Elvis sang about hot dogs, and certainly must have enjoyed them in his day

Our Sales and Marketing Manager Jesus Lopez, who is, like Elvis, a musician, keeps us informed of some very random information. This week, we learned about hot dogs:

• Famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s favorite foods are his mother’s home cooked Chinese food and a “good, old-fashioned American hot dog with mustard.”
• Remember the 4th of July a few weeks ago? On that day alone, Americans consume about 70 million hot dogs!
• Hawaii eats the most hot dogs per capita in the U.S.
• The world’s longest hot dog was made by the Vienna Beef company from Chicago.
• The record-setting frankfurter was almost 200 feet long and cost a chill $80,000 to produce
• Hot dogs outsell burgers at ballparks
• The average American eats 60 hot dogs per year, which is more than 20 billion hot dogs consumed nationally each year
• Hot dogs were first sold at baseball games in 1893
• Franks and wieners were the original names for the Americanized hot dogs, and super fun to say
• Hot dogs were one of the first foods eaten on the moon
• Alongside Tang and freeze-dried ice cream, hot dogs have passed NASA’s lengthy approval process for food that is allowed to be taken and consumed in space
• A hot dog is a sausage but a sausage isn’t necessarily a hot dog
• At 230 Fifth in New York City, there is a $2,300 hot dog that is made out of top-grade Japanese wagyu beef and topped with onions that have been caramelized in champagne, caviar, and sauerkraut that  has ALSO been braised in champagne
• Mickey Mouse’s first on screen words were “Hot Dog!”
• Ever notice that hot dogs and their buns don’t match in quantity? that is because when hot dogs were first sold in the United States, they were not sold in the grocery stores. So, for the hot dog cooks ordering wholesale quantities, a package of ten seemed like a natural choice
• When wholesale bun and roll bakeries started to bake the matching buns, they worked with pans that bake long rolls in groups of four that are then stacked to make eight – not ten. Oops.
• There is such a thing as the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC)
• NHDSC hot dog etiquette states that ketchup should not be used on a hot dog for anyone over the age of 18
• In the movie “Sudden Impact”, Dirty Harry said “Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog”
• Carl’s Jr started as a hot dog cart on July 17, 1941 in Los Angeles
• Yevgeny Prigozhin, who’s been in the news lately? No relation to Carl but also started out with a hot dog cart
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt served hot dogs to King George and Queen Elizabeth. The king ate two
• Americans say the celebrity they’d most like to enjoy a hot dog with is Betty White, RIP
• The average weight of a fully loaded baseball park hot dog vendor’s bin is 40 pounds
• As of July 2023, Joey Chestnut holds the world record for eating 76 hot dogs and buns in 10min
• And to end on a super serious note, What do you call a hot dog with nothing inside it? A ‘hollow-weenie’