America’s Best Hot Dogs

There may never be agreement on where the hot dog came from, but our writer stakes a claim for the seven best places to find one today.

By Bret Stetka for MSN City Guides

The hot dog is a complicated sausage. Not so much in flavor, but in origin.

The Viennese claim it theirs, hence the now snicker-worthy nickname “wieners” -- taken from Vienna’s name in German, Wien. Frankfurt’s not buying it, and instead traces the hot dog back to its own frankfurter wurst, supposedly invented in the 1480s. Still other accounts attribute the ancient sausage to Johann Georghehner, a 17^th-century Bavarian butcher who deemed his creation the dachshund, or badger dog. All the squabbling is understandable: Who wouldn't want to claim the hot dog as their own?
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Wherever it came from, the dog eventually crossed the Atlantic and in the mid-to-late 1800s began popping up in cities like Chicago and New York. In 1867, a German butcher named Charles Feltman set up a hot dog stand in Coney Island, Brooklyn, later inspiring his employee, Nathan Handwerker, to found his own doggerie, Nathan’s Famous. Nathan’s has since become the best known dog shop in the country, and still intrigues and disgusts us every year with its July 4^th Hot Dog Eating Contest. (I hate when they dip the buns in water!)

By the early 1900s the wiener craze had extended well beyond Coney, as the hot dog followed sausage-loving European immigrants all over the country. So to honor the narrowest of iconic American foods, I’ve profiled seven great hot dog shops around the country worth getting in your car and driving to ASAP. Let us know your favorite dog dealer in the message boards.