Food: A Love Story (33 page)

Whether good or bad, I will always love pizza. The Italians really knew what they were doing, combining all the major food groups into something we can eat without a fork. Even less work for me in that I can have it delivered. It’s great hot and even great cold for breakfast after I wake up with my face in it after I passed out eating it the night before. Pizza is pretty much an ideal food.

THE PEOPLE’S COURT

If eating fast food were a sport, the food court would be the gymnasium, where there is a whole different type of bodybuilding going on.

There are many varieties of fast-food places in food courts. You can have pizza, Chinese, and a burrito within a few feet of each other. The food court is like the United Nations of crappy food. You and your friends or family can order from different restaurants and still sit at the same table as you compare everyone’s version of fake ethnic fast food.

Sometimes the food court is totally deserted, and all the employees are standing behind their counters staring at one another like jungle animals in competition over their prey. When you pick the place you want to go, you feel like you have to ignore the others’ guilt-tripping stare-down: “What’s wrong with
my
food?” The only thing worse than an empty food court is probably a really crowded food court, which always has the energy of a refugee camp. Masses of families, coworkers, and teenage girls are milling around with trays looking for an open table, trying to steal chairs. There’s always that group
hovering over you with their trays, waiting for your table. “I think you have stayed past the fifteen-minute limit, buddy.” The worst is if you are by yourself at a table. If you are over the age of eighteen, it is impossible to eat alone in a food court and not look like a serial killer. “I’m here to eat and find my next victim.” Everyone at the food court has been found guilty, and there appears to be no parole.

KETCHUP: KING OF THE CONDIMENTS

Jeannie really appreciates condiments. No, really. She puts mayo on both sides of a sandwich. She puts mustard on her burger and then dunks her burger in mustard! The more condiments, the better in Jeannieland. I affectionately refer to her as Condi because she loves condiments that much. She has hot sauce sitting on her desk right now. Yeah, she’s one of those people. Condiment-prepared. Jeannie loves hot sauce, but she’s not obnoxious about it. It seems that most people who are really into hot sauce feel the need to challenge other people. “You have to try this super-hot fire engine sauce.” I always explain, “That’s okay. I don’t want the super-hot fire engine diarrhea. I’m not a fan of wearing a diaper.” All I need to be condiment-prepared and satisfied is ketchup.

Ketchup is the undisputed king of all condiments. When you enter a diner, ketchup is already on the table. It’s the diner’s way of saying, “Look, you are going to need this.” Ketchup is that important. There really isn’t any condiment competition
for ketchup. Mustard, the closest competition, is the Mets to ketchup’s Yankees. Mustard has its fans, but there really is no comparison. My children love ketchup but would rather go to bed early than taste mustard. Ketchup simply consists of tomato paste, vinegar, and sugar. There are two major brands: Heinz and Hunt’s (I’m a Heinz), and they have had the same recipe forever. There is no improving ketchup. You never see ketchup sold as “Now even more ketchupier!” It’s just ketchup. The only variety in ketchup is in the way to spell it:
ketchup
or
catsup
. Mustard, on the other hand, seems to be constantly reinventing itself in a desperate attempt to compete with ketchup. It’s pretty sad, really.

KETCHUP:
Hey, Spicy Brown Mustard.

MUSTARD:
Uh, actually now I’m Honey Dijon Mustard.

KETCHUP:
Weren’t you also just Chipotle Mustard?

MUSTARD:
That was last week. Now I’m Honey Dijon Mustard.

KETCHUP:
Right. Oh, how’s that going? Are you on the table in diners yet?

MUSTARD:
Well, in some high-end delis and a few hot dog carts. (
beat
) Do you think I should go back to being Spicy Brown Mustard? I guess I have to face the fact that I’ll never ketchup.

KETCHUP:
Was that a pun?

MUSTARD:
Yes. Was it funny?

KETCHUP:
(
beat
) I should go. People want to see how I taste on tamales.

I am an avid ketchup user. Jeannie thinks I use too much ketchup, especially on my sushi, but I find it drowns out the fish flavor. It seems you can put ketchup on anything. When
you are using ketchup you are really saying, “This food is so good. I want it to taste like ketchup.” If you are using ketchup, you are probably eating something unhealthy. We never put ketchup on anything healthy like broccoli or asparagus. Ketchup is only there to assist unhealthy food. Ketchup is like that friend who’s always encouraging you to do the wrong thing. “Why don’t you get fries? If you get fries, I’ll help you out. Or you could get a burger. Get a burger. I’ll be there. Oh, you’re ordering a salad. I gotta go. I don’t get along with lettuce.” Ketchup is important. You only realize how important ketchup is when you don’t have it. Ever eat fries without ketchup? It just feels wrong.

Yes, this is a photo of my son Patrick drinking ketchup.

There are some people who don’t like ketchup. I think they are called losers. Almost universally everyone loves
and uses ketchup, which always makes me surprised when I see a television commercial for ketchup. What a waste of money. Who are those commercials for? “You know, honey, we should try that new product called ‘ketchup.’ ” We are all going to buy the ketchup anyway. Once I saw a ketchup commercial that touted lycopene, an antioxidant found in ketchup, as a reason to buy ketchup. If ketchup is the healthy part of your diet, you probably need to be on the Taco Bell Diet.

The only ketchup news in the past fifty years has been the advancement of the bottle. We’ve now had the upside-down plastic squeeze bottle for about ten years, but don’t you think it’s a little embarrassing how long it took us to come up with that? It wasn’t that long ago someone had the realization.

DESIGNER 1:
You know how we have to hold ketchup bottles upside down and it takes a ridiculously long time for the ketchup to come out of the glass bottle? Why don’t we put the cap on the bottom and make the bottle plastic and squeezable?

DESIGNER 2:
Wait, have people been complaining that ketchup is hard to get out of the glass bottle?

DESIGNER 1:
For like a hundred years!

DESIGNER 2:
I guess we could try it. I don’t know why someone would want easy access to ketchup.

The most inefficient form of ketchup delivery is those tiny glass bottles they give you when you order hotel room service. The bottle is too small to pour and often a knife won’t even fit in the top. “This is adorable, but I asked for ketchup, not a Christmas ornament.”

Ketchup goes well with everything.

Every culture has its own ketchup. Salsa is the Mexican ketchup, marinara sauce is the Italian ketchup, and I guess vinegar is the British ketchup. How bad is your food when adding vinegar is an improvement? What can I say? The British just have a different attitude toward food. In London, you have to pay for ketchup packets in fast-food places. It’s that type of behavior that started the Boston Tea Party.

Packets

Thankfully, in American fast-food places you don’t have to pay for ketchup packets, but what is with the single-serve size of those ketchup packets? I’m not saying I need a gallon of ketchup, but maybe enough for more than one fry. Tearing open twenty packets with my teeth, I end up looking like a
heroin addict. “I’m gonna party once I get set up here!” Has anyone ever used just one of those ketchup packets? “Do you have a half of a quarter of an ounce of ketchup? It’s just so darn rich. Maybe a resealable ketchup packet? One I could store in my purse.” Most often fast-food places give you two or three packets, and if you go back up to ask for more, they make you feel like you are trying to score drugs. “You think you could hook me up with some more of the good stuff?” Sometimes fast-food employees act like you are taking from their personal stash. “Looks like my kids won’t be getting ketchup tonight because you are a ketchup glutton!” There’s no good place to put the empty ketchup packets; they are always such a mess. “Should I put it on the napkin, the table, or stick it to my sleeve?”

Sometimes the packets will have printed on them “Not for resale.” I didn’t even know that was an issue. I’ve been to a lot of flea markets and have never seen anyone reselling ketchup packets. I didn’t even know there were people looking at ketchup packets and thinking,
eBay here I come. Ca-ching!
If you are in a position where you have to sell ketchup packets, I don’t know if anything written on the packet is going to hold you back. “We need money. Maybe we should sell these ketchup packets. Shoot, it says here on the packet ‘Not for resale.’ Dang it!” I doubt there are people even interested in a resold ketchup packet. Personally, I only want ketchup packets that are fresh from that box behind the counter.

If you’re lucky, you’ll occasionally come across a packet labeled as Fancy Ketchup. I usually think,
Fancy? Ketchup, you are being modest.
I’m not sure what would make ketchup fancy. Who’s using ketchup at a black-tie event with the elites of our society? “Is this the ketchup that I sent my butler to get?” I guess it’s all relative, but what kind of life would you be leading if you considered ketchup packets fancy? “Well, we’re
not rich folk, but on special occasions we will break out the ketchup packets. Like on Grandma’s birthday. Let her know it’s a celebration. Why not let her feel like a celebrity with a ketchup packet? Then we put her back in her cage.”

Some fast-food places like Wendy’s offer an in-store ketchup pump instead of packets. It’s like a keg of ketchup that you pump into tiny paper shot glasses. I like to hang around the ketchup keg and try to meet ladies. Whenever a woman approaches, I’ll just starting pumping ketchup for her in a masculine manner. “Here, I’ll pump for you. You come to this Wendy’s often? My roommate and I got a ketchup pony keg back at our dorm. You like that song “Elvira”? Here’s an extra shot of ketchup for your cute friend.” I’m never sure how many shots of ketchup I’m supposed to get when I’m eating in a Wendy’s. I usually get three shots of ketchup, but if I’m having a bad day I’ll get five.