It’s easy to take ketchup for granted. To just assume it will always be there. But once our all-American burger and fries arrive, if we don’t have ketchup we have a problem.
Of course there are other uses for ketchup, many of which are in the form of hacks and secret family recipes, where a little ketchup here or there goes a long way, and nobody notices, in the beef stew, borscht, Bloody Mary, or beyond. Ultimately, ketchup is a low-fuss steak sauce for the common people who take their meat in burger and dog form. That same thick, tangy sweetness makes it a great dipping sauce for the people’s preferred deep fried potatoes. President Reagan once called ketchup a vegetable, during a food fight over school budgets, and thankfully that did not fly, although he did have a point. My homemade ketchup is absolutely a vegetable.
