Uppie's FarmhandIn 1867 Charles Feltman, a German immigrant, opened the first hot-dog stand in Coney Island. He called his signature frankfurter the Coney Island Red Hot, and it was served with mustard, sauerkraut and diced raw onions. Soon, Feltman’s Red Hots were all the rage. President William Howard Taft tried one. Al Capone is said to have devoured one every night as a teenager before his shift at a local nightclub. Feltman’s hot dogs were originally made near the Brooklyn Navy Yard and sold from a pie cart. In 1871, an enormous Feltman’s opened in Coney Island. It took up two city blocks and could serve 10,000 diners at once. It wasn’t long before other companies entered the competition. A young man named Nathan Handwerker worked for Mr. Feltman in 1915. The next year, he opened his own shop, Nathan’s Famous, down the street, where he sold his hot dogs for a nickel less. Feltman’s went out of business in 1954, eight years after Charles Feltman’s sons, who were in their 70s, retired and sold the business to a hotel owner.
Five years ago, Michael and Joe Quinn, reopened Feltman’s of Coney Island, and things are heating up for the original hot dog maker. We first heard about Feltman’s on social media, where we saw the claim, “Most likely the best hot dog you’ll ever eat in your life” and decided we had to at least try them. How often can someone mail you the best of anything for under $50?
There is so much that goes into a good hot dog, and a lot of it has nothing to do with the product itself. There is where you are, say at a baseball game, or coming out of a club at 3am. There is how hungry you are, and who you are with. There is the question of whether it’s been grilled, sat on hot roller for an hour or has been soaking in hot dog water all day. There is also the bun, and of course the condiments. There is a lot going on.
We ordered our 3-pound package (the smallest size they ship) of Original Casing All-Beef Hot Dogs from Feltman’s of Coney Island online and our package arrived just a few days later, nicely packed in freezer bags.
On Sunday, our son Ricky stopped by to sample the dogs and provide his two cents. He likes a good hot dog, and agrees that unlike pizza and sex (despite common theories to the contrary), there is no such thing as a bad hot dog. But he does understand, that some dogs are clearly superior to others. We schooled him from a young age that Dietz & Watson might be fine for a six-year-old’s birthday pool party, and are certainly acceptable to eat when visiting one, but they are not real hot dogs. For that we’ve always gone with either Nathan’s or Hebrew National, and we keep those for ourselves.
So here we were with a pound of spiced meat, stuffed into casings and ready to be grilled—this was going to be a treat, and the real question was, “Will they be better than Nathan’s?”
We had decided to have two each, out of a 1lb package of six. Ricky, nearly thirty, agreed to try the first one with nothing more than spicy, brown mustard, but after that he was doctoring his up, including ketchup, which I find offensive on a hot dog. We grilled them up and they spit and sputtered like a John Prine song until they looked ready for a magazine spread. We had both waited too long and were starving so we barely tasted the first one, agreeing that it was in fact, a very good hot dog. Then we ate our second one and began to taste the unique seasoning and appreciate the delightful snap of the casing. But it wasn’t until we decided we each needed a third that we really began to appreciate just how good they really were. This wasn’t due to a lack of performance on Feltman’s part, but simply due to the need for our appetites to be sufficiently quelled as to appreciate the quality of the dog.
We promise to remember to do a better job with the photographs next time, but we were nearly too hungry to bother this time. One note, the insides of the hot dogs are a deep red color that makes a typical hot dog look like nothing more than pink insulation. They even look better than anything you’ve likely eaten. If you can’t find these in your store, we highly recommend you break down and order online. Get some mustard while you’re at it.
By your third dog, try jalapeños on it. That’s when you know you’ve found a dog that is strong enough to take a hot pepper, spicy mustard, and still speak to you.
No wimpy dogs here.
Uppie's Farmhand
