MARK MY WORD: AMERICANS RELISH HOT DOGS AND A BITE OUT OF HISTORY

Whether covered in mustard or smothered in relish, hot dogs are a hit.

They're more American than apple pie and just as good.

It's hard to imagine baseball without hot dogs. No doubt, the game was invented so Americans would have an excuse to chow down on those wiener sandwiches.

As the father of two young girls, I can attest to the fact that hot dogs are essential nourishment for kids.

It's hard to imagine growing up without hot dogs. For many kids, they rank right up there with chocolate milk.

Greeks and Romans both munched on sausages, but they never savored the real hot dog.

German immigrants brought their love of sausage to the United States in the 19th century.

A German named Charles Feltman, who sold pies from a cart on Coney Island, is credited with being the first to put a warm sausage into a split roll.

By the 1890s, Americans were solidly in love with hot dogs.

The great thing about hot dogs is you can eat them with one hand and you don't need a fork.

Of course, forks come in handy for our daughters, Becca and Bailey, who like to spear them and dunk them in a mountain of ketchup.

Personally, I'm surprised it's not an Olympic sport.

There's a guy in Los Angeles who was 11 months old when he had his first hot dog. He reportedly has eaten them every day of his life since then. He's 88 years old. That's a lot of hot dogs.

Not surprisingly, he credits his good health to hot dogs.

Last July, 100 Washington lawmakers and their hungry staffers showed up to consume 4,300 wieners at the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council's annual Capitol Hill lunch. No doubt, it was a doggone good time. With that many "dogs," it had to be good.

It's estimated that 20 billion hot dogs are consumed each year.

A Japanese jewelry salesman is the titleholder when it comes to eating hot dogs. In 1997, he downed 24 hot dogs in the Fourth of July contest at Coney Island.

Last year, he defended his title by consuming 19 "dogs" in 12 minutes.

In Fairfield, Calif., a man known as "Uncle Frank" chronicles the glory of hot dogs. He wants to establish a hot dog hall of fame. Of course, it would include a restaurant.

That would be one museum you could sink your teeth into.

But Frank admits he can only eat so many hot dogs.

Even Becca and Bailey wouldn't want to eat hot dogs all the time.

These days, hot dogs face stiff competition from chicken fingers for children's loyalty.

Still, chicken fingers don't have the nostalgia of hot dogs. Hot dogs have a history, whether they are grilled, steamed or boiled. Sometimes it is obscured by condiments, but it is there just the same.

And for Americans, there's nothing like a barbecue to take a bite out of history.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.