Secret Ingredients

by David Remnick

  The ketchup tasting took place over four hours, on two consecutive mornings. Six tasters sat around a large, round table with a lazy Susan in the middle. In front of each panelist were two one-ounce cups, one filled with Heinz ketchup and one filled with World’s Best. They would work along fourteen dimensions of flavor and texture, in accordance with the standard fifteen-point scale used by the food world. The flavor components would be divided two ways: elements picked up by the tongue and elements picked up by the nose. A very ripe peach, for example, tastes sweet but it also smells sweet—which is a very different aspect of sweetness. Vinegar has a sour taste but also a pungency, a vapor that rises up the back of the nose and fills the mouth when you breathe out. To aid in the rating process, the tasters surrounded themselves with little bowls of sweet and sour and salty solutions, and portions of Contadina tomato paste, Hunt’s tomato sauce, and Campbell’s tomato juice, all of which represent different concentrations of tomatoness.

  After breaking the ketchup down into its component parts, the testers assessed the critical dimension of “amplitude,” the word sensory experts use to describe flavors that are well blended and balanced, that “bloom” in the mouth. “The difference between high and low amplitude is the difference between my son and a great pianist playing ‘Ode to Joy’ on the piano,” Chambers says. “They are playing the same notes, but they blend better with the great pianist.” Pepperidge Farm shortbread cookies are considered to have high amplitude. So are Hellman’s mayonnaise and Sara Lee poundcake. When something is high in amplitude, all its constituent elements converge into a single gestalt. You can’t isolate the elements of an iconic, high-amplitude flavor like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. But you can with one of those private-label colas that you get in the supermarket. “The thing about Coke and Pepsi is that they are absolutely gorgeous,” Judy Heylmun, a vice president of Sensory Spectrum, Inc., in Chatham, New Jersey, says. “They have beautiful notes—all flavors are in balance. It’s very hard to do that well. Usually, when you taste a store cola it’s”—and here she made a series of pik! pik! pik! sounds—“all the notes are kind of spiky, and usually the citrus is the first thing to spike out. And then the cinnamon. Citrus and brown spice notes are top notes and very volatile, as opposed to vanilla, which is very dark and deep. A really cheap store brand will have a big, fat cinnamon note sitting on top of everything.”

  Some of the cheaper ketchups are the same way. Ketchup aficionados say that there’s a disquieting unevenness to the tomato notes in Del Monte ketchup: tomatoes vary, in acidity and sweetness and the ratio of solids to liquid, according to the seed variety used, the time of year they are harvested, the soil in which they are grown, and the weather during the growing season. Unless all those variables are tightly controlled, one batch of ketchup can end up too watery and another can be too strong. Or try one of the numerous private-label brands that make up the bottom of the ketchup market and pay attention to the spice mix; you may well find yourself conscious of the clove note or overwhelmed by a hit of garlic. Generic colas and ketchups have what Moskowitz calls a hook—a sensory attribute that you can single out, and ultimately tire of.

  The tasting began with a plastic spoon. Upon consideration, it was decided that the analysis would be helped if the ketchups were tasted on French fries, so a batch of fries were cooked up and distributed around the table. Each tester, according to protocol, took the fries one by one, dipped them into the cup—all the way, right to the bottom—bit off the portion covered in ketchup, and then contemplated the evidence of their senses. For Heinz, the critical flavor components—vinegar, salt, tomato ID (overall tomatoness), sweet, and bitter—were judged to be present in roughly equal concentrations, and those elements, in turn, were judged to be well blended. The World’s Best, though, “had a completely different view, a different profile, from the Heinz,” Chambers said. It had a much stronger hit of sweet aromatics—4.0 to 2.5—and outstripped Heinz on tomato ID by a resounding 9 to 5.5. But there was less salt, and no discernible vinegar. “The other comment from the panel was that these elements were really not blended at all,” Chambers went on. “The World’s Best product had really low amplitude.” According to Joyce Buchholz, one of the panelists, when the group judged aftertaste, “it seemed like a certain flavor would hang over longer in the case of World’s Best—that cooked-tomatoey flavor.”

  But what was Jim Wigon to do? To compete against Heinz, he had to try something dramatic, like substituting maple syrup for corn syrup, ramping up the tomato solids. That made for an unusual and daring flavor. World’s Best Dill Ketchup on fried catfish, for instance, is a marvelous thing. But it also meant that his ketchup wasn’t as sensorily complete as Heinz, and he was paying a heavy price in amplitude. “Our conclusion was mainly this,” Buchholz said. “We felt that World’s Best seemed to be more like a sauce.” She was trying to be helpful.

  There is an exception, then, to the Moskowitz rule. Today there are thirty-six varieties of Ragú spaghetti sauce, under six rubrics—Old World Style, Chunky Garden Style, Robusto, Light, Cheese Creations, and Rich & Meaty—which means that there is very nearly an optimal spaghetti sauce for every man, woman, and child in America. Measured against the monotony that confronted Howard Moskowitz twenty years ago, this is progress. Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preference. But that makes it easy to forget that sometimes happiness can be found in having what we’ve always had and everyone else is having. “Back in the seventies, someone else—I think it was Ragú—tried to do an ‘Italian’-style ketchup,” Moskowitz said. “They failed miserably.” It was a conundrum: what was true about a yellow condiment that went on hot dogs was not true about a tomato condiment that went on hamburgers, and what was true about tomato sauce when you added visible solids and put it in a jar was somehow not true about tomato sauce when you added vinegar and sugar and put it in a bottle. Moskowitz shrugged. “I guess ketchup is ketchup.”

  2004

  TASTES FUNNY

  “You certainly have a peculiar sense of humor.”

  “…It is a pleasant accompaniment to fish, shellfish, and the lighter meats, but its delicate flavor is perhaps even more appreciated at the end of the meal with melon or dessert.”

  BUT THE ONE ON THE RIGHT—

  DOROTHY PARKER

  I knew it. I knew if I came to this dinner, I’d draw something like this baby on my left. They’ve been saving him up for me for weeks. Now, we’ve simply got to have him—his sister was so sweet to us in London; we can stick him next to Mrs. Parker—she talks enough for two. Oh, I should never have come, never. I’m here against my better judgment. Friday, at eight-thirty, Mrs. Parker vs. her better judgment, to a decision. That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. This is a fine time of the evening to be thinking about tombstones. That’s the effect he’s had on me, already, and the soup hardly cold yet. I should have stayed at home for dinner. I could have had something on a tray. The head of John the Baptist, or something. Oh, I should not have come.

  Well, the soup’s over, anyway. I’m that much nearer to my Eternal Home. Now the soup belongs to the ages, and I have said precisely four words to the gentleman on my left. I said, “Isn’t this soup delicious?” that’s four words. And he said, “Yes, isn’t it?” that’s three. He’s one up on me.

  At any rate, we’re in perfect accord. We agree like lambs. We’ve been all through the soup together, and never a cross word between us. It seems rather a pity to let the subject drop, now we’ve found something on which we harmonize so admirably. I believe I’ll bring it up again; I’ll ask him if that wasn’t delicious soup. He says, “Yes, wasn’t it?” Look at that, will you; perfect command of his tenses.

  Here comes the fish. Goody, goody, goody, we got fish. I wonder if he likes fish. Yes, he does; he says he likes fish. Ah, that’s nice. I love that in a man. Look, he’s talking! He�
��s chattering away like a veritable magpie! He’s asking me if I like fish. Now does he really want to know, or is it only a line? I’d better play it cagey. I’ll tell him, “Oh, pretty well.” Oh, I like fish pretty well; there’s a fascinating bit of autobiography for him to study over. Maybe he would rather wrestle with it alone. I’d better steal softly away, and leave him to his thoughts.

  I might try my luck with what’s on my right. No, not a chance there. The woman on his other side has him cold. All I can see is his shoulder. It’s a nice shoulder, too; oh, it’s a nice, nice shoulder. All my life, I’ve been a fool for a nice shoulder. Very well, lady; you saw him first. Keep your Greek god, and I’ll go back to my Trojan horse.

  Let’s see, where were we? Oh, we’d got to where he had confessed his liking for fish. I wonder what else he likes. Does he like cucumbers? Yes, he does; he likes cucumbers. And potatoes? Yes, he likes potatoes, too. Why, he’s a regular old Nature-lover, that’s what he is. I would have to come out to dinner, and sit next to the Boy Thoreau. Wait, he’s saying something! Words are simply pouring out of him. He’s asking me if I’m fond of potatoes. No, I don’t like potatoes. There, I’ve done it! I’ve differed from him. It’s our first quarrel. He’s fallen into a moody silence. Silly boy, have I pricked your bubble? Do you think I am nothing but a painted doll with sawdust for a heart? Ah, don’t take it like that. Look, I have something to tell you that will bring back your faith. I do like cucumbers. Why, he’s better already. He speaks again. He says, yes, he likes them, too. Now we’ve got that all straightened out, thank heaven. We both like cucumbers. Only he likes them twice.

  I’d better let him alone now, so he can get some food. He ought to try to get his strength back. He’s talked himself groggy.

  I wish I had something to do. I hate to be a mere drone. People ought to let you know when they’re going to sit you next to a thing like this, so you could bring along some means of occupation. Dear Mrs. Parker, do come to us for dinner on Friday next, and don’t forget your drawn-work. I could have brought my top bureau drawer and tidied it up, here on my lap. I could have made great strides towards getting those photographs of the groups on the beach pasted up in the album. I wonder if my hostess would think it strange if I asked for a pack of cards. I wonder if there are any old copies of St. Nicholas lying about. I wonder if they wouldn’t like a little help out in the kitchen. I wonder if anybody would want me to run up to the corner and get a late paper.

  I could do a little drinking, of course, all by myself. There’s always that. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, there’s always that. But I don’t want to drink. I’ll get vin triste. I’m melancholy before I even start. I wonder what this stiff on my left would say, if told him I was in a fair way to get vin triste. Oh, look at him, hoeing into his fish! What does he care whether I get vin triste or not? His soul can’t rise above food. Purely physical, that’s all he is. Digging his grave with his teeth, that’s what he’s doing. Yah, yah, ya-ah! Digging your grave with your tee-eeth! Making a god of your stom-mick! Yah, yah, ya-ah!

  He doesn’t care if I get vin triste. Nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn. And me so nice. All right, you baskets, I’ll drink myself to death, right in front of your eyes, and see how you’ll feel. Here I go…. Oh, my God, it’s Chablis. And of a year when the grapes failed, and they used Summer squash, instead. Fifteen dollars for all you can carry home on your shoulder. Oh, now, listen, where I come from, we feed this to the pigs. I think I’ll ask old Chatterbox on my left if this isn’t rotten wine. That ought to open up a new school of dialectics for us. Oh, he says he really wouldn’t know—he never touches wine. Well, that fairly well ends that. I wonder how he’d like to step to hell, anyway. Yah, yah, ya-ah! Never touches wi-yine! Don’t know what you’re miss-sing! Yah, yah, ya-ah!

  I’m not going to talk to him any more. I’m not going to spend the best years of my life thinking up pearls to scatter before him. I’m going to stick to my Chablis, rotten though it be. From now on, he can go his way, and I’ll go mine. I’m better than he is. I’m better than anybody at this table. Ah, but am I really? Have I, after all, half of what they have? Here I am lonely, unwanted, silent, and me with all my new clothes on. Oh, what would Louiseboulanger say if she saw her gold lamé going unnoticed like this? It’s life, I suppose. Poor little things, we dress, and we plan, and we hope—and for what? What is life, anyway? A death sentence. The longest distance between two points. The bunch of hay that’s tied to the nose of the tired mule. The—

  Well, well, well, here we are at the entrecôte. Button up your entrecôte, when the wind is free—no, I guess not. Now I’ll be damned if I ask old Loquacity if he likes meat. In the first place, his likes and dislikes are nothing to me, and in the second—well, look at him go after it! He must have been playing hard all afternoon; he’s Mother’s Hungry Boy, tonight. All right, let him worry it all he wants. As for me, I’m on a higher plane. I do not stoop to him. He’s less than the dust beneath my chariot wheel. Yah, yah, ya-ah! Less than the du-ust! Before I’d be that way! Yah, yah, ya-ah!

  I’m glad there’s red wine now. Even if it isn’t good, I’m glad. Red wine gives me courage. The Red Badge of Courage. I need courage. I’m in a thin way, here. Nobody knows what a filthy time I’m having. My precious evening, that can never come again, ruined, ruined, ruined, and all because of this Somewhat Different Monologist on my left. But he can’t lick me. The night is not yet dead, no, nor dying. You know, this really isn’t bad wine.

  Now what do you suppose is going on with the Greek god on my right? Ah, no use. There’s still only the shoulder—the nice, nice shoulder. I wonder what the woman’s like, that’s got him. I can’t see her at all. I wonder if she’s beautiful. I wonder if she’s Greek, too. When Greek meets immovable body—you might be able to do something with that, if you only had the time. I’m not going to be spineless any longer. Don’t think for a minute, lady, that I’ve given up. He’s still using his knife and fork. While there’s hands above the table, there’s hope.

  Really, I suppose out of obligation to my hostess, I ought to do something about saying a few words to this macaw on my left. What shall I try? Have you been reading anything good lately, do you go much to the play, have you ever been to the Riviera? I wonder if he would like to hear about my Summer on the Riviera; hell, no, that’s no good without lantern slides. I bet, though, if I started telling him about That One Night, he’d listen. I won’t tell him—it’s too good for him. Anybody that never touches wine can’t hear that. But the one on the right—he’d like that. He touches wine. Touches it, indeed! He just threw it for a formidable loss.

  Oh, look, old Silver Tongue is off again! Why, he’s mad with his own perfume! He’s rattling away like lightning. He’s asking me if I like salad. Yes, I do; what does he want to make of that? He’s telling me about salad through the ages. He says it’s so good for people. So help me God, if he gives me a talk on roughage, I’ll slap his face. Isn’t that my life, to sit here, all dressed up in my best, and listen to this thing talk about romaine? And all the time, right on my right—

  Well, I thought you were never going to turn around…. You haven’t? You have?…Oh, Lord, I’ve been having an awful time, too…. Was she?…Well, you should have seen what I drew…. Oh, I don’t see how we could…. Yes, I know it’s terrible, but how can we get out of it?…Well…Well, yes, that’s true…. Look, right after dinner, I’ll say I have this horrible headache, and you say you’re going to take me home in your car, and—

  1929

  “He has some food issues.”

  CURL UP AND DIET

  OGDEN NASH

  Some ladies smoke too much and some ladies drink too much and some ladies pray too much,

  But all ladies think that they weigh too much.

  They may be as slender as a sylph or a dryad,

  But just let them get on the scales and they embark on a doleful jeremiad;

  No matter how low the figure the needle happens to touch,

&n
bsp; They always claim it is at least five pounds too much;

  No matter how underfed to you a lady’s anatomy seemeth,

  She describes herself as Leviathan or Behemoth;

  To the world she may appear slinky and feline,

  But she inspects herself in the mirror and cries, Oh, I look like a sea lion;

  Yes, she tells you she is growing into the shape of a sea cow or manatee,

  And if you say, No, my dear, she says you are just lying to make her feel better, and if you say, Yes, my dear, you injure her vanatee,

  And in any case her eyes flow like faucets,

  And she goes out and buys some new caucets.

  Once upon a time there was a girl more beautiful and witty and charming than tongue can tell,

  And she is now a dangerous raving maniac in a padded cell,

  And the first indication her friends and relatives had that she was mentally overwrought

  Was one day when she said, I weigh a hundred and twenty-seven, which is exactly what I ought.

  Oh, often I am haunted

  By the thought that somebody might some day discover a diet that would let ladies reduce just as much as they wanted,

  Because I wonder if there is a woman in the world strong-minded enough to shed ten pounds or twenty,

  And say, There now, that’s plenty;