Sweatshop Ketchup

A member of the nightshade family, it’s no wonder that people of past times viewed the tomato as evil, poisonous. Humans aren’t capable of digesting the seeds or skins of this fruit (yes, it’s a fruit,) but it’s infiltrated nearly every culture faster than the Macarena. Heinz (and John Kerry) must’ve been psyched to see that at least one of their 57 varieties had some kind of commercial success. No one ever thinks of the other 55 varieties (people do know the 57 sauce); kind of like the other two guys in the Jackson 5, after Michael, Tito, and Jermaine.

And that must piss off those other varieties SO MUCH. Ketchup doesn’t embrace the positives of the tomato, it just blends the crap out of it. Food should be a physical blend of the two things that humans seem to crave, albeit subconsciously: sex and violence. Ketchup has the violence, but not the sex. The sex comes from eating a raw summer tomato, still warm from the sun, with the seeds and pale juices running down your forearms. It’s a food novel written to embrace the senses. Ketchup is simply the Cliff’s Notes; it exists to “get it done.” We saw that when it was classified as a viable “vegetable” by the FDA during the Reagan years.

I can’t totally knock the unctuous lifeblood of good fries, though, because ketchup has seen me through some tough times. The first few years at my mom’s company, I washed far more dishes than I care to remember (as any chef who actually worked their way up will tell you,) and learned some of the miracle properties of tomato paste expertly blended with garlic, salt, and spices. Mainly, that’s it brilliant at shining copper. The low-acid content of ketchup helps eat away at any of the oxidation that builds up on it over time and use, so I slave away in the pits of ATTC for hours, blowing through several #10 cans of the stuff at a clip, and then suffer through my 15-second commute home, only to have my hands reek of the stuff for days. It also works on normal pans, to help clean up the crime scenes of some terrible food murders. Unlike vinegars, it sticks to the sides of things, so you can “marinate” a thoroughly thrashed pan in some ketchup to help remove whatever harshness you’ve developed.

There: some humor, some stories, and some helpful household hints. What more do you want from me?