In Germany, they have this famous hot dog called the “kaiserkrainer” - “kaiser” meaning emperor and “krainer” meaning sausage. Stuffed with cheese and decorated generously with ketchup and mustard, a bite will joyfully stain your shirt, leaving a messy reminder of your indulgence. I had a kaiserkrainer during my trip to Europe in college.

Or maybe I didn't. Searching online, I don't really see a “kaiserkrainer.” Google Search corrects me toward Kaiserslautern, a city in Germany. Did I hallucinate this royal sausage?

Well, after some Google-fu, I found the “Käsekrainer” - “Käse” meaning cheese and “krainer” meaning sausage. Sausage stands in Vienna, Austria “serve the Käsekrainer with a white bread roll or a slice of dark bread, plus mustard and/or ketchup. [I]f you’re not careful, a sufficiently-distressed Käsekrainer can propel hot fat huge distances, necessitating the wearing of protective goggles and clothes … . The Käsekrainer enjoys particular popularity around football stadiums on matchdays, where it often appears inserted into a small baguette-like roll as a kind of hot dog." That precisely describes the sausage I ate!

My mistake of the “kaiser” prefix also seems common. The same source continues:

Unfortunately, on my arrival in Austria, I misread the signs and called the Käsekrainer a Kaiserkrainer, which sounded entirely plausible given Vienna’s Imperial history (Kaiser is the German word for emperor). Franz Joseph, for example, was known for his love of plain Viennese food.

For the next fifteen years I kept ordering a Kaiserkrainer, to be met with the inquiry, “You mean Käsekrainer?” Which I always assumed was just local dialect for Kaiserkrainer and they were merely checking whether they’d heard me properly. Fifteen. Years.

Funny how totally different people will make the same mistakes for the same reasons.