I WAS ON MY WAY TO EAT at a friend's house, a gourmet cook of the nouvelle cuisine persuasion—she made exquisitely great food, beautifully presented, but usually not enough for my appetite. Those delicious little servings mocked me. I had missed lunch that day and was ravenous as I made my way to her new address. There was something missing in the directions and I was having a hard time finding her house.

As I drove around, famished and lost, I kept driving by a fast-food restaurant that specialized in hot dogs. The aroma emanating from the drive-thru food trough was having the same effect the sirens of the Greek myth had on the hapless sailors who sailed into their waters. I don't merely want a hot dog, I need a hot dog, I reasoned. She never serves enough food anyway. Why not have just a little snack to hold me over until I find her house?

I stopped to order a snack. But what to order? The menu was huge. After a panicky exchange with the disembodied voice from the speaker in the drive-thru, ...