Vienna Beef Makes Its Chicago-style Hot Dog

The Untold Truth Of Vienna Beef Hot Dogs

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Hot dogs. Frankfurters. Tube steaks. Weenies. Whatever you call them, there's no denying that these versatile sausages are an American standby. From lawn grills to fast-food joints to pots of baked beans, we find a way to sneak weenies into but virtually any setting hither in the skillful sometime U.s.a.A. This country is likewise a tapestry of different regional hot dog styles, with iterations as diverse as the salary-wrapped Sonoran canis familiaris and the cream cheese-slathered Seattle domestic dog. The Chicago dog, with its abundant garnishes, is arguably the rex of all the regional hot canis familiaris variations. Although the style is frequently defined past its toppings, no hot domestic dog can really call itself a Chicago dog unless the frank is fabricated by Vienna Beef.

While hot dogs don't have the most stellar reputation from a quality perspective, you don't have to worry about finding pig snouts our broken drinking glass in you lot Vienna Beefiness franks. These hot dogs are still made the onetime-fashioned way, from cuts of beefiness you might actually recognize, similar brisket (via Serious Eats). That meat is blimp into a natural casing, so smoked with real hickory sawdust. All in all, Vienna produces an elevated tube steak, and they've been doing it for well over a century. If you lot want to larn more about Chicago'southward favorite hot dog, proceed on reading.

It all started with the 1893 Chicago World'due south Fair

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The 1893 Chicago World's Off-white (or officially, the World's Columbian Exposition), is responsible for so many American nutrient innovations that it's difficult to keep rail of all of them. Archetype brands like Cracker Jack, Heinz, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer all got their first large pause from the issue (via NPR). Vienna Beef hot dogs are another great American food that launched during that momentous event.

According to the company's official history, Vienna Beef hot dogs made their debut at the World'due south Fair when 2 Austro-Hungarian sausage makers, Emil Reichel and Samuel Ladany, sold their new wieners to attendees. Per Funding Universe, the name of the visitor was an innuendo to Vienna, Austria, which was notable for making high-quality sausages. The hot dogs were such a smash striking that the pair were able to open their own store but a year afterwards. Demand quickly grew across what one storefront could satisfy, so Vienna Beef started distributing its meats to Chicago-area restaurants and groceries past the plow of the century.

The Depression and World War II improved Vienna Beef's fortunes

While the Great Depression was a time of hardship and deprivation for many, it was a boon to Vienna Beef'due south lesser line. According to Funding Universe, since hot dogs were cheap, they became a preferred meal for coin-conscious Chicagoans during the Depression. The Depression years coincided with an explosion in the number of hot dog stands in the metropolis, a trend that the Vienna company actively promoted and encouraged. The company taught aspiring hot domestic dog vendors the tricks of the merchandise, only asking that the budding entrepreneurs exclusively sell Vienna Beef hot dogs and adorn their stands with Vienna Beefiness-branded signage in commutation.

Hot dogs continued to grow in popularity during World State of war II and the post-war era, partly as a effect of wartime rationing, and partly because they were user-friendly. A Vienna Beefiness Facebook post commemorates the legacy of Henry Davis, a salesman who is responsible for opening several hundred Vienna hot dog stands during this period. Per the company'due south website, Vienna Beef products began showing up in cities exterior of Chicago during the post-war years likewise.

Diverse immigrant communities created the modern Chicago domestic dog

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If Vienna Beef hot dogs are the ultimate domestic dog (and information technology's not hard to find people who argue that they are), and so the ultimate way to serve them is in the classic Chicago "dragged through the garden" style. A place chosen Fluky's came upwards with something very much like the modern Chicago-way hot dog in the 1930s. Fluky's called their iteration a "depression sandwich," and topped it with tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, pickles, savor, onions, and hot peppers. Swap out the lettuce for celery table salt, and you have a Chicago dog exactly like any you'd get on the streets of Chicago today.

But where did all those toppings come from? According to Heinen's, Chicago'south immigrant food traditions all combined to birth the city's famous hot dog. The mustard and pickles are High german contributions, while the hot peppers and relish are somewhat similar to Italian giardiniera. The fresh vegetables may have been a Greek innovation. Add all that together, and you take a veritable melting pot sitting on superlative of a sausage, with the bun struggling to comprise the mount of salad within of it.

They almost ruined the recipe when they changed factories

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Per Vienna Beefiness's website, the company moved Chicago meat production to a new factory on the North Side of Chicago in 1972. Visitor Chairman Jim Bodman explained to This American Life that, different the rather chaotic and slapdash sometime Maxwell Street plant, the new location was a state-of-the-art, purpose-built facility. It should have been perfect for making hot dogs, just the sausages that came out of the new factory just weren't every bit adept as the old ones had been. They lacked Vienna Beef's trademark bright reddish color and they didn't have the snap you lot would expect from an former-school natural-casing hot dog. The company brass was flummoxed past the issue, and though they tried their best, over a yr after they moved into the new facility, they were still at a loss to explain the alter.

Finally, they had a quantum: Some Vienna factory workers went out for a drink with a retired coworker named Irving. Irving explained that at the sometime institute, he carted the raw hot dogs through several warm rooms to get to the smokehouse where they were cooked. At the new manufacturing plant, the raw sausages were kept ice-cold until they went into the smoker. It turned out that the hot dogs needed to be warmed upward before smoking to get that classic Vienna snap and colour. To rectify the event, Vienna built a special warming room to replicate the quirks of their old factory.

Vienna Beef hot dogs are all-beef — except for i crucial ingredient

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Vienna Beef franks are made from 100% domestic, American-raised beef (via Heinen's). Since most hot dogs, especially cheaper ones, are made from a blend of several meats, this fact makes Vienna sausages stand out from other franks. All-beef hot dogs have a more robust season that can stand to the mountain of condiments that gets piled on a typical Chicago domestic dog. Beef sausages come up from a tradition of kosher butchery, as Jews can't eat pork. However, Vienna Beef's FAQ folio clearly states that their products are not kosher. So what gives? The secret is in the casing.

Any Chicagoan will tell yous that one of the things that makes a true Chicago-style hot dog unlike from other cities' tube steaks is that the frank snaps when y'all seize with teeth into it. That snappy texture is a product of using a natural casing, or in less polite language, animal intestines, to contain the sausage filling. Almost modern hot dogs refrain from using this old-world technique, resulting in a less-satisfying, softer texture. Per the Vienna Beef FAQ page, the company uses either pig or sheep casings to make its franks, so while the insides are 100% beef, the outer layer is made out of another beast entirely.

There used to be a Vienna Beefiness museum

In 2018, Vienna Beef historic 125 years in the hot dog business past opening a museum within its headquarters/factory edifice (via Chicago Magazine). The museum nerveless photographs, artifacts, and ephemera from the company'south long history, giving hot dog fans a deeper agreement of their favorite food. In the museum, you could run across a picture of the demolition of the company'due south quondam factory, a feat that was accomplished with a custom-made hot dog-shaped wrecking brawl. Perhaps the strangest item on display was a hot dog keychain fabricated out of a existent mini-sausage covered in gold plating. The sausage was still intact several decades afterwards it was made, though yous wouldn't catch us trying to eat information technology.

Sadly, according to Block Club Chicago, the museum didn't survive Vienna Beef's move to a new headquarters in 2020. Where will all the hot dog history heads go to get their fix now? Maybe it's fourth dimension for Nathan's Famous to recall near building a museum.

Hot dogs are simply a office of the company's portfolio

While Vienna Beef is most famous equally a hot dog manufacturer, that's simply the tip of the iceberg as far as their product line goes. In terms of tubular meats, the visitor besides sells Smoothen sausages and bagel dogs. If y'all're a homesick Chicagoan looking to replicate your hometown hotdog in your ain kitchen, Vienna Beefiness has yous covered, equally they sell mustard, giardiniera, pickled sport peppers, and most crucially, that inimitable radioactive-green pickle savor. If yous're hankering for Chicago's other sandwich contribution to the world, Italian Beefiness, yous're in luck, considering they have that as well, also as several other kinds of cafeteria meats.

As the company'south CEO told the Chicago Tribune, they too have a booming soup and chili business concern that sells directly to restaurants, and they're a stiff histrion in the corned beefiness market place as well. They fifty-fifty own a bread bakery! The hot dogs may go all the celebrity, simply Vienna Beef knows a lot more just how the sausage gets made.

Don't put ketchup on them

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In the world of Chicago hot dogs, one condiment is absolutely verboten: ketchup. While the remainder of the country happily slathers their sausages with this red sugary goo, its utilize is the ultimate frank fake pas in the Windy City. Chicagoans take this then seriously that when the Chicago Tribune asked Vienna CEO Jim Bodman if he would put ketchup on a hot canis familiaris, he responded "Good Lord, no! You'll get me shot."

Nigh of you have probably eaten a hot dog with ketchup before. Some of yous may even call back that a hot dog needs ketchup to taste its best. So why do Chicagoans get and then up in arms about this innocuous sauce? While regional snobbery undoubtedly plays a big part in Chicago'due south ketchup beef, in that location's also sound reasoning backside information technology. Equally Vienna Beef Senior Vice President of Marketing/Commerce Tom McGlade explained to Heinen'due south, "all of the condiments on a Chicago Fashion hot dog piece of work together and don't fight each other. We've got spicy, we've got mild, we've got crunch, we've got soft and all of these things are going on in the same seize with teeth. Adding ketchup on there just masks the flavors."

They program to stay in Chicago

Vienna VP Tom McGlade told Chicago Magazine that the visitor controls more than than 90% of the Windy City'due south hot canis familiaris stands. That'southward quite an impressive stranglehold on the city'south hot dog market, and it lends credence to CEO Jim Bodman'southward boast to the Chicago Tribune that the visitor "doesn't have any competition" for hot dogs in Chicago. In that town, hot dogs and Vienna Beefiness are basically synonymous, so it makes sense that the company wants to stay in the city where its nearly passionate fans are located.

That doesn't mean that staying in Chicago doesn't come with its ain set of challenges, however. Later in that same Tribune interview, Bodman has some rather insulting things to say about doing concern in the state of Illinois. He says that his home state is bankrupt, and accuses Illinois of sending excessive health inspectors to the manufactory to try to earn extra money by catching code violations and imposing fines. We can't really confirm the veracity of those allegations, but the good news is that the brand plans to stay in Chicago for the foreseeable future despite its quibbles with its dwelling country!

There's a Vienna Hot Dog Academy

Remember how we mentioned that Vienna Beef encouraged the opening of new hot dog stands during the Depression by training would-exist sausage slingers and giving them merch? Well, it turns out they're even so doing the same thing today. These days, they call their training program Hot Domestic dog Academy. The class is taught past Mark Reitman, PHD (which stands for Professor of Hot Dogs, of grade). A cool $699 (marked down to $299 for a pandemic-appropriate e-class) earns you everything y'all need to know most running a hot canis familiaris stand.

According to a writer at Serious Eats who took the form, the ii-day experience gives you a lot of bang for your buck. On the first day, you learn the ins and outs of success in the street cart business, including strategies for choosing the perfect stretch of sidewalk and ways to entice customers to your stand. On the second 24-hour interval, you get to peel dorsum the curtain at the Vienna Beef manufactory and come across how the dogs are fabricated. Afterwards the bout, you put your new knowledge to the exam past running a hot dog stand on Vienna's campus. The best part is that after the lesson, you lot go $350 in vouchers for free Vienna Beef products and another $350 worth of swag and signs to aid start your new hot canis familiaris empire.

Ane woman visited 367 Vienna Beefiness hot canis familiaris stands in threescore days

In Baronial of 2021, Vienna Beefiness posed a challenge to Chicago residents: How many Vienna Beefiness hot dog stands tin can they consume at in 60 days? Thus began the Vienna Beef Hot Dog Stand Challenge, a two-calendar month marathon in which people in the greater Chicagoland area, including bits of Wisconsin and Indiana, vied to visit the greatest number of stands in a two-month period (via WGN9).

The winner, Stephanie Esposito, ate at an heart-watering 367 hot dog joints before the challenge was over. Past our math, that's over 6 hot dogs a mean solar day! Although we're certain victory felt sweet, for Esposito, the claiming was more than just a mere competition — the existent magic was the journey along the way. As she told WGN9, "It was an incredible feel getting to visit parts of the region and run into people that I would never have had the chance to if information technology wasn't for Vienna Beef hosting this challenge."

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Source: https://www.mashed.com/263424/the-untold-truth-of-vienna-beef-hot-dogs/

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