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Danish culture

A BITE OF DANISH CULTURE
The hotdog stand is a Danish cultural institution. The hotdog stand is an important part of Danish food culture with the quality of being able to gather people. It’s all about coziness, humor and conversation between people across social classes. It is informal and a part of the Danish popular culture. WHAT IS A HOTDOG STAND? A hotdog stand has wheels. Most of them need access to power and water, but some have it inside. It can have its own engine and the whole thing can be packed away in 15 minutes.
HISTORY
Since the 18th of January 1921 the hotdog stand has adorned the Danish streets. Back then a red sausage with mustard on the side cost 0,25 DKK and if you were to splash out with a roll, you could buy this for a mere 0,05 DKK. Today a sausage cost 26 DKK and a bred is 9 DKK and on the side you can have both ketchup, mustard, remoulade, raw onion, crispy fried onion, marinated cucumber salad and different dressings. Because the hotdog stand came to Denmark from Germany the sausages you could buy at the stand was from Bayern. This information is collected from “Café Fodkold”, which is written by Allan Mylius Thomsen.
NUMBER OF HOTDOG STANDS
This information is from a research in the spring of 2003 subject to change. On Tuesday the 18th of January, the first sale of sausages takes place in the streets of Copenhagen from six mobile hotdog stands. Since then the hotdog stands have spread to the rest of the country. Through the 1990'ies the Danish hotdog stand has had a hard time in Denmark and the number of stands has fallen drastically since the 1950s and the 1960s. In this period there were around 500 stands in Copenhagen alone and 500 in the rest of the country. This information is from "Café Fodkold" by Allan Mylius Thomsen. According to Ove Kjeldsen from Tulip it is really difficult to name the precise number of how many hotdog stands exist in Denmark now.
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WHY THE REDUCTION OF HOTDOG STANDS

Among other things, it is caused by the fact that the mobile hotdog stands are being transformed into stationary stands, which gives them the opportunity to expand their selection. It is difficult to survive merely on the sale of hotdogs.
Says the administrator of hotdog stands in Odense C, Aase Hansen.

Another reason is the fact that the municipalities won’t grant stalls to the stands on wheel.

In Aarhus the hotdog man in Telefontorvet lost his license because of city renewal. He applied for a new spot in Aarhus C, but was rejected by Aarhus Municipality. As a result, he sold hotdogs for the last time the 30th of December in 2002.
There are no mobile hotdog stands left in Aarhus and Eastern Jutland.

THE WORD HOTDOG ORIGINS FROM…

Food historians recon that the idea of putting a sausage in a bun origins from the German Johann Georghedner. He called this “a dachshund”, and in the 1600s he sold it from his booth in Frankfurt. In 1871 the immigrant Charles Feltman brought the idea to New York, where he started selling dachshunds. In 1903 on a cold winter day in New York, the chocolate seller Harry Stevens was unable to get rid of his ice cream and cold drinks because of the cold winter. He then got the idea of selling dachshunds with heated bread, while shouting: “They’re red hot!”

The newspaper drawer Tad Dorgan heard him and made a drawing of a happy, barking and sweaty sausage in an oblong bread. As he couldn’t spell dachshund, he wrote “hot dog”on the drawing. And this is how the popular food got its name.

The text is written by Morgenavisen Jyllansposten on Sunday 10th of April 2005 and was used in “Pølsen – medlemsblad for Danmarks pølsehandlerforening”.