[Sca-cooks] what the Franks were eating

[Wanda Pease]

On 5/2/2010 4:22 PM, Huette von Ahrens wrote:
> Regina,
>
> I am surprised that you are surprised.  I thought that it was common knowledge that the hot dogs we eat today had been instroduced to the US by Frankfurt butchers when they immigrated to here.  In fact, according to the Oxfort Companion to Food that one expatriot Frankfurt butcher also brought his Dachshund dog with him and opened his shop on Coney Island selling his wurst as "dachshund sausages".  Myth has it that one of his shills got tired of saying "dachshund sausages" and eventually started calling them first "dog sausages" and then "hot dogs".  Another Frankfurt butcher immigrated to Vienna and his wursts soon became "Wienerwurst".  This gentleman eventually immigrated to the US and sold his "wieners" or "wiennies" to the US.  Both butchers used similar recipes, so it is not surprising that franks, hot dogs and wiennies taste so similar, and that what you tasted in Frankfurt long ago tasted just like what we have here because the same recipe is
>   still in use.  If you had wanted something different you would have needed to go to another area and taste their local wursts, like weisswurst or knockwurst or bratwurst or leberwurst or blutwurst.
>
> Huette
>    
chuckle!  Actually I made it a point to try every different 
sausage/wurst that I could while I was in Germany.  Every town has it's 
own specialty.  I knew the story of how the Frankfurter got introduced 
to the US, but somehow I just still thought it would be "different" in 
the home of origin.  Just sort of a let down that it was indeed a "foot 
long dog"  :-).  The meat seemed to be more finely ground that most of 
the other wursts further south.  Not much taste either.  I liked the 
sort of generic Rindwurst more than the Weisswurst although both we 
definitely on my "lets just grab a curry wurst or something quick and 
hit the museum".  Nuremburger sausage also seemed to have an inflated 
reputation.

I guess I expected the Frankfurter to be different the was Schlitz Beer 
is in Germany as opposed to the stuff we got here in the States.  The 
same original recipe, but "modernized" for American tastes.

Regina