Now, about ketchup.
As those of you around the globe who rush to read this blog will recall, I do NOT write a food blog. In spite of which, we HAVE discussed ketchup before. But I was wandering around the Interwebs and thought of a thing or two that need to be said.
Now as a native of the Midwest, I must specify that we are discussing REAL ketchup, not walnut ketchup or zucchini ketchup or any of the other variations thereof. And I will be talking about KETCHUP without meaning any disrespect to those of you who insist on catsup or even catchup. By all means, you go on doing you. Each word has its history. But for the sake of my own self-respect, I am talking about not the spelling or history of ketchup but how it is used in my corner of the world.
Ketchup is considered a natural topping for fast food hamburgers, and I pity the misguided soul who holds a cookout and serves up hamburgers with no ketchup in view. Among some people, ground beef and ketchup are such a natural pairing that they go the extra mile and make ketchup one of the main ingredients in their meatloaf. My mother used tomato sauce in hers, and HER mother used only home=-canned tomato sauce. They also used tapioca, but that’s a subject ofr a whole nother blog.
I do not use ketchup in cooking myself, but when I heard from the Frugal Gourmet that a basic sweet and sour sauce could be made by simply combining water, sugar, and ketchup, I gave it a try and found it worthy. (I have not checked his assertion that a number of Asian restaurants use the same recipe. For one thing, sweet and sour sauce seems to have fallen out of fashion, and I very seldom see it offered.)
As a resident of Chicago, I am supposed to sneer at those of you who put ketchup on your hot dogs. I decline to do this. You can NOT put ketchup on your hot dog and call it a Chicago dog, but I refuse to go around asking what you call your hot dog. I suspect the results of such a poll would shock me, and I am very delicate. Dress your hot dog as you please, by the shade of Oscar Mayer! This said, however, I DO worry about those of my acquaintance who put ketchup on their bologna sandwich, even though that’s technically a very similar dish. But as long as I can have my meal without ketchup on it, I am not here to judge. The same goes for those of you who can’t eat eggs without “red gravy”.
What really took me to the Interwebs, and which it has taken me long enough to get around to, is the connection between potatoes and ketchup. At my house, we did not ketchup our French fries. But I knew that other people did and, as I moved out into the wider world, I found most people regard this as so automatic that once again, I was the outsider. I took it in stride. Some people salt their watermelon and some don’t, I figured.
But that was then. Nowadays, whenever I dine out and any manner of fried potato is served, be it French fries, cottage fries, American fries, or any one of a dozen types of hash browns, ketchup is automatically provided. This would not be the case if America was not demanding ketchup with fried potatoes. Going to the Interwebs to find out why, I was offered a labyrinth of rabbit holes. One writer insisted I was a fool for not dipping my potato chips in ketchup, and there are roughly a thousand recipes for crispy potatoes that have been stewed in ketchup. (How the potatoes get crispy when stewed is beyond me, but I declined to spend the rest of the week comparing recipes, so that’s just me.)
The sole voice raised to discuss the question suggested it derives from the tradition of smothering fish and chips in malt vinegar (vinegar being a notable component of ketchup). But that was as far as she went before moving on to discuss putting ketchup on your macaroni and cheese. At least I found no followers of the kids I used to eat lunch with in the school cafeteria, who would gleefully grab the squeeze bottle of ketchup, plunge the tip into their mashed potatoes, and pump a pint of red gravy into the mound of white. I DID find a lot of malarkey claiming that the current rage for dipping sauces with our fast food choices started with McDonald’s and their McNuggets, when obviously fries and ketchup were there first.
I came out of my research shaken, but convinced that my fellow Americans simply expect ketchup with their potatoes. But the order of fries never comes with the ketchup pre-applied, so I can eat mine as they come (yes, I did try dipping a couple in the ranch dressing, but that was just out of curiosity). Those of you who cannot go through a drive-thru without asking the counterfolk for a few extra packets of ketchup (by which, as I have observed, you generally mean ten or twelve) are free to sauce your potatoes any way you please. I have mustered as much interest as I can in the unanswerable question. Mayo all keep well.
Blogsy Babbles 