I enjoy ketchup. I don’t go so far as to put it on my eggs at breakfast or use it to restore hair growth, but I like it quite a bit, nonetheless.
I like it with french fries, burgers, hot dogs, burgers and sometimes I even put some on my burger. Of course Heinz is the best brand. I say “of course” because I know Heinz is the best and if you disagree, you’re simply wrong.
Being a tomato-based product, I am not a fan of ketchup being saved, stored or marketed in plastic containers. I’m suspicious enough of the evils that lurk in the Rubbermaid…add the acid of tomatoes and you’re just asking for children with gills. So I want my sauce in glass.
But this peeve is not about plastic bottles (well, one paragraph of it was), but about how ketchup gets disrespected in public eateries.
Almost any other food item that is not packaged for single-use is protected in the back rooms and/or refrigerated. Want some A-1 Steak Sauce for your dead bovine? You have to ask for it and after clearance has been obtained from the proper authorities, and the Condiment Vault has been opened by those two Marines standing in the corner, you are allowed to ruin your steak (it is a free country after all).
Even mustard, ketchup’s yellow cousin who always got picked last for games of Red Rover in the fifth grade, is more often than not in protected territory.
But ketchup? It’s just sits out on tables. All the time. Without refrigeration. Open to defilement by kids’ plague-dripping fingers, puppies and other close-to-the-ground threats. I mean, drive by your favorite restaurant at 3 a.m. while making an emergency run to the 7-Eleven for some Ben & Jerry’s, and you’ll be able to see bottles of ketchup standing guard in the lonely dining room. Bacteria grow. The sour bite of spoilage swims through the once-divine topping.
It makes me want to cry.
Not only is this excellent and necessary food addition spoiled, causing unknown incidents of jay-walking and improper brushing technique, but it is a tremendous waste. And I hate to see food wasted…even if it’s going to MY waist.
You’re thinking that must be the end, right? What more could Mr. Cranky want to whine about on this topic? Well, I’ll tell you what!!! It’s the practice of some disreputable public eating establishments to refill ketchup bottles!
Yep, they do! I hope you didn’t just hurl on your keyboard, because I ain’t cleaning that mess. In your head you’re probably trying to come to grips with this horrifying concept. I suspect you’ve created the mental picture of fresh and new bottles of ketchup being poured into nearly-defunct bottles. But, no surprise here, you’d be wrong.
Here’s what they do: they gather all of the ketchup bottles that are in danger of being empty and they…CONSOLIDATE them! Ketchups of varying vintages, some going back as far as the days of the rotary telephone, are mixed, co-mingled and, I can’t go on…. It’s simply too horrific.
I am too lazy to do the research, but I strongly believe that this is against some sort of code, law or proclamation. I mean, we have laws to protect us from stuff like this, don’t we? I’m not allowed to sell gasoline labeled as milk, why should my life and happiness be put at risk by this dangerous ketchup cocktail?
But even if there is no law, common sense should prevent such atrocities! But then on some days, (such as those when I witness the buggered mouth of a refilled ketchup bottle), I believe that I am the only one left with any sense. Common or otherwise.