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A suggestion by the chef to try his food without ketchup is ok. Having a hissy fit or outright banning of ketchup is not. Everyone's taste in food is different....what tastes good to one is disgusting to another. If I am paying for my food, I will eat it in a way that I like. I'll try the chef's creation first, but if I feel it needs ketchup, that's what I'll use.
Too many chefs act like a pompous ass when it comes to their "creation". It's just food....get over it.
Well said.
I just wanna stop the parade to say this, though: If you're much over the age of twelve and you put ketchup on a hot dog? Ewwww.
A hamburger with bacon, brie, caramelized onions and tarragon aioli sounds really good. Interesting combination of flavours and nuances. The chef doesn't want it to hit the perfect note, only to have a customer ruin it by slathering ketchup all over it and then complaining it tastes weird.
If this bothers you, there's a simple solution. Ronald McDonald doesn't care how you eat his burgers.
Well actually Jon Taffer and his investor team from Hungry Investors completely disagree with you. They chose to NOT invest in a "chef's" establishment who insisted the same thing. Even when he finally agreed to TRY IT THEIR WAY they could tell he was just too hard headed to invest in, and sure enough he went back to his old ways of arguing with the clientele after the show wrapped.
The NUANCE of being broke and going out of business should be much stronger than the nuance of tarragon.
Ketchup was used on the British table long before tomatoes arrived there. It was described in print as early as 1690, having made its way to Europe either from China (the Cantonese ke-tsiap means, roughly, “eggplant juice”) or from Malaysia (where the Malay word kecap referred to fermented fish sauce). Salty Indonesian soy sauce, tart tamarind chutneys and vinegary English sauces made with unripe walnuts have all been called by the name.
American ketchup was first made with whatever the settlers managed to harvest, flavored with the precious spices they brought with them: nutmegs, ginger, pepper. Ketchups were much thinner and spicier back then, and Mr. Hernández has hewed closely to the original recipes for the America Eats ketchups. “I think that we are currently using more mace than any restaurant in the world,” he said.
Ketchup became an institution because it was one of the first American packaged foods, according to Alice Kamps, curator of the National Archives exhibition. “Early in the industrial food era, ketchup tended to be made from the scraps on the floor of the cannery, with red dye and flavorings” she said. “It was also prone to explode.”
In 1906, faced with increasing fatalities and public outrage, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, leading to the Food and Drug Administration. The Act particularly benefited a cannery in Pittsburgh owned by Henry John Heinz, which was the first to sterilize and bottle ketchup without the toxic preservatives then available.
According to Jessica Jackson, a spokeswoman for the company, Heinz has made many different ketchups since 1876. In 1910, its catalog touted walnut ketchup and mushroom ketchup (both flavored with anchovy juices) as well as “a new condimental table sauce,” mustard ketchup, which regrettably did not catch on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CMichele
I view ketchup as a kid's food used to make certain things slightly more palatable to an untrained palate.
The food world elitists in American have finally caught up to the 300 Million people paying money for their product. Ignore us at your peril.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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His house, his rules.
He's under no obligation to serve whatever people want ...... someone above gave the example of sushi bars not offering ketchup either, and that's a good analogy.
He considers integrity and sticking to his personal code of honor to be more important than maximizing profits. Good for him. And I'll bet that he makes WAY more profit from the national controversy than he could have made by trying to make everyone happy ..... there's a lot of money in snob appeal.
Speaking of ketchup, anyone tried banana ketchup from the Philippines?
Never did. It sounds interesting though. The pioneers made something called walnut ketchup. And my grandmother made her own tomato ketchup.
The chef is a control freak. Once the food leaves his hands it belongs to the people who are going to eat it.
That doesn't stop me at all from understanding his insistence that people should experience his efforts exactly as he intended. At home I make a mean garlic wild rice burger grilled and topped with melted bleu cheese and bacon on a toasted bun. It needs nothing, nothing I tell you.
DH and DD drown it in ketchup. Argh! I can tell they know how I feel about it, though, because they shoot me little guilty looks while they're eating. Heh.
The food belongs to the people to whom it has been served.
As an aside, I generally find frou frou gourmet burgers and gourmet burger places to be ridiculous. It's ground beef. It only gets so classy, folks.
Yes that is true. Just like "Salisbury Steak".
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I Agree.
Just like "Salisbury Steak".
