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As many Americans fire up the grill to celebrate Independence Day this Fourth of July, we're revisiting one of our favourite stories about the unlikely origins of one of the nation's most popular foods: the humble hot dog. If there's any food that represents Americana, it's the humble hot dog. Today, these bunned frankfurters are sold at every baseball game, grilled at nearly every backyard barbecue and available at roadside convenience stores from the Carolinas to California.

In fact, this most archetypal of American foods originated as the US started to stitch itself back together in the 1860s following the American Civil War and forge its new identity. But while you can now find these seasoned sausage sandwiches across the American heartland, the hot dog's iconic home is on the boardwalk at New York City's Coney Island . As the city was sweating its way through a heat wave, I descended into the furnace that was the New York City subway and fled Manhattan for the soothing breezes of the Coney Island seashore.



The beachside Brooklyn amusement park is a mixture of kitsch and family-friendly fun: its wooden boardwalk and golden sand is crowded with rides, games and food joints that have catered to hardworking New Yorkers for more than a century. On the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues, I saw a swell of beachgoers line up under tall, white signs bearing the name "Nathan’s Famous" that proudly advertises: "This is the original: World famous frankfurters since 1916." Yet, a.

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