Danes mark 100 years of sausage stands with hotdog crawl

Copenhagen, January 19

Denmark’s staunchest sausage fans marked the 100th anniversary this week of the arrival of hot dog stands in the country by ordering the snack from many of the popular trailers along central Copenhagen’s main shopping street.

The stands are still allowed to open as they offer a takeaway snack. All indoor hospitality has closed in the city due to the pandemic.

Known among Danes as “Restaurant Cold Feet”, because you have to stand outside to eat, the simple hotdog wagons were introduced in 1921 from Germany. They are still steered by hand around the cobbled streets of Danish towns and cities with just a simple engine to move them along.

As a 10-year-old Kresten Larsen, now 74, worked as an errand boy for a hot dog stand, making sure his employer never ran out of bread.

“It is a very nice sausage,” he told Reuters. He didn’t order from multiple stands, but rather two sausages from just one by Copenhagen’s city hall. “I think they’ve become better over the years.”

The most popular hotdog costs about 30 krones ($4.9). Reuters