America's Top Hot Dogs Favorite Street Foods / Hot Dogs / America Street Food

Hot Dogs
The hot dog or dog is a grilled or steamed link-sausage sandwich where the sausage is served in the slit of a partially sliced hot dog bun, a bun of size and shape to hold the sausage. It can also refer to the sausage of its composition itself. The sausage used is the wiener or frankfurter.

If you live in Chicago, it's a beef frank and you eat it on a poppy seed roll with mustard, relish, onions, pickles, tomatoes and celery salt. If you're in Rochester, N.Y., it's a spicy pork sausage -- split, grilled and nestled in a toasted bun. The varieties are as endless as the stories of its origins. Are they called franks because they were invented in Frankfurt, or are they called wieners because they come from Wien (aka Vienna)? Nobody knows for sure, but one thing's certain: A hot dog's not a hot dog until it's sitting in a bun. And that important innovation is all-American.