I still remember the first sausage I ever tried. It was about the size of half a hot dog, which my big brother shared with me from his school lunch box one day. Our mother had not packed him that lunch. He had put it in his lunch box during a garden party or some such event at school because he didn’t feel like eating it at that time. I had never tasted anything like it.

My brother went to the Karachi American School. Sausages and hot dogs — also known as frankfurters (from Frankfurt, Germany) in some instance — are nothing new to Americans. They are a rather cheap roadside snack.

However, when I asked to have it again around that time, my mother could not find it at any snack bar or restaurant in Karachi. She offered me seekh kebabs [skewered minced meat] instead, telling me that they were pretty much the same thing. Of course they were not. But my objections fell on deaf ears. Then my father put an end to my cravings by telling me that sausage casings were made of animal intestines. End of discussion.

Well, not really. Several years later, I did get to enjoy hot dogs to my heart’s content at the Halal Guys carts........

© Dawn (Magazines)