Historical Perspective - Evolution of the Hot Dog Bun

The modern day hot dog is the most recent evolution of tubed meat products originating from the frankfurter, the product of Vienna Austria likely dating to the 18th century. The hot dog is described as a soft moist sausage made of mechanically recovered meat and shares the tubed meat family with other products such as the wiener, sausage, brockwurst and bologna. Most often, the hot dog is served inside a bread-shaped roll called a hot dog bun.

Currently, hot dog buns are divided into two distinct families: the top loader and the side loader. 'Top loaders' tend to be easier to manage and are intended for consumers who struggle to manage the food without spilling. The 'side loader' is a more risky product intended for advanced hot dog consumers and tend to be doughier than their counterparts.

The original hot dog buns, however, bore little resemblance to the top or side loaders that we are familiar with in present day. As hot dogs began to grow in prevalence and popularity in the 1820's, the original roll was developed as a single roll with no side or top split, but rather a tubular hole in which the hot dog is inserted and firmly housed as it is eaten. The uppermost portion of the role featured a canal that ran lengthwise along the bun, which was filled with various garnishings and condiments including ketchup, mustard, relish and sauerkraut (a cabbage based food invented by Germanic tribes in the 2nd century BCE which was force-fed to captured Roman soldiers as a torture-tactic). See below for a sketch of the original hot dog roll:

In the mid-1850's, a professional baseball craze hit the New York Metropolitan area and with this success, so grew the prominence of hot dogs and the tubular bread products which housed them. Following a brief drop in hot dog consumption during the Civil War, the tubed meat enjoyed record-setting sales from Bangor, Maine to Tallahassee, Florida and out West through the new frontier.

The early 1880's, however, saw a major set-back and ultimately evolutionary period for hot dogs, and the buns associated with them in particular. In 1883 a group of Quaker dissenters known as Beanites launched a very aggressive, very public boycott of hot dogs, who saw the act of inserting hot dogs into their tubular buns as an innuendo of sexual intercourse. The Beanites, founded by Joel Bean in 1863, opposed extreme radical evangelicalism that had crept into the Quaker ideology. With a community of over 5,000 in New Hampshire, the group held a great deal of influence over social and political spheres in post-Civil War New England.

In the twenty years since the Beanite community's inception, the group's population nearly tripled in size, 'the symptom,' Joel Bean claimed 'of a formerly unexplained spike in teenage pregnancy directly linked to the subliminal sexual messaging that the consumption of hot dogs promotes.' Bean, the author of the Quaker pamphlet 'Bean's Banter' claimed in a lengthy essay in 1883 that the 'lewd image of a hot dog inserted into its tubular bun has directed a God-fearing community of Beanites into a dark era of vice dubbed as The Three P's: early Pregnancy, eventual Poverty and Prostitution.' In effect, Bean claimed that the sexual nature of hot dog and hot dog bun consumption was influencing the younger generation of his community to engage in unplanned, ill-advised premarital intercourse.

In June of 1884, Bean found an audience for his message when Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Times published an editorial by Bean entitled 'A Hot Dog Roll in the Hay? No Thanks!' The aggressive, often slanderous piece formed the basis for an offensive on hot dog manufacturers and bread-bakers nationwide. With the support of extensive nationwide boycotts and petitions signed by various types of religious groups, the first hot dog bun-baker closed its doors in October of 1884, citing a lack of sales. It was the first major victory for the Beanites in a long list of many and by September of 1885, three of the top five hot dog roll manufacturers closed their doors.

As the Quaker-dissenting group reveled in its successes, Congress and major political figures took notice of the movement. In 1885, the Episcopalian incumbent President of the United States Chester A. Arthur voiced his opinion during his re-election campaign. Denouncing the consumption of all hot-dog related products, Arthur stated, 'True Patriots enjoy hamburgers, or at the very least hot dogs without buns. Any refusal to adhere to this simple guideline of decency is in effect a blatant rejection of the sanctity of God, family and the very beliefs and fortitude with which this country was founded.'

Joel Bean officially declared victory when hot dog and hot dog bun sales plummeted to a mere 25% of industry revenue standards achieved just five years earlier in 1880. Only in 1894, when Wonder Bread introduced a new 'top loaded' hot dog roll product with the tagline: 'Wonder Bread is God's Choice!' did the hot dog industry begin to realign. The product was reintroduced to ballparks and sales immediately spiked, thus commencing the Golden Age of Hot Dog consumption, a period which lasted for over 50 years.

Sales once again faltered, however, following the hot dog's introduction to Soviet Belarus. In 1963, as the international nuclear arms race raged, US President John Kennedy penned and ratified the Nuclear Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) which banned the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. The treaty was to be signed by Kennedy on October 7th in the Oval Office, as well as ratified by the United Kingdom and the USSR, represented by Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko. Following the meeting, President Kennedy (a lover of tubed meat) is said to have shared several hot dogs with Minister Gromyko, who considered the food a 'new and foreign delicacy.'

Gromyko was so taken with hot dogs that he ordered his plane back to Moscow be stocked with the meat, citing the unavailability of the product in Soviet Russia. Hot dogs quickly became a steady staple in the Minister's diet and during a public address in Minsk, Belarus concerning arms disarmament issues, Gromyko jokingly made reference to his new-found love of hot dogs stating, 'I am introducing hot dogs to Eastern Europe!'

Belarussians however, misunderstood the foreign reference, and assumed that the term 'hot dog' referred to a species of canine, rather than a food. Belarus, one of Europe's major chicken exporters, immediately began to panic, worrying that a new introduced species of canine would decimate the chicken population, greatly inhibiting job growth and the region's competitiveness. The reaction was swift as several Soviet media outlets immediately slandered Gromyko's attempt at introducing a new race of dog. International headlines widely denounced both Gromyko and hot dogs, and sales within the industry once again plummeted. The issue did not however have an immense impact on Gromyko's politcal career, who held office until 1985 and played a pivotal role in the Cuban Missile Crisis negotiations as well as the non-aggression pact with West Germany. He did not speak publicly about his fondness of hot dogs again.

Currently, hot dogs are sold in the United States at a clip of over 100 million per year. They have found a spot in American culture in baseball parks across the country and every Fourth of July, Nathan's Hot Dogs sponsors a hot dog eating contest, of which Rosie O'Donnell is a yearly participant, winning the competition in 2002.