Frankfurter würstchen

The Frankfurter würstchen is known for its fine, translucent skin, which snaps cleanly between the teeth. It is the natural sheep casing that produces this effect, and that sets it apart from its many imitations stuffed into synthetic casing. The designation Frankfurter würstchen is protected in Germany: only sausages made in Frankfurt may legally bear the name; outside the city, they are legally called Wiener.

The original Frankfurter, pure pork, is old: the sources record it from the Middle Ages, in a form still far from the present product, and Frankfurt required its butchers to work only one species of meat at a time. The Viennese version is later and derives from it. Its development is attributed to Johann Georg Lahner, a Franconian butcher trained in Frankfurt, who set up on his own account in Vienna in 1804 and marketed his sausage the following year. Where Frankfurt strictly separated pork and beef, Vienna knew no such constraint: Lahner blended the two meats and refined the paste. He named his creation Frankfurter in memory of the city where he apprenticed. Since it was born in Vienna, Germany, and the rest of the German-speaking world named it after that place of production: Wiener. The two names have thus crossed from one country to the other: the sausage the Germans call Wiener is called Frankfurter in Austria, an inversion that has persisted for two centuries.

The simplicity of the seasoning (white pepper, mace and coriander in small proportions) rests on the quality of the meat and the mastery of the emulsion. The slightest imperfection in the paste's fineness or the working temperature is perceived at once, for there are no aromatics to mask it. The beech-wood smoking, obligatory under the product specification, also gives the sausage its characteristic golden colour.

The Frankfurter has a direct technical kinship with the saucisse de Strasbourg: the same fine emulsion, the same beech-wood smoking, the same sheep casing. The closeness is explained by a shared history: Alsace and the Palatinate long formed a single charcuterie space travelled by the same itinerant journeymen. The differences lie in the seasoning (the saucisse de Strasbourg being milder) and in their respective administrative trajectories after 1918.

It is served reheated in hot water, with bread and horseradish, or with choucroute garnie.

Its pairing with the split bread roll is an American practice that does not correspond to the traditional mode of consumption. It was during the second half of the nineteenth century that German immigration introduced the Frankfurter to the United States, where it began to be sold in the markets of New York, Chicago and Cincinnati. It was gradually slipped into a split roll to make it easier to eat standing up. The name "hot dog" appears in the American press at the end of the nineteenth century; its exact origin remains disputed. The transformation into the industrial hot dog, with a synthetic casing and a diversified composition, occurred progressively over the twentieth century. The authentic Frankfurter würstchen is still produced in Frankfurt to its product specification, in a niche market that coexists with the world’s industrial productions bearing the same name.