My first college girlfriend.
Smell, sometimes. Taste, no.
Emeraude! :o
I was once having dinner with my daughter at Swiss Chalet. It took me a good ten minutes to pin down what I was tasting in their proprietary sauce. Then it hit me: Cloves!
At the Warsaw Marriott last year, I was served soup with another taste I couldn’t identify for the life of me. Finally, I was told it was a Thai-inspired recipe. Then it hit me: Ginger!
In my mind, these two spices will always be associated with those occasions.
That’s called a Proustian memory.
Maybe you havent had much good food? 
That’s my thought, too. I don’t remember the meal I ate on a day trip to Salzburg, because I was young, stupid, and ate lunch at McDonald’s that day.
On the other hand, I remember the best ham and cheese baguette sandwich I’ve ever had in my entire life at a rest stop on the A1 motorway in northern France. It was a rest stop sandwich, for crying out loud. It should have been gas station quality, but it was fantastic, and I’ve still not found its equal.
I once had a small piece of pork-belly served in a tall glass chimney, the top of which was sealed with a homemade cracker. The chimney had been infused with smoke. When I lifted the cracker up, the smoke wafted up. The porkbelly was deliciously lightly smoked, pairing well with the cracker and the smoked beer served with that course.
ETA: and then there was the Argentinian filet mignon that was so amazingly tender they didn’t provide a steak knife. I can remember the sensation of my butter knife sliding smoothly through the meat.
I sympathize. I can’t remember what anything looks like when I’m not looking at it. Well, in a fuzzy raw-outline sort of way, yeah, but not like a visceral experience. Sounds like you have that kind of memory deficit for taste and perhaps smell.
Interesting. What you have is called Aphantasia, an increasingly explored phenomenon. If there is an equivalent for other senses I would be fascinated to see if it lines up with my experience.
I doubt it, though. I just don’t care for food.
I had my first Sonic Chili Cheese Coney at a Boy Scout troop meeting. The scoutmaster had brought a bag of burgers and hot dogs for the meeting.
I didn’t realize just how much the chili improves a hot dog. They became my standard order at Sonic for several years.
I rarely eat hot dogs anymore. I never make them at home. I still go by Sonic every couple of months for a Chili Cheese Coney with mustard. It’s a treat and a nod to childhood.
Five Guys. Forget the hamburger and get yourself a hotdog. Holy Moses those suckers are good!
Also MIT. For many of us MIT is even more of a Cambridge (MA) landmark than Harvard.
In June of 1975, I was in Paris on my first trip abroad. The cafe my group stopped in for lunch was offering a “hot dog” that was actually four standard wieners inside a baguette with toasted grated cheese on top (probably Gruyere). This was the size of a submarine sandwich, and it cost only four francs (then, about one dollar).
I bought one, took it back to our table, and began slathering mustard over the top. There was a French family sitting opposite us, and they were watching every move I made.
I took a big bite, and that French mustard immediately started coming out my nostrils. I stood up and said desperately “I have to get a Coke!”
The French family convulsed in laughter.
French ‘ot doogs are delicious.
When I lived in Paris in 1980 they would impale a piece of baguette down over a thick spike, dip a French-made frank into blazing hot French mustard, and shove it down into the bread with mustard gooshing out. I can’t remember if it was three or four francs, but it was damn cheap, and a frequent snack when my belly was empty.
You can also get these from kiosks in Moscow (and, I assume, other cities in Russia). The name escapes me at the moment, but they’re apparently run by a big national (or maybe international) chain. They also sell grilled dogs wrapped in bacon and “Danish” dogs topped with crispy fried onion bits.
The ones you describe usually have a shot of mayo along with the spicy mustard.
When I was living in Hungary, there was a similar sort of hot dog sold by … shit, I can’t remember the chain … but they had pastries in most of the subway stations. Anyhow, in addition to the typical Austro-Hungarian rétes/strudel types of things, they had a hot dog baked into a puff pastry slathered with the mustard inside.
Oh, wait, I remember now. It was called Prima Pék. Here’s a picture of the hot dog. Not the greatest photo showing it off, but I loved these little suckers as a treat from time to time.
They have these in Moscow too, but I don’t think they’re from any chain. Most little pastry bars in the Metro (on the street, inside supermarkets in convenience stores—they’re pretty much everywhere) sell them. They’re just called hot dogs in pastry (sosiski v teste).
Yeah, Prima Pék was not the only place to have them, but that’s the chain I remember most with the subway stations. I believe they called them “virslis táska” or “hot dog táska” (basically, “hot dog bags.”)
I am surprised, nay, stunned that no one in this thread has of yet mentioned the hot dog that made D.C. famous, the half-smoke. Some may quibble and call this a sausage. It is not. It is a hot dog through and through.
The first one I ever had was outside of the long gone Ha’ Penny Lion in midtown. We had been drinking beer and futilely trying to pick up girls for a few hours up until closing time. Having all struck out, we decided to slam a few “street dogs” and go home. We were new to DC, and had no idea of the dog heaven that awaited. Adorned with only some yellow mustard, some chili, and raw onions, we bit into them and completely forgot about the sexless night that awaited us when we got home. I am by no means a hot dog expert, but I’ve had them in NYC and Chicago, and pretty much everywhere else I’ve lived, and I’ve never found half-smokes like the ones sold in D.C. anywhere else.
ETA: TruCelt and P-man, are you sure you live in the DC area? 