It's Summer! Hot Dawg!

Whether it’s wieners roasting over a beach bonfire, sausages sizzling on the backyard grill, or paper-shrouded franks at the ball game, it just wouldn’t seem like the height of summer without hot dogs.

And we can thank the butchers of Vienna and Frankfurt who invented the modern version of bratwurst back in the 1800s. Originally a more seasoned beef than we now enjoy, but thinner than the bratwurst and knockwurst that preceded them, wieners and frankfurters were named after their places of origin. 

When one of the Frankfurt butchers curved his sausages to resemble his pet, the links were called “dachshund sausages,” and that’s the moniker they brought to the United States, where street venders stuck them inside a bun for easier eating.

According to NPR’s Howard Yoon, the name “hot dog” came from a cartoon drawn by a New York Evening Journal artist in 1902. Because he did not know how to spell “dachshund,” Tad Dorgan labeled his dachshund nestled in a roll, “hot dog.”

If you visit www.NPR.org, you can find recipes for the all-American favorite wiener from the most hot-doggy cities of Chicago, L.A. and New York. But if you’ve got a hankering for a frank right now, consider the recommendations of some of our local concierges.

Jennifer Fine at Hilton Del Mar says Chicago on a Bun in La Jolla is the best place to grab a hot dog. “The relish!” she says.  “It’s the best and they serve Vienna hot dogs.” Stacy Levesque and some of her colleagues at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina would choose the City Deli in Hillcrest or DZ Akins near Lake Murray, “just because we think if it’s a deli, the hot dogs are probably good,” she says.  

Marguerite Cruz of Paradise Point Resort & Spa would get her dachshund dog and a favorite drink at Hot Dog on a Stick in Horton Plaza. “Their homemade lemonade is the best!” she says.  

Mike Denton at Hilton Gaslamp Quarter says the last place he had a hotdog in San Diego (because we don’t have a Pink’s, his L.A. favorite) was at the Linkery in North Park.  “They have great real sausages and there’s a hip urban crowd,” he says.  But for a “high end dog,” it’s the Sausage King in Mission Hills.  But you have to take it home and cook it yourself. 

Jonathan Barone of Hotel La Jolla at the Shores goes back to the basics.  “I like the hot dogs at the Padre games,” he says.  “Get the regular hot dog and put your own mustard and whatever on it.”