Ketchup? Make mine brown any day.

No, seriously, I can't be doing with tomato sauce, ketchup, whatever you'd like to call that weirdly red thing.

But you're not really supposed to say that out loud.  I get some very funny looks from those that are clearly major fans of the red stuff.  I'm not sure what the look is; it's not pity, it's more bordering on loathing, like you've admitted you have a fondness for Dallas or doing something unusual in the bedroom with bananas.  They just don't get it, they can't understand what your problem is.

I only mention this because I heard, fleetingly on a newspaper review on the tele, that we're not buying bottled sauces like we used to.  Can't tell you which paper it was in because I only caught a sentence or two.  But what I did hear surprised me somewhat.

We certainly haven't cut down or fallen out of love with bottled sauces.  I'm a brown sauce kind of bloke.  Now, I suspect no-one outside the UK will have a clue what I mean by brown sauce and it's a bit difficult to explain.  I'll try in a minute.

A quick peek in my cupboard and there's Worcestershire sauce, soy, brown, the hideous ketchup and various  remnants of various hot sauces.  In the fridge a fish sauce, and I think that's it. No, hang on, salad cream and mayo, if you count them as sort of sauces.

Hot sauce can be deadly

I like reasonably hot food, as in spicy.  A chilli has to be a lip-smacker for me or it's just mince. I have been known to blob a dab of hot sauce on a range of stuff that's on my plate much to the disagreement of my wife who sees it all as...well, I'm sure what she sees it as, but it's certainly worth an audible 'tsk!'  So stocking filler Christmas presents or a present from someone you get a bit of something for, for me will usually include at least one bottle of hot sauce.  And naturally they've got welcoming labels such as ' Death Sauce' or 'Eternal Damnation Sauce' or Burn your Trousers if you Spill This Sauce.'

I've still got a bottle of unopened hot sauce I was given last year in the cupboard.  Which reminds me, I'd better check the sell-by date.  I've not bothered yet probably because I remember the other bottle that came in the set.  It was allegedly a reasonably hot marinade in a bottle.  So I got meat - can't remember what now - and did as per instructed then cooked said meat.


I think my wife gagged on the first mouthful from memory and I have no recollection of what happened to my face for a few hours.  Good Lord, it was hot. The sort that makes you go from dry to moist to wet through in under a minute. Hells Bells.  It may well be the ideal cure for athletes foot, except that most of the good skin would probably go too after a smear.

So I couldn't bring myself to even look the other bottle in the eye and there it's sat next to a box of sea salt and it's infinitely milder cousin the Tabasco for almost a year.

HP sauce on everything

Anyway: Brown sauce. Any readers from outside the UK may be confused at this point so...how do I start.  I guess the best known variety is HP Sauce.   The original was invented in Nottingham and registered by Frederick Gibson Garton.  That was 1895.  The HP bit is a reference to the Houses of Parliament but the exact connection is a little muddled.   For what ever reason, Fred made a bit of a hash of it, didn't get it to market by all accounts and sold his sauce invention to clear debts for £150 to Edwin Moore. Moore owned a vinegar company and launched HP Sauce in 1905.  

Basically it's a vinegar base with dates, tomato, tamarind extract, sweetener and untold spices. And I put it on too many foods to be honest.  I suppose I prefer it over ketchup because of that spice element rather than the sweet taste of the tomato.  But then, I don't like sweet and savoury together. Whoever first thought of putting pineapple on pizzas needs a damned good telling off. Or their ear flicked, or something. A Chinese burn.

Quite why bottled sauces are dropping in popularity with younger eaters wasn't made clear.  Odd considering they must have the taste for tomato based sauces anyway as so many consume their body weight in fast food burger rubbish.

One one my offspring accused me recently of putting fish sauce in a chilli I was cooking, which is slightly bonkers and not something that would have occurred to me.  Which makes me think.  Maybe there are just too many sauces now.  When I was a kid there were three TV stations to choose from.  It was either Blue Peter, Magpie or nothing because BBC2 didn't start until early evening.  Now with my Freeview Box (I can't be arsed with Sky) I can choose any number of 1980s repeats or gaze in a glazed state as a man spends an hour on the edge of his seat with excitement as he sells me some XXXXL fleeces in battleship grey or olive green on a shopping channel.

A saucy sandwich over the sink

There was tomato sauce, brown sauce and Heinz Salad Cream.  Oh, and Lea and Perrins aka Worcestershire Sauce.  That's it.  We had yet to hear of soy sauce, fish sauce, salad dressings, etc and so on, and olive oil was sold in tiny bottles at the chemists which you dropped in your ear to loosen ear wax.  If you were seen putting it on your salad then, you would probably have been bundled into a secret institution at Her Majesty's Pleasure.

So maybe we've found the answer.  Too much choice.  Choice can be good but it can chip away at what we had and cherished.  Which doesn't mean we should stop and never move on.  We're programmed now, I suspect for the new thing and long may that continue because so much of what has made our lives more tolerable or pleasurable or even just interesting  is the result of that curiosity.

The girlfriend of one of my sons eats ketchup sandwiches.  In fact she favours sandwiches that, quote ' you have to eat over a sink.'

If that's not a good reason for not buying bloody ketchup I don't know what is, frankly.