[Sca-cooks] OT: on a tangential note -- "Chili Sauce"

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Bill Fisher:
>I come from the land of Heinz......Heinz Chili Sauce is primarily a 
>hot dog and
>burger condiment.  I grew up in the stuff  'cause my parents couldn't
>get me to eat catsup after I developed a dislike for catsup in my childhood.

Am I alone in sensing some irony here?

>Like all other heinz products, it has been subverted to other recipes
>and such over the years.  I've seen it used to make sloppy joes, etc.

But <shudder> -- isn't it sweetened, like most ketchups?

>It's good on scrambled eggs as well, especially in a diner.  It's a great
>way to mask overcooked eggs, or add to eggs as you are scrambling.

I'm a Tabasco man, myself... I suppose so.

>  > Someone mentioned a sauce added to "chili", and said it was like a
>>  thin, watered-down, sweet ketchup. Could that have been chili sauce,
>>  such as people like Heinz make? I've never actually tried the stuff,
>>  as far as I know, but occasionally note its existence on supermarket
>>  shelves, and am always amused by the fact that, so far from having
>>  chillies as a primary ingredient, it actually contains none, as a
>>  rule.
>
>Heinz has a habit of listing any "secret ingredients" as "natural flavorings."
>
>This covers any herbs and spices they do not want to disclose, including
>chilis and herb. 
>
>I think it has some cayenne pepper in it, just a trace.

Hah! Sriracha chili sauce from Thailand is the real deal: a thin 
ketchup made from chilies instead of tomatoes.

>I've never heard of it being added to chili ever.

Nor me, but someone mentioned a thin, ketchup-like sauce being added 
to chili-and-spaghetti, somewhere. I was just wondering if Heinz-type 
Chili sauce (as opposed to some other sauce made from chillies and so 
designated) was the stuff.

>  > Apparently, though, this stuff is a traditional main ingredient in
>>  the red cocktail sauce you sometimes find served with cold seafoods
>>  in the US, although by the time the requisite lemon, Worcestershire,
>>  and horseradish (plus optional Tabasco) are added, the absence of
>>  chili in the chili sauce is less glaring.
>
>Yep, this is true.  It is a staple in it.
>
>>  It's interesting, though, that in a way we've sort of come full
>>  circle here: the special steak sauce from the Old New York (even
>>  better: Old Brooklyn) steak house, Peter Luger's, that great temple
>>  to cholesterol whose waiters have been insulting customers and
>>  refusing to honor checks and credit cards, other than their own Peter
>>  Luger's credit card, for well over a hundred years (having a Peter
>>  Luger credit card is a sign you have made it in New York, not that
>>  you can do anything else with it but buy a meal at Peter Luger's) --
>>  their steak sauce, which you can now buy in bottles, is a thin,
>>  tomato-based (but apparently not ketchup-based) sauce that seems to
>>  contain crushed tomatoes, maybe molasses or some other sweetener like
>>  corn syrup, just a little vinegar, grated horseradish and some other,
>>  unnamed spices. It is sold refrigerated in glass bottles, but is used
>>  in the restaurant as a salad dressing, with their beefsteak tomato
>>  and bermuda onion appetizer (I guess this is really a salad), a steak
>>  sauce, and with cold seafood cocktails. In that context it's actually
>>  quite good stuff.
>
>Sounds good actually.

It is. Putting it on a perfectly aged porterhouse steak the size of 
your neighbor's child that was slathered in sweet butter before 
broiling (the steak, not the child), doesn't hurt it much, either.

>  > I was just wondering whether there was any connection to this
>  > mysterious bottled chililess chili sauce. Apart from seafood cocktail
>>  sauce, what is chili sauce of the Heinz variety used for? Or are you
>>  supposed to put it on chili?
>>
>>  Adamantius
>
>Just another condiment my friend.  Mostly to mix with other things to
>make the condiments.  A "different" catsup.

Interesting. A little surprising, given the trend, natural selection 
being what it is, to decrease variety. I wonder if this is 
specifically a Heinz-ism originally, when they only had 56 varieties 
;-).

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04