A confession.

When I use condiments … I tend to really use condiments.

At the moment, I may be one of the planet’s leading consumers of mustard. Like, a couple of smallish bottles of mustard per week.

How did that happen? What’s the deal with me (and some of you?) and condiments?

I have an explanation, sorta, for my mustard consumption.

I make my own lunch. I work five days a week. My preferred lunch is two turkey sandwiches. Failing that, it is two pastrami sandwiches — when the local supermarket does not stock turkey, and it happens fairly often. (Amazing concept.)

Anyway, I buy bread, for sandwiches, maybe once a week.

Which means, five days a week, 10 sandwiches total) I have a dry meat with often dry bread, and to keep from choking I need a condiment.

Ketchup on turkey is weird, and too much mayo is not good for a person, so I use mustard. Some will think mustard and turkey is strange, too, and I can see that, but you get used to it. (And I believe Subway offers mustard on turkey, so there.)

I also like mustard because it has almost no calories. I prefer to spend my calories on chocolate, not a condiment.

So I use a lot of mustard. To the point that often I am eating a mustard sandwich with turkey on the side.

And all kinds of mustard. I like the fancy French ones (Clovis brand terragon or herb d’ provence or dijon, if it is not too hot), but at my rate of consumption a little jar of one of those will be gone in about four days. So sometimes I eat the generic with Yellow Dye No. 4 (or whatever).

So, five days a week, gobs of mustard. (And practically none, the other two days.)

When I was younger, and ate French fries more than once in a while, I used enormous amounts of ketchup on those. Perhaps because of the salt/sugar combination?  I just like ketchup. There’s that.

And before that, when I was quite young, I almost could not put enough mayo on a burger. Or any other sandwich.

When I was a kid, I occasionally had something we called “mayonnaise bread” — which was nothing more than a lot of mayo on a slice of bread. My brother did this more often than I did, and he also liked ketchup bread.  Oddly, I never went there.

Anyway, when I use condiments, any of the Big Three (mustard, ketchup, mayo), I do not stint. Never have.

If I buy a hotdog at a ballgame, it’s going to be leaking mustard on the first bite. If I am served fries, I need a bottle of Heinz nearby. And I would still eat mayo if I hadn’t pretty much given it up a few decades ago.

Does the condiment fill some dietary gap? Or do I just like how they taste? Or does it keep me from choking, and I’m overzealous about it?

I must not be the only one … but I can’t say I know anyone who blows through mustard like I do. I could do testimonials for the Mustard Council.