March 17, 2025
Wandering Wikipedia: Hot Dog Buns
This week I was hungry, so I went to the lunch room and ate a hot dog. I thought to myself, “This would make a great article, the classic hot dog.” Then I thought, “The hot dog would not be complete without the humble bun, to keep one’s fingers from being covered in grease or burnt by the hot dog.” So, I pulled up Wikipedia and looked up hot dog buns.
While the term “‘hot dog”’ was coined in the late 19th century by Americans joking that German sausages looked suspiciously like their dachshunds, the bun itself was invented slightly before that. Interestingly, one man on Coney Island during the 1870s claimed to have invented the hot dog bun, but the earliest evidence we have comes from 1904, at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Here, a German concessionaire1 started a sausage stand that sold hot sausages called “Frankfurters” after his hometown of Frankfurt, Hesse.2
At first, the man loaned gloves to his customers to hold the sausage in order to protect their hands., However, his gloves were not being returned after customers had finished their sausages. Thus, the man went to his brother, who happened to be a baker, looking for a solution. From there, his brother made some rolls that were longer, thinner, and able to be easily be split down the side for easy insertion of frankfurters. This was the earliest evidence we have of hot dog buns.
And that’s all the random knowledge we have for you this week. Tune in next issue for another edition of Wandering Wikipedia.
Footnotes
1. One who sells concessions.
2. A state in central Germany.