Though both bratwurst and hot dogs may be globally popular now, their origins are very different. While sausages entered the historical record during the 3rd century CE, the first mention of bratwursts dates to 1313 in Nuremberg, Germany. The etymological theory of its name comes from Old High German words meaning something like “sausage without waste.” Despite its Germanic origins, however, bratwurst is now arguably even more popular in the U.S., with Sheboygan, Wisconsin, declared “the bratwurst capital of the world.”
Hot dogs, by contrast, didn’t have to make their way to America because they started here. Though they’re likely descended from another German sausage called the frankfurter, frankfurters and hot dogs are different things. As far as their origins, we’re not 100% certain, but the most likely story for hot dogs is that they were first served in their modern form by a pushcart vendor named Charles Feltman in the mid-1800s. They were probably called hot dogs, meanwhile, because they were compared to dachshunds, the short, long canines also now known as “wiener dogs.”
Both bratwurst and hot dogs are great cookout meats, but another connection only applies to one of them. While bratwursts don’t have a specific cultural activity they’re tied to, hot dogs are very closely associated with the sport of baseball, which had a huge hand in popularizing them nationally.
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