Ketchup

[lexy]

But you've got me thinking, are there any haute Ketchups?  I only use Heinz, and have not seen anything else, and wonder what it would be like if I made it myself.

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There was an interesting article a while back in the New Yorker about why there's no end of different kinds of mustards, but basically only one kind of ketchup (Heinz). Unfortunately, I can't remember what the author concluded, but it was an interesting read.

Like a lot of people here, I find ketchup too cloying and sweet unless it's an ingredient in a dish with other flavours. I prefer salty, sour, or spicy flavours for my burgers or fries (mmm … fries with lots of salt and vineger … *drool*)

[bavila]

I've never been crazy about ketchup, even as a kid. Maybe that's because I don't like a lot of any kind of condiment or sauce on my food.

But I really learned to hate ketchup when I waited tables in a diner and had to marry or fill ketchup bottles as side work. Get enough ketchup going around you a few times and the stench is pretty intolerable. Plus the sugary tomatoey messes that ensued were a pain to clean up.

My aversion has subsided somewhat, but I still rather a combination of mayo and mustard for my fries. Maybe it's the French in me.

[jsolomon]

I must be one of the few here who have had homemade ketchup. My mom's was really good. Not too cloyingly sweet. Slightly oniony with some hints of spices. Really quite different from what you find from Heinz or anyone else. I prefer del Monte.

I am also in the pro camp. And, yes, it does belong on cheap hot dogs. On proper sausages with bits and spices, then I am a mustard and pickled pepper relish purist, but an American hot dog doesn't quite make that grade.

[Tess]

Most commercial condiments and sauces are too sweet for me. Mustard with sugar (honey, whatever) in it strikes me as very weird. But I like ketchup on fried potatoes and a few other foods, even though I don't like ketchup itself. It must be an association thing. (I hate ketchup on bread though, and if ketchup from a burger gets into the bun, I won't eat it. Not that I eat burgers that much anyway.)

[Milagai]

I don't like plain ketchup.

I really like the tweaked Indian ketchup brands

(e.g Maggi) that come in great flavors like

hot chili, garlic and chili, etc.

I dip anything I can into it: great with samosas

Milagai

[daves]

After having some restaurant-made ketchup a few years ago, we swore off the Heinz sugar blast and looked around for something better. We ended up with Muir Glen Organic Ketchup (from KetchupWorld). Much less sweet, with a real tomato flavor. Plus a nice spice profile (cloves, onion, a little heat).

We don't need to order online since our local grocery stores carry it.

It is a shame that, for most people (and apparently the New Yorker) that ketchup equals Heinz. There are much better products out there.

[cakewalk]

Mmmm. Ketchup. I don't like it quite as much as when I was a kid -- I no longer put ketchup on chicken or steak -- but I love it with French Fries or hash browns. I particularly hate it on eggs, I find the combination of red and yellow quite revolting, but I'll always put it on the potatoes near my eggs. I used to eat only Heinz, but then on Passover a few years ago I bought Gefen brand ketchup, which is made with sugar rather than corn syrup, and I loved it. The taste was completely different. It was a different type of sweetness, and I also think it had more vinegar so it was sharper. And ketchup is great, indispensable even, as an ingredient in a lot of other sauces.

[Jinmyo]

If you put ketchup on frites you had might as well just pour it on cockroaches and eat that instead. Frites are wasted on you and you are a very bad person.

edit:

Kidding with the second sentence. More or less serious about the first.

Edited June 2, 2005 by Jinmyo (log)

[petite tête de chou]

Ketchup. The main ingredient in a condiment sandwich.

[daniellewiley]

However, I will disinterestedly observe, purely in the spirit of community-minded, nonjudgmental opining, that putting ketchup on a hot dog indicates a serious character flaw. For example, my wife does this -- and look at the nut she wound up marrying.

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I wholeheartedly agree, and feel that I can admit, here in the safety of eGullet, that at a ball game last week, I told my daughter that she's not allowed to have ketchup on hot dogs. Luckily, she just smiled and asked for mustard.

phew.

[Toliver]

Pshaw on the lot of you!

Heinz.

The big bottle.

Slathered on french fries, hamburgers AND on hot dogs...even ball park dogs. Poured with glee and without shame.

So there.

[Pumpkin Lover]

Pshaw on the lot of you!

Heinz. 

The big bottle. 

Slathered on french fries, hamburgers AND on hot dogs...even ball park dogs.  Poured with glee and without shame.

So there. 

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I dig your style, Toliver--gimme a bottle of ketchup and I'm a happy HAPPY girl. A New York-cart hot dog with onions and ketchup is pure heaven. Mmmmmm.

[naguere]

Ketchup has it's place, just like tinned tomato soup or Englandland's Marmite . It is a product of our childhood. (or kimchee if you come from Korea)

[Chris Amirault]

I wholeheartedly agree, and feel that I can admit, here in the safety of eGullet, that at a ball game last week, I told my daughter that she's not allowed to have ketchup on hot dogs. Luckily, she just smiled and asked for mustard.

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Well, that's good. I mean, you'd hate to be tossed out of the ball game by, say, the third string tackle at the local state U/security guard -- which is what would certainly happen if ketchup hit that weiner, right?

Think of the shame heaped upon your family as you and your daughter skulked back to the parking lot....

[suzilightning]

i use much, much less ketchup now than i did as a child. to me it tastes too salty.

muir glen is very good but i found a recipe for sundried tomato ketchup and that is pretty much the standard in the eagle's nest nowadays. course i tweak it up a bit with more vinegar than called for

[daves]

[...] but i found a recipe for sundried tomato ketchup and that is pretty much the standard in the eagle's nest nowadays. [...]

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can you share?

[Hiroyuki]

adobohead's post in the Japan Forum:

My first Japan posting, and it's in this topic...oh well.

My disdain for ketchup (or better, my wariness of ketchup) has to do with the simple fact that most American food, especially fast food, is uninspired. Growing up in the United States, I encountered many mediocre dishes slathered in ketchup...mediocre hamburgers, mediocre meatloaf. I've seen people put ketchup in macaroni and cheese...jazzing up a mediocre sauce by putting more sauce on it.

When I was a kid, I used to put ketchup on just about everything. There were dishes that my mother would make that I didn't even know by name...I just knew that I liked them because I could put ketchup on them. I would refer to such a dish as "the ketchup thing".

"What do you want for dinner, adobo or omelet?"

"The ketchup thing!" (meaning omelet)

I was not alone. Tons of kids my age used to glop ketchup on everything. There was actually a public service announcement that they used to play during Saturday morning cartoons...any of you remember "Don't Drown Your Food?". Sing along, folks...

don't drown your food

in mayo, salt, ketchup or goo

it's no fun to eat what you can't even see

so don't drown your food!

Anyway, I got over the ketchup thing. I learned to appreciate the flavor and texture of foods with no sauce or a moderate amount of sauce. Very saucy food still freaks me out a little bit...I'd probably have a hard time in France.

How many of you are familiar with this song?

[godito]

If you put ketchup on frites you had might as well just pour it on cockroaches and eat that instead. Frites are wasted on you and you are a very bad person.

LOL

I agree! It's not that I don't like ketchup. Like I said in another post, I just don't get it. It's a way to hide flavors. If you don't like the way they fried your frites, then you add ketchup. But as a cook, I want to find a way to serve fried potatoes so that no ketchup would be needed. I also want the burger to be juicy and tasty enough.

I rarelly eat ketchup. I had some two or three months ago with my fries in a bar because the fries were, well, crappy (there's no better word for it). But to be honest, the sauce didn't make the snack taste better.

BTW, if you've read Kurlansky's "Salt", you should know that ketchup is a derivate from fish sauce. Salt fermented fish with ingredients added to achieve different flavors. Eventually, the fermented fish was not added any more (vinegar was added instead to preserve it) and ketchup was born. Later, it got to America where sugar was added to please the local palate. Interesting, huh?

[suzilightning]

[...] but i found a recipe for sundried tomato ketchup and that is pretty much the standard in the eagle's nest nowadays. [...]

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can you share?

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since the recipe isn't modified enough to post here or in recipegullet have pm'd you

[eje]

There was quite an interesting article in the New Yorker last year about a gentleman who is trying to market a new upscale Ketchup.

It is available online here:

http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_09_06_a_ketchup.html

Fascinating stuff about Mustard and professional tasters, too.

I try to cut out as much High Fructose Corn Syrup as possible, so I stick to the Muir Glenn Ketchup. Can't think of the last time I used it, though. Maybe as a condiment on a dead of winter burger, when the tomatoes were too sad to countenance.

[racheld]

One big squeeze bottle of Heinz in the fridge at all times, along with several backups in the pantry. My own childhood favorite (haven't eaten ANY since) was Del Monte---tasted good and had that exotic "pineapple vinegar."

Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home Companion tells us each week how to live a sensible life and stand up straight and not throw the baby out with the bath, merely by consuming our RDA of ketchup.

These homely sentiments are followed by a haunting refrain:

Ketchup----For the Gooooood Liiiiife.

(echoing gently into the distance): Keh-chup. Keh-chup.

Not to be confused with Powdermilk Biscuits, which give us shy people the strength to get up and do what has to be done.

[turkeybone]

Ive always considered myself very anti-condiment. As Ive grown up some, I think it comes down to my dislike of mayo and ketchup (we had to make some 1000 island in class recently.... blech. But at least I know what its supposed to taste like now).

If I do reach for ketchup, its during one of those rare times I crave a well-done burger (yes, I said it). Never on fries, eggs, hot dogs.. ew. I wish I could be more constructive with my criticisms as far as taste, but I think the ketchup "flavor" is too overpowering for anything but a charred hockey puck. A delcious charred hockey puck.

Also, I was always more interested in the variety of mustard flavors I could always find -- whereas ketchup only really changed colors (ew). Though after reading this thread, I'll have to do some investigating into these organic/garlicky/etc ketchups.

[Pam R]

Ketchup chips are the best potato chips there are.

[slyaspie]

I like ketchup on certain things. For fries though I'm adamant that they be hot, crispy and salty with absolutely no ketchup or any other condiment for that matter. The hot saltiness is its own condiment when it comes to fries. Ketchup ruins what is a supremely simple yet perfect food. It's heresy.

On the other hand I love ketchup on two things that most people are totally horrified by: eggs (scrambled or omelette) and hotdogs. It's also essential on burgers, and these really yummy fried grated zuchinni, rice and cheese "meatballs" that I adore. I dip half of them in the red stuff and the other half in a couple of different mustards.

But the weirdest thing I love to eat ketchup with are these Calbee brand shrimp chips that are shaped sort of like crinkle fries only they are thicker with curving uniform ridges. I MUST have ketchup with them or it's not a true experience, and believe me, I can finish the whole bag in one sitting dipping my hand from the bag into a mound of ketcup I've squirted onto a plate. My friends think this combination is horrifying. Oh well...that way they won't ask me for any.

[bleachboy]

I'm not anti-condiment by any means whatsoever, but I only rarely use ketchup. I don't dislike ketchup at all, I'm just more of a mayo and/or mustard guy.

I primarily use ketchup as an ingredient in BBQ sauce (which I like much better than ketchup on fries, for example) or in one particular recipe for baked beans. The only time I ever use ketchup by itself as a condiment is with onion rings.