I’ve come to New York to sample the city’s finest hot dogs, beginning with the classics before setting off on my own search for the Big Apple’s most extravagant and inventive takes on the sausage staple. The humble sandwich arrived here in the mid-19th century via waves of German-speaking immigrants. They introduced New Yorkers to the likes of frankfurters, weisswurst and wieners — pork, beef or sometimes veal. In places like Coney Island, enterprising immigrant vendors popularised the sausage in a bread roll and sold it as New York street food: cheap, tasty and good-to-go. A handheld dish tailored for a city that never stopped moving.
(How to Explore New York City’s Immigrant Past Through its Food.)
“New Yorkers don’t really sit down for lunch,” Erica says at our next stop, Schaller & Weber, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She’s brought me here in search of the old country — the wursts from Germany that laid the groundwork for the modern hot dog. “The Germans and Austrians arrived here with the idea of a little sausage in a sandwich roll. They took their food and culture and adapted it to the US.”
Inside the vintage delicatessen, established in 1937, time appears to have stalled. A faded photograph of a moustachioed accordion-player hangs near the entrance, while pale, weisswurst veal sausages are piled like pyramids behind the glass counter. Through a hole-in-the-wall hatch, we order a couple of pork-and-veal bratwursts. They come in warm pretzel buns and buried beneath tangles of sauerkraut, the sharp hit of vinegar strong enough to clear both the sinuses and the mind.
At the final tour stop on the Upper East Side, we tuck in to our seventh, possibly eighth hot dog of the day. Erica explains that for her there’s a rock-steady formula for the perfect hot dog. “This is my favourite,” she says of the no-frills version served at Papaya King: the instantly recognisable all-beef frankfurter. The fast-food institution opened in 1932 selling tropical drinks before adapting to its German clientele. “It’s very simple: just a bun, sausage, mustard and ketchup. A couple of bites and it’s gone. It’s fast-paced food for a fast-paced city,” she says, as I savour the rich, grilled beefy snack.