By Michael Balsamo, Associated Press NEW YORK – Nathan’s Famous may be in the hot dog business, but for decades they’ve been peddling a whopper. Showmen behind Nathan’s annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest have long claimed the tradition began in 1916 as a showdown between patriotic immigrants on the Coney Island boardwalk. That would make the most recent contest a centennial, except for an inconvenient truth: The contest and its backstory were invented in the 1970s by PR men trying to get more attention for Nathan’s, which had just become a publicly traded company. “Our objective was to take a photograph and get it in the New York newspaper,” acknowledges Wayne Norbitz, who served as president of Nathan’s for 26 years and still sits on the board of directors. Nathan’s Famous. Photo courtesy of bizjournals.com Norbitz is careful to say that the company’s source for the 1916 [...]
