Hot dogs

I have decided it's time for the hot dog pictures.  You may or may not be aware that we have a tradition of trying to eat a hot dog in every country we visit.  Started by the famous Icelandic lamb hot dog.  We have since discovered that hot dogs are a universal food...but what I call a hot dog may not be what you call a hot dog...a good example being the horrendous Scottish blob of meat on a stale hard bun and slathered with tasteless brown mustard.  Which was actually the best thing about that meal.

Here I am eating a Swiss hot dog.  We spent a few hours in Zurich on Sunday morning because of a long layover on our way home.  There had been some kind of huge music festival the night before and an extensive clean up project was under way.  Think New Orleans after Mardi Gras...smelled the same too,  stale beer and piss and, well other things.  Most of the food stands were just getting up and running for the new day, but this hot dog stand was open. The bun was a baguette that was cut in half and poked on a huge skewer, then the mustard was pumped in and the hot dog inserted.  It made it easy to walk and eat.  The hot dog was just a plain old ordinary hot dog.  But the baguette bun was yummy.

Okay, here we are in Bergen Norway.  I had read that the best hot dogs in Norway were at a little hot dog stand on Kong Oskars Gate (gah-tah...means street, not gate).  We wandered around in the rain until we found it.  Why do the best hot dogs come from little stands with no seats or cover?  We stood under a store awning and ate these.  What makes them special?  These are the REINDEER hot dogs.  I did have a creepy feeling of being under prancer's reproachful eye, but it didn't stop me.  Especially since they were so GOOD!  The hot dogs (polse) had a perfect snap to them and the mustard was good, even though it was brown instead of yellow...

This is the perfect Chicago hot dog, mustard and relish.  Eaten at a table by the  river.  And it was NOT raining!