream industry’.
In 1874, ice cream soda - an American creation - was born. But, in response to religious criticism for eating this ‘sinfully’ decadent treat on Sundays, vendors started to leave out the carbonated water, creating, instead, the Ice Cream Sunday (later changed to Sundae to remove any connection with the Sabbath.).
The cone
Another area of debate. While America claims this as one of their own, research actually suggests the ice cream cone was an English invention. While it’s true that one Italian immigrant to New York, Italo Marchiony, is credited with patenting the first ice cream cone machine, there are at least two forerunners to his invention: 1. A ‘briosca con gelato’(a type of brioche bun) in both Naples and Sicily (still available today) and 2. Victorian food writer, Agnes B Marshall, who included a recipe for ‘cornets’ in her ‘Book of Ices’ cookbook from 1885.
Don’t say we never whet your appetite, hey?
