I love ketchup. To me, french fries are a nothing but a delivery system. If I was to commit a murder and be sentenced to the chair, my last meal would be a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, garden salad with bleu cheese dressing, roasted lamb, peas and french fries with plenty of ketchup. Sometimes on my way to work I hit the drive-through for french fries. I am always cautious to vary my pattern and go to a different Mickey D's to avoid arousing suspicion and so the workers don't label me as the crazy lady who asks for a ton of extra ketchup. Some people think ketchup on scrambled eggs is barbaric. Not me.

When I read something about ketchup it typically has the obligatory stuff about ketchup / catsup or Roman garum and Chinese ké tsiap (fish sauces), early ketchups without tomatoes that involved anchovies, vinegar and spices, Anticipation by Carly Simon, how President Reagan tried to have ketchup declared a vegetable to cut corners on the school hot lunch program (in the United States a tomato is legally a vegetable) or that Heinz used to make green, purple and pink ketchup or ketchup's cancer-fighting and anti-oxidant properties. I think all of that is pretty much common knowledge so we'll skip that.

My favorite is Heinz 57. It has a good consistency and viscosity, doesn't separate and has a nice balance of herbs and spices. I am sure we are all familiar with smacking a glass bottle on the bottom with the palm of our hand or sticking a knife in the bottle to get ketchup. I buy the convenient 'upside down' plastic squeezy bottle. Another plus is that I can write my name in ketchup on whatever food I am eating. I stick with cursive and always dot the 'i'.

Heinz 57 also comes in an industrial size but I wouldn't trust myself - I would be too tempted to stick the food right in the container which is kind of like drinking directly from the pitcher. Better safe than sorry. The one thing I dislike about going to the drive-through is the five minutes spent gnawing the foil ketchup packets open. I think the runner-up in the ketchup sweepstakes would be Hunt's which is more tomato-y.

On Saturdays I usually go to Sammy's hot dog joint. You can't put ketchup on a dog. And you can't make dogs at home. Believe me, I've tried. In the old days a handful of greasy french fries was included free with the dog. Now you have to order fries separately. They have a huge portion-control pump ketchup dispenser and little paper cups to put the ketchup in for the french fries by the self-serve soda fountain. I just put my tray under the pump and give it about ten squirts. Some people would love to be rich or be a fashion model or a movie star. My dream job would be to own a dog joint. Or join a religious order.
I order french fries and ketchup in nice restaurants, too. My theory is that I want food that I like but that I can't make at home. A baked potato I can handle so why order it in a restaurant? I suppose I could get one of those Presto Fry Daddies but I have eleven linear feet of countertop including the kitchen sink so my counter space is very limited. And my track record with small electrical appliances is not so good. Just ask the fire department.

There was an article in The New Yorker about ketchup a few years ago. The argument was that since Grey Poupon mustard hit the supermarkets, there has been an explosion of mustards. There is a mustard museum near my house but unless you really like mustard it is kind of boring. I was hoping for a more interactive mustard experience. The subject of The New Yorker article advanced the theory that consumers need a variety of ketchups, too. I have tried many artisinal and niche ketchups. Some of them are interesting; some are very good. You might need a yellow salad-type mustard for hot dogs and a brown dijon-style mustard for brats but I only need one ketchup in my refrigerator. Heinz 57.

My sister, Tony, brought me ketchup from the Caribbean. It was chunky and herbal. The next day I was looking for something in the refrigerator and noticed fuzzy black stuff growing in the bottle so that thing didn't even make the recycling bin. Straight in the garbage. Evidently Jamaica doesn't have strict food purity laws or preservatives.

The weather forecast for the weekend called for a snowstorm so I thought this would be a good time to try making ketchup. Actually summertime would probably be better with vine-ripened tomatoes from the garden but there is always so much to do in summer so I settled for tomatoes that were stripmined in South America.

Not Veronica's Basic Ketchup.

Yields about two cups.

One dozen tomatoes.
Onion.
1/2 cup sugar.
1/2 cup vinegar.
1/2 teaspoon salt.

I began by mincing the onion and scalding the tomatoes to facilitate removal of the skin, halved them, scooped out the seeds and threw them in the blender with the onion, sugar, salt and vinegar. I poured the mixture in a saucepan and simmered for about two hours stirring during the commercials, let cool and put in a canning jar. I didn't bother with sterilizing because this was a small test batch intended to be refrigerated and consumed within a week.

After waiting overnight, I made some Ore-Ida Extra Crispy Fast Food Fries frozen french fries in the oven and spooned the ketchup over the fries. (I eat french fries with a fork.) The french fries were so-so as to be expected but the ketchup was a disaster. Very raw tomato; pronounced vinegar. Thin consistency, prone to separate. There are five basic tastes: Saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness and the one they didn't teach you about in school, umami. Absolutely no umami or richness. It was more like a bad spaghetti sauce with vinegar. If this had been successful, I would have used this as a springboard to more adventurous ketchups and tried doctoring subsequent batches with anchovies and spices or lime and herbs. I ended up throwing it out.
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