Don't you dare put ketchup on that Fourth of July hot dog

We won't tattle if ketchup is your preferred hot dog topper, but be warned: Some folks out there have feels about which condiment is appropriate when it comes to the easy summertime cookout staple.

The tomato variety is practically considered an abomination in some areas. 

There's data, sort of, to back it up. For the past four years, Charlotte, N.C., -based JJ's Red Hots has tracked sales records to create an annual top 10 list of favorite hot dog toppings. Mustard has just received its coronation as "reigning king" for the third year running.

Like any hard-and-fast food rule, there is of course regional disagreement, but mustard's prominence is passionately corroborated by Chicago-style hot dog purveyors, one D-FW-based one in particular: Brian Luscher, the celebrated chef-owner of Luscher's Red Hots.

"Ketchup is for kids," he told GuideLive last year. 

The tomato-based topping is, technically, available at his Deep Ellum eatery, primarily for fries and onion rings, he says, but customers can put it on dogs, if that's a deal-breaker. For what it's worth, Luscher's chili features beans. You can take the chef out of Chicago, but you can't take all of the Yankee-style out of the chef.

We can appreciate strong feelings about the particularities of food; Texans are, of course, full of our own. We love breakfast tacos 4,000 percent more than the rest of the country, a study declared last year. (There's even vicious in-fighting between cities over who gets to claim them.) That's to say nothing of our Whataburger obsession or the lengths some have gone to in a declaration of love for Bob Armstrong Dip.

Adamant as they may be about the "reigning king," the rest of the top 10 list from JJ's Red Hots includes some... questionable choices. Thoughts? 

1. mustard

Have a hankering? More wiener-related stories: 

Exclusive: Look inside Luscher's hot dog shop, now open in Deep Ellum