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Ketchup, awful stuff

Oh, only Crazy Canuks would besmirch ketchup... mayo on a burger???? yuss guys has no couth...
I'll defend my wife's right to use ketchup on her 'Freedom' fries until the day she stops sharing them with me.
'Merica!!!!!!!!!
 

Disagree.....

Regular Ketchup is great for French Fries.

Curry Ketchup works as well (and testing with other foods)

Banana Ketchup in the Philippines was an interesting sight.
 
I have purchased my first Louisiana hot sauce in the past week because I plan to make my first deviled crab. All I remember of Tobasco sauce is my small-child "It burns, waaaa!" I can go up to #4 on the Thai hotness scale, so surely I can handle this!

I can't say the idea of adding sherry to pea soup ever occurred to me (I make it with ham) but know that it makes turtle soup special. I think your palate is a lot more sophisticated than mine.

Since you've mentioned oenophiles, I am not one, and my peasant standard is "Does it not taste like vomit?" My BFF and her husband actually are and travel all over the world (who knew that Cambodia and Vietnam had wineries? Not I!). I had to laugh when I read "complexity" in your post because the last time I had supper with them, the hubs insisted I drink at least half a glass of his just so I could experience the cherry note and the complexity of the whatever.
Chomsky said:
It's the thick sweet "Kansas City" style common in the Midwest. It actually won an award at the old Mike Royko's "Rib Fests" held in Chicago back in the day.
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There will never be another Mike Royko. Thank you for the mention.

Mike Royko - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
 
Fledermaus said:
Disagree.....

Regular Ketchup is great for French Fries.

Curry Ketchup works as well (and testing with other foods)

Banana Ketchup in the Philippines was an interesting sight.
Click to expand...

Banana Ketchup? Sounds awful.
 
I cant believe a topic like ketchup has gotten to 12 pages already
 
Sabre said:
How can you say ketchup is bad when you have marmite?
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Well its not one or the other there is a scale for instance marmite is the most evil "condiment" in the universe but that doesn't mean vegemite is good it is just very very very slightly less evil.
Ketchup is in the middle, not great not terrible just kinda boring
 

How did you go through life without contact with Tobasco or other Louisiana Sauces? Especially Tobasco?


nota bene said:
I can't say the idea of adding sherry to pea soup ever occurred to me (I make it with ham) but know that it makes turtle soup special. I think your palate is a lot more sophisticated than mine.
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A of dribble sherry over a bowl of pea soup, maybe a teaspoonful, was very popular in Continental & French cooking and in the States.

The prototype for this would seem to be "Potage St Germain". Essentially, "French Pea Soup". There was a French Food explosion in the States starting in the early 60's. In French restaurants it was generally "Haut Cuisine", which translated here to rich, expensive, sophisticated dining, that some might call "snobby".

However French cooking soon made its way into America's kitchens & American mainstream restaurants though, as can be seen by:

"French Onion Soup (incl Au Gratin)", Beef Bourguignon, Quiche Lorraine, Chicken Fricassee, "Potatoes Au Gratin", Ratatouille, Coq au Vin, Crème Brûlée, Crêpes, Chocolate Mousse, etc., etc.

Much of the initial French restaurant and (even more-so) French home-cooking boom can be attributed to Julia Childs, who subsequently begat more French Chef television luminaries like Jacques Pépin.

By the late 70's/early 80's Haut Cuisine had run it's course, and in-turn begat the rise of Bistros & Bistro (common) fare. Think "Steak Frites"! French Bistros remained popular until the 90's, and by the turn of the millennium even their fare fell out of favor. Now we have many assimilated dishes, but few French restaurants. I really miss my favorite local Bistro. It hung-on until around 10 years ago. It was started in the late 70's. There's a few others left, so they haven't died-out absolutely completely. But they're few and far between, and the currently ones in my city are fairly Americanized, to the point I might even call most to be more "fusion" than French!

But I wrote all this to make the point of Potage St Germain & sherry in pea soup! Potage St Germain has been a French Restaurant staple since the 60's, and virtually always includes sherry in the dish, or quite often in a small thimble on-the-side (traditional & preferred). On-the-side, allows the diner to add as they prefer. If you're aware of the small cream thimbles some old-school diners used when serving coffee in the 60's & 70's, it's basically the same thing.

If you do try this, serve the pea soup in individual bowls, and then at the table dribble a little dry white sherry over the top. You don't need much, maybe a teaspoonful. My preference is for a dry lighter sherry.

nota bene said:
Since you've mentioned oenophiles, [. . . ]
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Tobasco is aged in repurposed Bourbon barrels, obtained from Bourbon distilleries after the product has been removed from the barrels & bottled. That, plus 3 years aging, is probably responsible for the complexity I believe note.

nota bene said:
There will never be another Mike Royko. Thank you for the mention.

Mike Royko - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...

Starting from 4th grade in Grammar School, with my paper routes, Mike Royko was one of my childhood hero's. Before there was Jimmy Breslin, there was Mike Royko! My other "journalistic" literary hero (besides Papa Hemingway), was Studs Terkel, whose books were "journalistic recounting" of sorts. Oh, there also was Bob Green, after he went on tour with Alice Cooper - representing the new breed of journalists like Hunter S. Thompson.

As a child & later a teen, I was so smitten by these newspapermen that I seriously considered going to Medill (N.U.) after High School. But after looking at starting journalism salaries, vs my other career consideration, Journalism sounded too much like the music dreams I had playing in garage bands --> starve & hope you get the one-in-a-million-chance that will likely never happen! It wasn't for me. I went for the guaranteed money, with the only starvation requirement being that of being a finite-period-of-time starving-student!

I'm blown-away you have the same appreciation for Royko I have! Have you read his books? Or, his Columns? How about Terkel? have you read him?
 
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Ketchup isn't terrible, but I don't use it very often. It's good on fries, but there are better options for fries.

Here is my favorite recipe for mushroom ketchup from YouTube:


Amazing on beef.
 
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SNOWFLAKE said:
Are you deliberately trying to ruin my dinner??
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It's excellent, unless you hate mushrooms or horseradish. Though, from the video I posted above, the original mushroom ketchup was closer to worcestershire sauce than it is to tomato ketchup.
 
What is ketchup? Even the origin of the term is disputed. Britannica thinks it is from a Chinese term for a fermented fish paste. The English rendering was catsup, which evolved into ketchup. Here is an article on the origins.

The Surprising History of Ketchup Explained

Sure, ketchup is a beloved condiment in America today, but ketchup's origins are actually ancient. Discover the surprising history of the sauce.
www.rd.com

Sure, ketchup is a beloved condiment in America today, but ketchup's origins are actually ancient. ... The origin of ketchup dates back thousands of years to southeast Asia, where it did not resemble the hamburger condiment we love today. “The story begins thousands of years ago, when people living along the coasts and rivers of southeast Asia and what is now southern China began to preserve local fish and shrimp, salting and fermenting it into rich savory pastes,” says Dan Jurafsky, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University.​
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This is my go-to version. Straight out of the bottle, it's a better shrimp sauce than the ones included in most over-the-counter shrimp cocktail packs.

 

Blasphemy

With me, Ketchup is a food group. I drown fries and hot dogs in it.
 


Once, on Vancouver Island's west coast, isolated from all forms of humanity we ran out of food.

We had soda crackers and ketchup. After a while crackers alone are not appetizing so we put ketchup on them.

I have not eaten either since. And I won't! It's not food people.
 
I use ketchup on hamburgers and hotdogs and as an ingredient in sloppy joes.

That is about it.

Vegemite should be outlawed as a toxic substance.

But ketchup has a very limited usage.

 


"French cooking" has NEVER made its way into American cuisine. What you have is an American version of 'french' which has been heavily influenced by New Orleans cuisine and down spiced to the point of insult.

Kraft Mac & cheese with canned shrimp is not French Cuisine.
 
Ketchup started out a century and a half ago as a CHUTNEY.
If you want something more imaginative than the sugary carbo-rich crap from Heinz and Hunts, try MAKING a chutney with tomato sauce, vinegar, proper spices, a pinch of salt and pepper, and maybe even a tiny bit of heat from the chilies.
It's not a sin to add a little sugar but whoa Nellie, keep it to a maximum of maybe 2 grams per liter of chutney sauce.

Or you could just begin to explore the entire WORLD of chutneys, there are literally hundreds of chutney sauces out there, try some of them, you might be pleasantly surprised.
 
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