A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from May 26, 2015
Hot dog served with white gloves (myth)

An often-told story is that Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger invented the hot dog roll. At either a baseball game in 1883, or the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, or (as is usually told) the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, he sold sausages and handed his customers white gloves to handle them. However, the customers weren’t returning the white gloves, so he invented the first hot dog roll.
 
There is a history to the hot dog roll that pre-dates 1883. Sausages were served in bread by at least the 1840s and 1850s. where the term “sausage sandwich” can be found in newspapers. If Feuchtwanger had been serving sausages with white gloves in 1904, it would have been quite unusual and half a century behind the times.
 
The first record of Feuchwanger and the “white gloves” newspaper story is from 1950. It is hard to believe that the “white gloves” method ever happened. Regardless, Feuchtwanger certainly didn’t invent the hot dog roll.
 
 
Wikipedia: Hot dog
Around 1870, on Coney Island, German immigrant Charles Feltman began selling sausages in rolls.
 
Others are credited with first serving hot dogs on rolls. A Bavarian immigrant named Feuchtwanger allegedly pioneered the practice in the American midwest; there are several versions of the story with varying details. According to one account, Antonoine Feuchtwanger’s wife proposed the use of a bun in 1880: Feuchtwanger sold hot dogs on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and provided gloves to his customers so that they could handle the sausages without burning their hands. Losing money when customers did not return the gloves, Feuchtwanger’s wife suggested serving the food in a roll instead. In another version, Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger served sausages in rolls at the World’s Fair–either the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago or the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis–again allegedly because the white gloves provided to customers to protect their hands were being kept as souvenirs.
 
2 March 1950, Hutchinson (KS) News-Herald, “Hot Dog 50 Years Old” (AP), pg. 22, cols. 1-3:
Its first accredited popularizer in the United States was a certain Herr Feuchtwanger, a Bavarian.
(...)
There are two schools where the rise of the hot dog is concerned. One maintains that Herr Feuchtwanger, who peddled this type of sausage in St. Louis in 1883, is primarily responsible.
 
The good burgher used to sell his sizzling delicacies from a stand, thoughtfully lending each customer white cotton gloves so he could eat his frankfurter without burning or soiling his fingers. This practice, Herr Feuchtwanger found, was unsatisfactory because customers would carry the gloves away with them, and besides there was considerable laundry involved. One day he hit upon the idea of armoring his little fingers of meat in long, specially designed rolls. It caught on.
       
4 June 1956, Greensboro (NC) Record, “Americans Eat Enough Hot Dogs In Year To Encircle Earth 32 Times” (UP), pg. B-14, cols.6-8:
Research indicated that the inventor of the hot dog was a Bavarian sausage peddler in St. Louis named Anton Ludvig Feuchtwanger.
 
Back in 1883, Herr Feuchtwanger used to sell sausages at the ball games, and he loaned his customers white gloves to protect their fingers while munching wieners.
 
But too many customers forgot to return the gloves.
 
So Feuchtwanger and his frau hit upon the idea of giving their customers edible gloves in the form of buns, and thus the hot dog was born.
 
Google Books
13 April 1959, The Billboard, pg. 82, col. 4:
FAMOUS HOT DOG SANDWICH BORN AT WORLD’S FAIR
(...)
The eager appetites of the faiilgoers led Feuchtwanger to move to St. Louis for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.
 
The story is— fable or not— that he lent the purchasers white gloves at first to keep their hands clean, but too many walked off with the gloves. In defense, he had a local bakery bake up edible containers, log buns to fit the sausages. It scored big, too.
 
Google Books
The American Plate:
A Culinary History in 100 Bites

By Libby H O Connell
Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc.
2014
Pg. 174:
Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger sold hot frankfurters from his cart at the exposition (Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893—ed.), lending customers white gloves to keep from burning their fingers. When the gloves started disappearing as a handy souvenir, Feuchtwanger served the franks in long, narrow buns. Thus, the first hot dog was invented.

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityFood/Drink • Tuesday, May 26, 2015 • Permalink


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