FRANKFURT, Germany -- Standing in line at Muller, a venerable sausage shop on Frankfurt's Schweizerstrasse, I asked for one of what Americans typically call a hot dog.
"Ein frankfurter, bitte."
Momentarily perplexed by my accent, the saleswoman then smiled as she plucked a sausage nearly the size of a zucchini from a pot of simmering water. She slapped it onto a plate alongside a generous dollop of spicy mustard and a baguette of crusty French bread.
July is national hot dog month in the United States. It's a season when America's year-round love affair with what are variously known as wienies, franks, red hots or tube steaks is celebrated at baseball parks, church picnics and backyard barbecues.
Perhaps you heard of Takeru Kobayashi, the native of Nagano, Japan, who this year won the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest by downing 49 in 12 minutes.
Nathan's sponsors this publicity stunt every Independence Day weekend to urge us to go hog-wild over hot dogs -- as if we needed encouraging. According to statistics from the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, based in Arlington, Va., Americans eat 2 billion pounds of hot dogs every year.
I'd come to Frankfurt, a city that in 1987 celebrated its 500th anniversary as the birthplace of frankfurters, to explore the culinary roots of this beloved American sandwich.
What I found (surprise!) was that something's been lost in the translation. A true frankfurter, as sold in Germany or even by Baltimore's own German butchers such as Binkert's Meat Products on Philadelphia Road in Rossville, bears as much resemblance to an average hot dog as a triple-cream goat cheese does to Velveeta.
First of all, even the talented Kobayashi would be stymied by a frankfurter's size, not to mention consistency. Rather than a gelatinous mush of pulverized beef a la Oscar Mayer, a frankfurter has the full-bodied texture of ground pork.
Second, the difference is skin-deep. No reputable German butcher would dare sell a frankfurter encased in anything but sheep's intestine. Chomping through this elastic membrane is rather like trying to mount a floating air mattress; one's teeth slide off the surface for no apparent reason. Making a successful incision, and the audible pop that results, is quite satisfying. In other words, a frankfurter is a dog that bites back.
