Tommy K on the Side: Condiments on the Continent

Words: Tommy K
Monday 29 October 2018
reading time: min, words

Ketchup on Tommy's European adventures...

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Ayup condiment cravers!

Summer means festivals. And festivals mean tasty fried food. Fried food needs ketchup. I’ve been DJing at festivals in Europe and have got some saucy insights to share with you lot.

Firstly, Tommy K firmly believes that translucency is not a good thing in a ketchup. If you coat your kitchen window in ketchup, no light should pass through. Try it with Heinz. Blackout business, trust meh. At festivals in Croatia though, they’re serving bleddy see-through ketchup. Loaded with vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup (big in America, literally) and E numbers, this thin red goop is worse than the pink stuff in UK kebab shops.

In Poland, however, there is almost no vinegar in the ketchup. Try Kotlin or Pudliszki and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the rich tomato flavour, enhanced with subtle spices.

Or, why not go Dutch with some “frite sauce”? It’s like mayo but sweeter and less fatty. Dutch Mayo is required by the Warenwet (Wares law, 1998) to contain at least 70% fat and 5% egg yolk before it can be called mayonnaise. Oo-err, exclusive!

This summer, I hope you all got saucy in a field somewhere, even if it were just chips in the Arb. As Lily Allen once sang: “I believe that is called al fresco.

Yours, with condiments,

Tommy K

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