The Ketchup Chornicles … Individual packets or solid gold?!?

There’s nothing more humiliating for a ketch-a-holic then to ask for ketchup at his favorite fast food joint.  Nothing says “I’m a freak of nature” like asking for a “big handful” of ketchup three times-in-a-row.  “You must REALLY like ketchup!”

“Oh, do you think so Einstein?!? ”

If you ask for ketchup at the counter, you’re lucky if they hand you three packets.  It’s as if they’re reaching into Jack Sparrow’s treasure chest and handing you gold doubloons!  Are there really normal people who only use three packets for a triple Whopper & a large fry?  I guess those people are a lot better than me…  I don’t know how you do it.

If I were president, it would be federal law that all McDonald’s are required to have a pump ketchup dispenser to save me this agonizing ordeal.  Oh and the little ketchup cups?  Could they possibly make them smaller?  You really believe shrinking the cup will cure my insatiable appetite for my sumptuous red ooze?  If these things get much smaller, I’ll be shooting a spurt directly into my hand.

I want full size Dixie cups to be mandatory next to each mandatory pump dispenser so I don’t have to return every 2 minutes and fill 3 more teeny, tiny cups.

To be continued…

The Ketchup Chronicles …. WTF is Catsup?

I find the term catsup offensive.

The word ketchup does not fully embody the greatness that ketchup is.  However, it stands leaps-and-bounds above catsup.  Ketchup is something to be celebrated, adored, and cherished.  Held high-upon-high.  The King of Sauces.  Why not just call ketchup Jesus?  Its spicy boldness is truly holy and there’s a bottle on the table in every picture of The Last Supper I’ve ever seen.  (Although sometimes it’s hard to see, but keep looking, it’s there.)

Catsup is something to be disregarded.  Technically the “vegetable” on your school lunch tray.  Thrown away during an absence of teacher’s gaze.  Catsup, to me, conjures up nightmarish visions of children being tortured, 9/11, or burgers and dogs being consumed with a thin, watery, tasteless impostor sauce.  The horror…

Askew visions of a KittyKat ghetto where felines greet each other without intellect;  “Yo Cat!  Sup?”

Not widely known, catsup can cause gastro-intestinal bleeding, esophageal rash,  and has even been linked to Ebola.

Ketchup and catsup are not one-and-the-same.  Don’t make that mistake. If I must use catsup, then I choose not to use!

Excuse me while I locate my dictionary and strike out this so-called word.  It’s a term I’m no longer familiar with.

To be continued…

The Ketchup Chronicles … the unsightly red smear on America’s plate.

Why is it that ketchup gets such a bad rap?

What’s wrong with using a little, or a lot, if you like the way it enhances your food?  Or dances across your taste buds?  Or keeps illness at bay loaded with cancer fighting lycopene?  You like it.  You want it.  You may even…love it.  It’s perfectly legal….but America looks down it’s nose at you for using.  A ketchup junkie who should be thrown away and cast out as a weak, culinary fool with the taste capacity of a common dog.  Hide in the back of a Burger King and squeeze your individual packets you little, little man…

Who really is offended by the big red smear left upon your plate?  Anyone?  Really?  To the ketchup artist, the impossibly abstract trail my last bite leaves as it travels through the remains of my delectable, rich, crimson sauce is a sign of a meal finished that was good to the last drop.

Brothers and sisters….I will have it no more!

Why is it self-regarded “higher-end” restaurants won’t put a ketchup bottle on the table?  Asking the waiter for a bottle….you may as well asked him to fetch you a turd.  Ketchup connoisseurs are forced to politely ask for a small porcelain cup of the unsightly red nectar of the Gods while they laugh at us….pity us….loathe us.

Are we to be scoffed at behind the wait staffs backs when we have to ask for a dozen sweet cups of love to douse our potatoes, or hamburgers, or heaven-forbid we like a little on our steak!  We don’t want your pity.  We don’t need your pity.  All we want is our gawd-damned red bottle and to just be left alone….

Why is it A1 is revered as a steak sauce and proudly sits upon my table at any middle-class steakhouse, while ugly little red-headed cousin, Heinz T Ketchup, is locked away in some forgotten cabinet under the sink…slumming it with the dishwashers.  Some families dirty little secret hidden away like Harry Potter in the cupboard under the stairs.

I watch in awe & jealousy as patrons of restaurants drown their food in ranch dressing, barbecue sauce, and tartar to name just a few …. but I’m forced to languish on in my unholy love for you; my sweet Heinz.

To be continued….