It occurred to me recently, as I was contemplating the many “gourmet” dinners I had sat through on board the SS Noordam, that by far my favourite meal had been lunch.

By which I mean a hot dog.

Oh yes, I had been served lobster tails, Chateaubriand, escargot, Grand Marnier souffles, and the like.  But while all the above were competently prepared (if not with any true flair), none had given the me sheer pleasure of my daily lunchtime hot dog, with the ketchup, the mustard, and the onions.

Now the hot dog itself was nothing special; and nor should it have been.  A hot dog is, after all, simply a soft-cooked sausage in an equally soft-cooked bun. But the point of the hot dog is not what it brings to you; but rather, what you bring to it.

It’s really rather a personal thing.

Are you, like me, a ketchup and mustard and onions man?  If so, should the onions be raw (like mine- dusted liberally with salt), or fried to a dark tangle?  My mustard simply must be the vibrantly yellow American sort, but  do your tastes run more to the mellow warmth of German mustard, or the outright heat of the English variety? Does ketchup have no place on your personal dog?

And what of pickles and the like? How do you “relish” your dog?  I’m no fan of the sweet pickle myself, but I do absolutely adore a hefty chunk of a properly sour dill pickle on the side, on which to crunch and suck after the main course, as it were. But I’m well aware that there are those who love a sweet pickle relish, or a corn relish, or even to have their dog smothered in chili con carne.

While those are not to my taste, I share with all those who love the aformentioned relishes the sheer pleasure of not only ingesting your favourite food, but also to have it smeared deliriously over most of your face.  It is, after all, all but impossible to eat a hot dog (relish or no) in a gracious manner, and thus it should be.  The more personal a given meal becomes, the less delicacy it requires, at least when it comes to table manners.  There are no discreetly coy wipings of the corners of one’s mouth when it comes to a hot dog; only the gaping of one’s maw, and then the not-so-secretly pleased swiping at one’s top to dislodge the heftly dribble of whatever relish took your fancy.  Followed, but of course, by the slow, lingering licking of said relish off your fingers.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that of all the meals I was presented with on board this somewhat pretentious ship, it was none of the entrees that were meant to impress me that did the trick, but rather the ones wherein I got to impress myself.

 By just how much I love my own taste buds. Which, high falutin’ ship or no, is just how it should be.