Frankfurter

A frankfurter is a long, thin, pink sausage traditionally made from cows and pigs in the German city of Frankfurt. Like the hamburger, the frankfurter emigrated to the USA with Germans in the nineteenth century and later spread worldwide from there, with more recent variations made also from chickens, turkeys and soya beans. Frankfurters can be cooked by grilling, steaming, or boiling and may be served with sauerkraut or potato salad, and are widely sold as fast food from hot dog stands, street kitchens and food trucks in the USA and other countries. When served in a long thin white bun, the frankfurter may be called a hot dog or wiener, and when first sold in the USA it was actually called a “dachshund sausage”, presumably in reference only to its shape, so giving rise to the term hot dog.

Frankfurter, Hamburger and Wiener are also each terms for the citizens of the respective German-speaking cities from which those foods originate, as is the word Berliner, which also means “doughnut”. US president John F Kennedy famously showed solidarity with Berliners on a visit to Berlin in June 1963, two years after the infamous Berlin Wall had been built, by stating: “Ich bin ein Berliner”, which has been much reported due to the potential double meaning.