You are hereBlogs / H2otown's blog / Nooooooooo!
Nooooooooo!
Internet 128 breaks the Regrettable Food barrier: Spaghetti and ketchup: A most underrated dish : Blog : internet128.com
For some reason Americans don’t like to put ketchup on their spaghetti and they seem to recoil at the thought of spaghetti and ketchup sans extras as a legitimate course. Back in the Old Country we labored under the impression that Americans pour ketchup on everything - maybe that’s mostly a Mid-Western thing - so I was quite surprised when my wife took me to task for even suggesting that we should have spaghetti and ketchup for dinner. Or lunch. Or late snack. See?
My Dad LOVED ketchup, and could make a gourmet meal of anything as long as he had some ketchup to go with it. His favorite snack was something called a "Royal Lunch Biscuit" - a giant, salt-less cracker, slathered with either ketchup - or his preferred Heintz 57 "Chili Sauce". Now, chili sauce sounds exotic, doesn't it? Like it maybe has a little punch or flavor lacking in ordinary ketchup - it doesn't. As far as I could ever tell, it was exactly like ketchup except it had the tomato seeds in it. If he was out of Royal Lunch Biscuits, a piece of Wonder Bread with chili sauce was something to be savored - with his little dog, Hobo, sharing the last bite. God bless him, he's been dead 30 years - the victim of a head on crash. I can still see him with his cup of tea, his Royal Lunch Biscuits and bottle of Heintz 57, little Hobo sitting apologetically at his knee, "I don't want to trouble you, Master, but perhaps you have no use for that last bite?" Maybe it was going through the Great Depression, when there wasn't much to eat, tomato ketchup made whatever dry, flavorless food you had a little easier to enjoy. I don't know, I just know Dad loved it, and Hobo, too. I never saw him put it on spaghetti, but I bet he did. He probably would have put it on pancakes, too.
I like ketchup ok - but many years ago, when I was a bit preggers with my son, I couldn't tolerate the scent of it. I would gag and run from a restaurant. I remember fleeing Tresca's when a man across the room plopped it on some scrambled eggs. David couldn't figure it out. "How did you smell it?" I don't know - super olfactory pregnant woman powers or something.
My Dad was a product of the depression, too, and his favorite foods were somewhat odd. He loved fried baloney. A favorite treat was a piece of white bread, buttered, and then sprinkled with sugar. And he was the only ex-serviceman I ever heard of who actually liked creamed chipped beef. He'd have it at home every so often and it just made me gag.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com/
Post new comment