Restaurant Chronicle 1. My Panama Porn Dogs

Yes, dear reader,  I said "Porn Dogs."  So send the kiddies out for ice cream. This one's for you.

We have a small restaurant in Panama and one of our most popular menu items are our hand-dipped Corn Dogs on a stick.  We figured that since Panamanians love "meat on a stick" and also corn meal, Corn Dogs just seemed a natural way to go.

It's fun to watch people eat a Corn Dog for the very first time. It turns out, there is more than one way to down a dog.

Some folks will slide the whole thing off the stick and eat it daintily  with a knife and fork, the way they'd tackle, say, a chicken breast. Others cut it up into little bits or chunks.  Then there are those who turn it on its side, holding it by the stick, and nibble away, Corn-on-the-Cob style.  And the there's the X-rated way of attacking a corn dog.

I have a regular customer who loves our "Double Dog" basket.  He's an elegant, older gentleman, but when he's in front of those two puppies, he exclaims, every time and  with each bite "Wow! Elizabeth... Tell Larry this is one good corn dog!"

I always sit with him when he come is, partly because he's elderly and alone and I adore him. . But also because I'm afraid he's going to kill himself in the process.  Every bite he takes becomes a brain-bleeding, nerve wracking moment because of the way he eats those pups.
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Rather than practice "safe" eating methods, he holds the thing by the stick and then just descends, plunges actually,  straight down on it in what I can only describe as 'deep throating the dog'... or what I now refer to fondly as eating it "Porn Dog" style.

The visuals aside, the bigger problem is that every time he goes down on that dog,  he exposes more and more of the stick. But instead of sliding the remaining food upwards,  he just continues shoving that dog straight down his gullet, -- stick and all --  until I truly fear he is going to stab himself in the uvula.

One day, sitting at the next table,  a gentleman, also with a Double Dog basket, called me over to say he hadn't realized the Corn Dogs had "bread" on them and he was on a low-carb diet, so could I please take them away and cut off the coating for him?  Okay people. I do aim to please my customers.  But I couldn't help notice that he was closer in age to sixty than to ten, and, wondering for a teensy weensy second if he was next going to ask me to cut up his food in pieces for him, I was tempted, just for a teensy, weensy, split  instant, to just deep throat those puppies and yank off that bread with my teeth.

Instead, I smiled, stepped away, and happily, gently, even tenderly removed the corn meal with a knife and fork.  Very respectable.