Rubin Verebes is the managing editor of Foodie and is very opinionated. Transforming his hobby of eating and drinking into a career, he shares his account of Hong Kong’s F&B scene and the worldwide state of dining in Rubin’s Take, a monthly opinion column.
I cannot recall the specific date when I began to shun the world’s most-loved red condiment, yet I know in detail my antagonistic story in developing my small-to-medium hatred of ketchup.
I distinctly remember the humid lunchtimes spent at my Hong Kong primary school, where meals typically consisted of a heavy side of sticky rice, boiled hot dogs or deep-fried breaded chicken fillets, and dusty, stodgy pita. In lieu of any colour and salt found in these beige meals, we would season our carbs and proteins with heavy servings of soy sauce and bright red Heinz ketchup.
Much disgust came about when I found a classmate who would pair their red sauce with everything – tuna sandwiches, plain buttered pasta, cheese, watermelon, seared salmon – and, sometimes, even eat it by itself.
Foregoing my former childhood tales of picky eating and now operating with more refined taste buds, I still cannot shake my detest for ketchup. It’s the worst condiment, which has unjustly found global fame in our kitchens and on our restaurant tables.
The ubiquitous red sauce began as a humble Hokkien Chinese sour and salty fish sauce, known as kê-tsiap by Southern Min populations who used the sauce in China during the Ming Dynasty.
As colonialism took hold in Asia in the 18th century, with trade routes popping up in Indonesia, the Philippines, and China, the salty condiment found itself in the hands of British traders, intrigued by its culinary power to give flavour to their uninspired home cuisine. The first historical account of the new ketchup sauce has been located in the literature of Richard Bradley in his 1732 book Ketchup in Paste.
The first-known recipe created for ketchup, with the inclusion of the Western tomato, was in 1812 by American horticulturist James Mearse. Yet mass production of the ketchup we know today came about in 1876 when Henry J Heinz masterminded a natural recipe for the sauce using tomatoes and vinegar. By the turn of the century, Heinz ketchup had gained a foothold in American dining; it was an instant hit, selling five million bottles in 1905 alone.
I do not blame Heinz for creating a condiment that a) tastes poor with a mélange of ingredients that clash and confuse the palate and b) has enjoyed the benefits of free-market capitalism to propel the company into homes worldwide. Instead, I blame us for championing a sauce that we willingly splatter all over our meals to mask bad food or our bad taste.
Using ketchup is a cheap acknowledgement that we are not confident with what we are eating or cooking, preferring a sweet, vinegary, and artificial-tasting tomato sauce to overwhelm any subtle flavours found on the table.
I will admit that Heinz ketchup is the best option found in the bad crop of ketchups. The bottles of ketchup found on supermarket shelves below Heinz range in quality from questionable to downright insulting to the livelihood of the tomatoes that had to sacrifice their last few days in the sun in order to sit pickled with fructose, glucose, and vinegar to achieve an awful flavour.
A visit to a steakhouse almost always involves a selection of mustard – typically Dijon, English, and wholegrain – to pair with my meaty, fatty steaks. Mustard as a condiment serves a strong purpose on the table: to cut fat and introduce piquant and sour flavours that clash and work with meatier tones.
Ketchup, I argue, does not have such a purpose. Its off-putting sugary base cannot rightly pair with any foodstuff. Fries? It renders the crisp potato skin soggy. Burgers? It completely masks the salty touch of a beef patty. Potatoes? It kills the texture. Eggs? Settle for salt, pepper, and hot sauce instead. Steak? Give me a break.
It has been a decade since I last had a willing serving of store-bought ketchup, but my money goes out to the restaurants that are breaking the dominion of naturally produced, independent ketchup.
The last time I stuck out for natural ketchup was during a burger meal at Bone & Blades in Sai Ying Pun with their smoky and peppery BBQ-style ketchup. It was a joy to eat as I dreamt about a world where ketchup doesn’t suck and we can enjoy its harmonising powers.
Can I compel you to make the correct choice when reaching for the condiment basket the next time you’re dining out? No. But I hope that by sharing my reasons for my ketchup hatred, you may look deep within and understand that we deserve better for our plates than using a gross sweet red sauce to flavour our food.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author’s and do not represent or reflect the views of Foodie.
