Don’t Call Sausage a Hot Dog
By Tris Marlis - Tuesday, Mar 19, 2013
Hot dog with bread or scrambled eggs appear constantly in children’s lunch box. For adult, having German sausages with sauerkraut and beer is the way to end a long working week. Both hot dogs and sausages seem to be similar to the uninitiated. Some may call the hot dog a sausage, but never call a sausage a hot dog, because…
Origin
Sausage is said to have it origins from Germany. It is one of the oldest forms of processed food, as a way to preserve meat of lesser cuts. One of the earliest mention of sausage in an ancient work is in Homer’s “Odyssey,” that is written in 850 B.C.
It is said that German immigrants later brought sausages into America, and started selling them on the street. Around 1880, a German named Antonoine Feuchtwanger started selling sausages in soft rolls so his customers could enjoy hot sausages without burning their fingers. There, hot dog was born, sausage in a warm soft roll.
Don’t call a Sausage a Hot DogDried Sausage (file photo: makansutra)
The differences
Sausage is a general term for grounded meat that is incased in a cleaned intestine, or stomach. There is a great variation of sausage, up to a thousand types from all over the world, from German wurst to Filipino longanisa. The type of sausages is determined based on its origin, ingredients and how it’s made (i.e. boiled, cured or smoked).
Hot dog on other hand is a complete dish with sausage and bun, and that particular sausage is known as Frankfurter.
If you compare Frankfurter, to let’s say, lap chiong (Chinese dried sausage), the texture of Frankfurter is smooth like pureed paste and homogeneous. Frankfurter is a type of boiled sausage, made of grounded meat mixed with fat, flavourings and preservative. It is usually made of beef and pork, or beef only (which is kosher to the Jews).
Lap Chiong is an example of dried sausage. The texture of this sausage is coarse with distinguishable pieces of meat, fat, and sometimes other animal parts like liver. Most of these sausages come in raw form to maintain the fat and juiciness of the meat which, sausages like Frankurter does not have.
Another difference is Frankurter, or hot dog, is usually cheaper and eaten leisurely, while sausages can be a gourmet delicacy. With over thousands of variations, anything can go in the intestine casing.
