Served in a fresh soft bun, and adorned with your choice of mustard, ketchup, chilli, sauerkraut, coleslaw, pickles, relish, sliced tomatoes, hot peppers and fried or fresh onion, the hot dog must surely be one of the world’s favourite convenience foods. In Hot Dog well-known food historian Bruce Kraig recounts the history of this popular dish, from the origin of the sausage some 20,000 years ago, to the evolution of the modern form of the hot dog, and its central place in American culture today.

Kraig examines the many types of hot dog sausage around the world, including the Italian bologna and German bockwurst. He also relates the myriad regional variations in the USA, from ‘kosher-style’ New York dogs loaded with mustard and sauerkraut to the famous New England Franks and Boston Baked Beans, to Southern corn dogs, Southwestern chilli dogs and the remarkable Chicago-style hot dog, which is topped with mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, sport peppers and a dash of celery salt– but never ketchup.

Hot Dog also explores sometimes apocryphal tales of the hot dog in history: how the dish got its name, how it became associated with baseball games and leisure time, and how George VI was served hot dogs during his visit to the White House in 1939. Packed with tasty facts and piquant observations, many illustrations and a selection of recipes, this book shows how this seemingly simple food has a rich history, and is also fundamentally linked to American’s mythology of itself.