Yes, ketchup. This is a bit long winded. Please, bear with me.
Ever notice that ketchup out of the squeeze bottles in your home just never really tastes right? You have ketchup at the boardwalk at the beach. It's ketchup. You get it at McDonalds in little packets(not that I ever eat there....but I remember!). It's ketchup! Ketchup ketchup ketchup. Wonderful, smooth, sweet, addictive ketchup!!
You try the stuff from the store. it says "Heinz". It's red. It looks like ketchup. It acts like ketchup. Stains like ketchup. Then you put it on you're fries, and it doesn't quite taste the same, does it? No? You convince yourself that it's all in your head. "Oh, it just tastes better out of the packet because it's not as cold".
Poppycock. Balderdash. Nonsense. Bah Humbug!
I recently travelled through Canada. No where of great note. Anyone familiar with Sault St Marie or Pembroke? There's a certain little town between Sault St Marie and Pembroke that was in our line of fire. We were hungry, and there, right there, was this wonderful little town...out of nowhere...with a marvelous little restaurant. And I do mean marvelous. The ambiance was great. The food was better. Cheap, too. I wish we didn't have so many miles to drive...I would have had a couple of beers and spent the night. Somewhere else...I don't think there was a hotel. Anyhow, the wife ordered fries with her meal, and thus began my revelation.
The ketchup...ah, the KETCHUP. Out of a squeeze bottle, just like my squeeze bottle home, came this glorious, smooth, sweet (with no after taste) ketchup. The ketchup of the gods. It's as though this waitress spent hours opening packets of ketchup to refill her "not packaged for resale" bottles, raided all the nearby boardwalks (there are no boardwalks, by the way), and delivered, for my french fry eating pleasure, the ketchup of my childhood. The ketchup that makes me think of sand and salt, or mom taking me for my McNuggets! Ketchup. Ahhhhhhhhh.
So what the heck?
A brief glance at the ingredients.....what's this? Liquid sugar? Liquid sugar? Where's my high fructose corn syrup?? Could this be the secret?
Yeah, you bet. High fructose corn syrup in your ketchup makes it taste like that garbage you have in you're refrigerator. You want it to taste good? Order you're ketchup from Canada. What's that you say? You don't want to order it from a distributor that will only sell it in cartons of 24? There's a solution.
Remember these words:
"Simply Heinz"
The Simply Heinz product is made with sugar. What's that? It's a new fangled substitute for high fructobladidiblah stuff. Yes, actual sugar. This is the ketchup I know and love.
For you hippies, there's a Heinz Organic as well.
The wife likes the Organic better. It's a bit thinner and has a stronger tomatoey flavor to it. The Simply Heinz has more of the "packet from the boardwalk" flavor to it (which I prefer). I now have both varieties in my fridge. The regular, ridiculously awful, Heinz merely languishes. We'll serve that to the guests at our next barbecue.
If I can save but one person from having to eat one more ruined french fry, I will have served my purpose on this planet.
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I didn't touch ketchup again until about two years ago. Yes, I knew the truth much earlier but I couldn't remember why I liked ketchup. Now I'm a Heinz gal! Ditto on the Hunts = blech!!! I'll have to try Heinz in the little package as I must admit I have no idea if it tastes different. I will, however, defer to your wisdom on this.
Originally Posted by Kent A Bathurst
