In no way am I calling for a bacon boycott.  I will still consume bacon on a semi-regular basis.

I’m just sick of the saturation.  Bacon in every food imaginable.  Bacon on t-shirts.  Bacon lube.  Bacon alternative fuel.  Bacon-replicas of famous bacon-cities and bacon-landmarks.  Bacon  has made its mark, but something occurred two days ago that made me believe that bacon is over.

Eick gives me coupons for free Taco Bell, so of course my interest is piqued by whatever insane burrito/taqui/nacho creation they are featuring.  In this case, it is the blood pressure escalator New Bacon Cheesy Potato Burrito. Stare at the picture.  Become mesmerized by the weird ground beef.  The strange bacon pieces.  The traditional oozing cheese, sour cream and special sauce exuding from within.

My first bite is awful.  All potato and sour cream.  And with the second bite, I encounter something soggy, wet, and long.  I pull it out of my mouth quickly.  BACON.  Not a neat little bacon crisp as shown in the advertisements, but a terrifying microwaved bit of porkstuff that had not crisped.  It has simply gone limp, like the body of a drowning victim.

Eating an entire Bacon Cheesey Potato Burrito is possible.  One must be intoxicated, and not eating any breakfast or lunch should help.  Otherwise, you’re in a for a horrible state of being – over-full.  You know, that feeling you get after you accidentally eat a foot-long sub even though you promised your girlfriend you’d save the other half for later?  Or you eat five plates of China Buffet King just because?  Any simple task after this act of consumption terrorism is simply impossible.  It’s as if your stomach is holding your body prisoner.  And the bacon……….oh man…

I tried.  I really did.  I wanted to write a point-by-point review of this Bacon Abomination, but my taste buds and stomach told me otherwise.  I felt nauseous from eating this Taco Bell product, which is painful for me to admit.  I’ve stood by Taco Bell for years, espousing it as the greatest late-night fast food option in existence.  Sober or intoxicated, veg or non-veggie, I defended it.

Who cares if the meat has the texture of belly button lint?  Who cares if the special sauce tastes like two week old mayo left out in the sun?  Taco Bell rarely has anything on the menu too insane to try, and…well…

I BLAME BACON!!!

The internet, newsprint and food television have created a perfect storm of bacon.  If you’re a fast food chain without bacon, GOD HELP YOU.  Bloggers won’t blog about you, twitterer’s won’t tweet shit, and people still reading the newspaper will bemoan the crumbling state of newsprint rather than try your bacon-less drivel.

I demand we take back bacon by not mentioning it every five seconds when talking about food.  In ten years time, bacon should then be under-appreciated, and we can all join together and start Bacon Fad 2.0 in 2019.

But for now, thanks to massive over-exposure and Taco Bell, me and bacon won’t be speaking for a while.  If you run into bacon on the street or something, just tell him I meant to call last night.  And yeah, I’ll totally call bacon back tomorrow, it’s just that I lost my phone.  And my facebook password.  Someone poke bacon for me.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Many of you are probably thinking, “whaaaaaaaaa? how can you not like bacon on a burger?” It’s seems like one of the most obvious and easy uses for bacon.  Most people believe that if you add some crispy, greasy bacon to pretty much any burger, good, bad or mediocre, it WILL be better. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

How many times have you ordered a mediocre fast food burger that came with soft, chewy or generally gross, low quality bacon? In those cases, you aren’t adding anything but cost, calories and consternation to your burger order.  But the main reason that your opinion is WRONG?  It completely disregards a new food fad that has been trending mainstream like crazy in the past five years: the rise of the easily accessible & affordable premium burger.

California residents, with access to In-n-Out Burger, have long known the joys of being able to get affordable, fresh and delicious burgers. But  in other parts of the country, many consumers are just now becoming able to find premium, fresh (not frozen) hamburgers at affordable prices. Whether it’s the expanding-faster-than-you-can-blink Five Guys, or city specific chains like Shake Shack in NYC or Ray’s Hell Burger or Z Burger in DC,  there are a LOT of really, really good burgers available to the public in the $4 – $10 price range.  Not to mention the growing number of bars and restaurants who are now putting a bigger menu focus on burgers.  Many of these are damn tasty burgers, with fresh, well seasoned and perfectly moist and greasy hand-formed patties.

You want to taste bacon? Eat a BLT or order it with your eggs at breakfast. You want to taste a burger? Then really TASTE a burger. Don’t mask it with the flavor of bacon. Yeah, it’s delicious, we know.  But what are you really in the mood for? Bacon? Or a juicy burger? If it’s the latter, your addition of bacon to the mix is preventing you from enjoying the full wonderfulness of a well-made, perfectly cooked burger.  There’s a reason In-n-Out doesn’t serve bacon on their burgers: they don’t NEED bacon. They are f-ing awesome on their own, and if you want to take issue with the menu options of perhaps the best burger chain in the country, then be perpared for a horde of burger loving Mormons to hunt you down.

There are so many good burgers these days, and if you haven’t enjoyed the taste of one of them without the addition of bacon, you aren’t doing justice to the tremendous amount of time and work burger joint owners have put into raising the quality of this classic American dining staple. Your decision to add bacon is an insult to the high level of quality and deliciousness of these burgers.

So give it some thought So Good readers. Are you always ordering bacon on your burger?  STOP. Dial it back a bit. Recognize that sometimes, you don’t need bacon.  Sometimes, you need to appreciate good burgers for exactly what they are: good burgers.   There ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I’m sorry, a SAMPLE of Bass? So you mean I get to drink 1 oz of Bass for free? What is that horse  shit? If you are promoting a certain kind of hard liquor, give me a free shot. If you are promoting a certain kind of beer, give me a free beer. I know what Bass tastes like, and odds are, so does everyone in a bar on a Saturday night.  Do you really think anyone is going to taste the sample and say “huh, that lukewarm 1 oz serving reminded me how much I love Bass. I think I will now buy a Bass”? NO. No one is going to do that.  Giving us a sample of a beer we’ve all tasted before is pointless, and it’s not going to convince anyone not already drinking Bass to buy one.

However, giving someone a full beer for free can have the intended effect. You start drinking Bud Light/Miller Lite/Bass whatever, and over the course of a full beer you get accustomed to the taste and are likely to buy another one so you can keep drinking the same thing.   If you want me to look more favorably on the type of beer/liquor you are promoting, I damn well better get enough quantity (i.e. a shot or a full beer) to add to my buzz.  So note to Bass: terrible promotion. It was lame central and left me with a worse impression of Bass than I had before.  Note to beer promoters in general: don’t bother giving me a “sample” of your beer unless it’s some kind of gourmet, 10% alcohol beer I’ve never tried before.  If you’re not giving me a free beer, you’re wasting your and my time.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Update: Unlike Kellogg’s, Subway has announced they are standing by Phelps and keeping him as their spokesperson. Bravo Subway, bravo.

Yeah that’s right, I said it. I’m going to boycott Kellogg’s. Why? Because otherwise they will think everything is just hunky dory after they fired an American HERO for doing what millions of other 23 year-olds have done before: smoke pot.

We’re talking about freakin Kellogg’s here people. Are they not aware of who their customer base is? Do they not know who is regularly buying Pop Tarts? I’ll give you a hint: it ain’t sober people. You’re honestly going to tell me that the guy who created Pop Tart’s wasn’t high at the time? Rubbish.

Personally, I’m not even a fan of Michael Phelps.  In his media apperances he seems about as smart as a bag of rocks. However, you cannot deny that his performance this past summer united Americans and instilled many of us with patriotic pride. There is no debate: Michael Phelps is the single most successful athlete in the history of the Olympic games.  The man is, plain and simple, an American hero.

So how does a company like Kellogg’s treat American heroes? By not renewing their contracts, a.k.a FIRING them. Yes, that’s right, Kellogg’s fires American heroes. Are you patriotic Kellogg’s? Do you love America? Then why are you taking money out of the pocket of an American hero?

Michael Phelps was photographed smoking pot. Newsflash: Barack Obama used to smoke pot. The mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, used to smoke pot.  The American people have decided that if you have smoked pot, you are good enough to manage a city of 14 million and good enough to be leader of the free world. Clearly Kellogg’s does not agree with the American people – in their eyes, if you smoke pot, you are not even good enough to be a cereal spokesperson.

Lee Strahan, writing at Huffington Post, is also calling for a boycott, pointing out:

Kellogg’s has profited for decades on the food tastes of marijuana using Americans with the munchies. In fact, we believe that most people over the age of twelve would not eat Kellogg’s products were they not wicked high.

Andrew Sullivan has also weighed in, asking, ”When on earth are we going to grow up as a culture?”  Supporters on Facebook have set up a fan page titled, “I don’t care that Michael Phelps smoked a bong” that is already above 2,000 members. An online petition has been set up, and there are now a flurry of news articles about how the story is uniting pot smokers, which CNN even did a report on:

I ask you So Good readers, who do you want dictating who your cereal spokesperson is? A) Puritanical anti-drug zealots?, B) The 41% of American’s who believe pot should be legal? or C) Patriotic individuals who don’t fire American heroes? Me? I choose B or C.

Some of you may be saying, oh it’s bad PR to keep Phelps, Kellogg’s had no choice, blah, blah, blah. WRONG. Kellogg’s could have easily stood by Michael Phelps. Both Omega and Speedo have NOT dropped Phelps as a spokesperson, and put out statements saying that the picture of him smoking a bong was a private matter. I don’t hear any deafening chorus of people telling me not to buy Speedo’s anymore. So I say bravo Omega, bravo Speedo. I vow to all of my readers that if I ever decide to do a total 180 with my preferred beachwear and buy a bathing suit that exposes 100% of my white, hairy legs, I will make it a Speedo bathing suit.

Subway is already making noises indicating that they will be the next company to cut ties with Phelps. As a former “Sandwich Artist” and lover of Subway, I’m asking you Jared, I’m asking you Subway corporation: don’t do it.  Fear my wrath, fear the wrath of So Good’s readers, and fear the wrath of rational thinking American’s everywhere who have already elected a pot-smoking President and can therefore totally, most definitely, handle a pot-smoking sandwich spokesperson. I don’t want to have to boycott you Subway, but mark my words, I will.

There’s plenty of other cereals out there. General Mills, Post, those weird bags that are always on the bottom shelf. Sure, Pop Tarts are pretty tasty, but I’m sure the store brand “toaster pastries” are fine too. Be honest with yourself: you could live without Kellogg’s. So do it. DO IT. Boycott Kellogg’s.  It’s time to stand up for Michael Phelps, and stand up to American corporations who want to take money out of the pockets of American heroes just because when they are partying they prefer to smoke a plant instead of chugging a Coors Light.

If you feel the same way I do, let Kellogg’s know how you feel:

Kellogg’s Consumer Affairs: kellogg@casupport.com
Kellogg’s corporate responsibility department: corporateresponsibility@kellogg.com

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

If pizza is high quality, a mere slice of cheese is delicious. If pizza is mediocre, I understand the need to add toppings. But I have news for you pepperoni: you ain’t all that and a bag of chips. Pepperoni, while ok, is simply NOT good enough to have earned it’s place as the default pizza order of choice on merit alone. Hell no. I believe it has earned that place through process of elimination, unadventurous American taste buds and dumb luck. It’s cheap, it’s meaty, it’s salty, and it adds additional flavor to an otherwise bland pizza. But you know what? So does sausage. But sausage just doesn’t look good in photos like pepperoni does, so pizza places don’t advertise the shit out of it.

Seriously, at what point did we decide that when a group of people are ordering pizza, that pepperoni, along with cheese, is the default choice for the group? The answer: a long ass time ago. When I was a kid and you had a pizza party, you ordered cheese and pepperoni. No other options were considered. No one ever thought to question the conventional wisdom by saying, “hey, how about a veggie pizza?” or “wouldn’t sausage be better than pepperoni?” or dare I even suggest it, but, “how about a pineapple or Hawaiian pizza?’

When you are ordering pizza with a group of 8 people, and someone says, “ok, lets get two cheese and two pepperoni”, do you say to yourself, “perfect! Just what I wanted”? Or do you secretly think “well I don’t want to mess up the order, but if I had my choice I would prefer X, Y or Z instead”? Well guess what? You aren’t 12 anymore. You are allowed to eat pizza besides pepperoni, even advocate for the ordering of a pizza besides pepperoni.

Here’s the dirty little secret of pizza ordering: while you are thinking that you would prefer something besides cheese or pepperoni, so are at least 50% of the other people in the group. But frequently, no one says anything because no one wants to rock the boat or be seen as “difficult.” This probably stems from a time (our childhood, the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s etc) when there were fewer vegetarians out there, almost no vegans, and fewer interesting topping choices to choose from.

So I am here to declare: if I could have my way, the era of pepperoni pizza would be over. OVER. With your help we can knock pepperoni pizza from its undeserved throne as the go-to pizza option after cheese. Yes, with your willingness to speak out, and a little elbow grease, we can end the tyranny of pepperoni pizza and return it to its rightful place: off the “default pizza” pedestal and back onto the list of general topping choices with everyone else, which frankly, is where it belongs. Pepperoni pizza is not special, it is not above criticism and it is not deserving of protected status.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

There’s just one problem with my “loving” Sonic: I’ve never actually eaten at one. In fact, I swear to you, I don’t think I’ve ever actually even SEEN a Sonic. For me, they are the Abominable Snowman of the fast food world – each passing glimpse or rumor I hear tempts me to pursue this elusive fast food beast. But no matter how much grainy Sonic video footage I see or reports I receive of where the nearest Sonic is, I never actually get close enough to one for it to be in my grasp.

No big deal right? There are hundreds, if not thousands of regional chains that I have never even heard of, that I’m also missing out on. But here’s the difference: THOSE CHAINS ARE NOT ADVERTISING ON NATIONAL TV. Each and every Sonic ad I see on TV is like a miniature punch to the balls from a hyper active 4 year old. It’s as if Sonic corporation themselves are saying to me, “Hey Jon, doesn’t this look good? It does, doesn’t it? Well good luck finding one! Hahahahaha.”

How dare you Sonic. And for those who think I am a Johnny Come Lately to the Sonic curiousity/anger train, quite the contrary. This has been a serious issue for me since about age 12. I grew up in Vermont, about 90 minutes from the Canadian border, and remember seeing Sonic ads as a kid. All through my childhood, I assumed Sonic was a Canadian chain. How else to explain the fact that I always saw their ads but had never actually been to one?

So where are these elusive Sonics? Well a map from their website shows they are heavily concentrated in the South and Southwest.

Notice anything about the map that jumps out? How about the fact that there are ZERO Sonic’s, even to this day, anywhere in New England or New York? WTF Sonic? Why are you advertising in New York or New England if you don’t have any stores there? Even now, living in Washington, DC, I am bombarded with your ads, but lacking a car to get far enough out to the suburbs, I STILL haven’t even been able to try Sonic.

Trust me, my desire to try Sonic is not for a lack of effort. In 2003, my girlfriend at the time and I drove cross country. From New York to Chicago to Kansas City then to Los Angeles. Sonic was very much top of mind on that trip – if I had noticed one anywhere near a meal time, I planned on being all over it. Surely on a cross country drive I stumbled across a Sonic while hungry right? Well, on the leg of the trip from Saratoga to Chicago, no Sonics.

From Chicago to Kansas City, there are 7 Sonic’s, mostly concentrated around KC. But did I manage to see any of them? Nope.

Kansas City to the Grand Canyon turns out to be a treasure trove of Sonics, but once again, I noticed none.

So yeah. 10 years of tempting ads, a cross country drive and still no Sonic for me. And for those of you wondering, yes, I did take the time to plug the results from the Sonic store locater into Mapquest. Um, yeah, because I’m just THAT into bitching about Sonic. You have no idea the mental anguish this has caused me over the years. I want to roll into a Sonic and order every single item on the menu, stuff my face, and roll up to the window to order more.

Sonic! Why must you torture me so? When you started advertising your tater tots with chili and cheese, it was if every time I turned on the television I was being waterboarded by Sonic. Have you no sense of decency Sonic? Isn’t showing these ads to people who can’t find a Sonic a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention against torture? Doesn’t the constitution prevent cruel and unusual punishment?

To make things worse, your witty commercials featuring improv-ed banter between two people in a car are actually GOOD ads! Arrgggggggh! Good ads, delicious menu and I still haven’t been able to try you!

Here’s the deal Sonic: I’m not asking you to stop making delicious burgers or asking your food scientists to stop making interesting creations. Goodness no. From all appearances, you are doing the Lord’s work over there. But please, there are tens of thousands of people out there just like me, and I am speaking on their behalf, as their voice: STOP RUNNING NATIONAL ADS. Until there is a Sonic readily available to each and every person, north, south, east and west, it is simply un-American for you to torture people by running commercials in regions where there are no Sonics.

So Sonic, unless you want to send a professional car service to take me the 30 or 40 miles to the closest Sonic to me in Virginia, I beg of you: end the torture. END THE TORTURE NOW. Stop running national ads, at least on a temporary basis, until I get a chance to finally sample your delicious menu.

Sincerely,

Committee to End National Sonic Advertising Until Eick Has Been to One (CENSA UEHBO)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I just got back from a midnight showing of Batman:The Dark Knight. (Which, I might add for my readers, was dope, dope, dope. Go see it. And I’m not just saying that because I have a giant asexual crush on Christopher Nolan and every movie he makes).

Prior to the movie beginning, I had a craving, as I often do at movie theaters, for the delectable sweet & sour flavor of Sour Patch Kids. So I went to the concession stand and said “Sour Patch Kids please.” Did they say, “sorry we don’t have those, but we do have Sour Jacks”? No. Instead, they just handed me the Sour Jacks as if they were simply the same thing. If I’m going to pay $4 for a bag of candy, it damn well better be the actual candy I want.

Now some of you candy purchasers over at AMC are probably thinking, “well Sour Jacks are similar enough to Sour Patch Kids, what’s this candy elitist complaining about?” Uh, no, they aren’t. If you think that they are, you clearly do not have a discerning palate when it comes to sour gummy candies. Because quite frankly, compared to Sour Patch Kids, Sour Jacks are liking eat a handful of horseshit.

YES!

No!

Fortunately for you, AMC, I was so riveted by Batman that 3 minutes into the movie I forgot I was even holding Sour Jacks, and didn’t eat any of them after the movie started. I’ll let you slide this time AMC, but only because it’s 3:45 am and I’m still jacked up on energy from the movie. But I’ll be watching you AMC, I’ll be watching.

Love always,

So Good

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

This is a true story – about two summers ago, I was walking through Dupont Circle, pack of Starburst in hand, opening and eating them as I walk. When out of nowhere, some guy on the bench I was walking by says, and I quote, “Dude…eating Starburst huh? FYI, pink…..TOTALLY the best flavor.”

Uh what?

First off, who are you? Second, why are you speaking to me? Do you really think at the age of 25 I’m buying Starburst for the first time in my life? Or that I have no clue what the best color is? Even if I HAD just bought them for the first time ever, do I look like the kind of person that is incapable of discerning flavors and using my taste buds to determine which one tastes the best?

This also raises a much larger, and more troubling concern. Are there really people who think that the issue of the best tasting Starburst color is still up for debate? Do they not realize that this issue has been 100% settled for the past 20 years? I don’t know about your social circle, but mine pretty much reached the consensus that pink was the best flavor when I was oh, I don’t know, NINE YEARS OLD.

And please, spare me the “I actually like red the best” nonsense I hear from time to time. If that’s true, you are probably a communist. Red Starburst tastes like every other fake cherry candy on the market and pales in comparison to the brilliant flavor explosion that is the pink Starburst (no need to get into yellow, which everyone seems to agree tastes like kitchen floor cleaner).

So in conclusion, if you are a stranger on a park bench, don’t comment on my Starburst eating.

If you are an average American just reading this blog post, please, don’t pretend that there is some sort of open debate about which flavor is the best, because there isn’t. It’s been settled. I know, because I was there: June, 1989, when the world united to agree that pink was the best flavor.

(Photo of Starburst via Candy Craze)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Remember 5 years ago?

You know, around 2003? The Iraq War was just beginning, President Bush was still popular, and you could actually go an entire day, from morning to night, without hearing or reading something about cupcakes?

Photo via Cupcakes Take the Cake.

Seems like ages ago huh? I mean look at things now: President Bush is one of the most unpopular leaders in history, and unless you live in a cave, you can’t make it 19 minutes in a public setting without hearing about cupcakes.

You’ve got co-workers chattering about the cupcake they had last night. Meredith Viera is on TV dishing about the cupcake party she threw for her girlfriends. Newspapers are writing non-stop reviews of the hot new cupcake bakery in town. Your friends with blogs are obsessed too. At this point, it’s gotten so ridiculous that you can’t even ride in an elevator without seeing someone carrying a little 4 inch-by-4 inch cupcake box – that every other woman in the elevator is salivating over like a pack of blood-thirsty wolves.

I GET IT. No seriously, I GET IT. Cupcakes are delicious and soooooo yummy! OMG pink frosting!

That’s not the point.

What I really want to know is WTF happened? I managed to never once hear the word “cupcake” between the ages of 12 and 25. Then all of a sudden I wake up one day and can’t walk 20 feet down the street without hearing “Cupcake, cupcake, cupcake. Cupcake, cupcake, cupcake. Ooooooo Cupcake!”

Newsflash: Cupcakes are delicious today, they were delicious yesterday, and they were delicious 15 years ago. Nothing has changed. It’s just like in 1998 when everyone was smoking Cigars and celebrities all wanted to appear on the cover of Cigar Afficianado with a Cuban in their mouth. Now every popular actress wants to appear on the cover of Cupcake Quarterly with frosting from a Magnolia cupcake smeared on her face.

So don’t come flocking here to tell me how yummy cupcakes are, I understand. But what I don’t understand is how cupcake saturation has reached the point where I can’t even buy black tar heroin without receiving a flier wrapped around my hypodermic needles advertising the new cupcake store down the street.

The cupcake obsession has peaked, and it has nowhere to go but down. You had your 15 minutes of fame cupcake lovers, but it’s time to face the facts: cupcakes have jumped the shark.

So everyone chill out, regroup, and move on to a new food obsession in a quiet and orderly fashion.

Hugs & Kisses,

So Good

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Hey Milky Way, this just in: IT’S A FREAKIN CANDY BAR!

Since when is a candy bar NOT “to Go”? Unless you are in the airport duty free shop and buying a Toblerone bar the size of your forearm, every candy bar in the world is “to go.” Oh, and by the way Milky Way, really cute using “2″ as well as “To”…you guys are adorable.

I know, I’m bitter, but I just read about this in today’s Washington Post. Fortunately, the article’s author, Monica Hesse, has the same level of skepticism I have. Hesse mocks the concept behind the candy bar, joking that the internal monologue of someone at a vending machine might sound like this:

“I would love to buy this Milky Way right now, but I am not sitting at a table and am entirely without knife and fork! If only someone would invent a candy bar that did not require such elaborate preparations for consumption!“

You know what else can easily be eaten on-the-go? An apple. Or a banana. In fact, I see people eating them all the time. But wait…how could they have possibly figured out to eat those foods while on-the-go? After all, there is no label printed across bananas that screams out “bananas to go!” Could it be that people figured out what foods they could easily eat on-the-go by…gasp…using their own common sense?

So I implore you Mars Candy Company. Stop the absurdity. End it now before it goes any further. Think about the poor kids who, thanks to your over-labeling, may never again be able to determine on their own what is appropriate to eat on-the-go and what is not. Do it for the children Mars, the children.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

In the past 30 years, nearly every other condiment has evolved, improved and diversified. But not ketchup. That’s why ketchup is the single most overrated condiment in America. As other condiments progress towards the future, ketchup is stuck in the past.

But let’s not just hate on ketchup, lets hate on the people who love ketchup.

Ketchup sucks because you, and you, and YOU put ketchup on your pasta and your eggs and your mashed potatoes. You slather everything on your plate with ketchup, perfectly content to eat the same exact substance your great-great-grandfather did.

In an article called The Ketchup Conundrum by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell explains how in the 70’s and 80’s, mustard, tomato sauce, and thousands of other American food products underwent a drastic transformation, providing wider choice and variety to consumers. No longer were we forced to eat only yellow mustard or only one kind of tomato sauce.

Today you can buy dozens of premium mustards – dijon mustard, honey mustard, horseradish mustard, spicy mustard, raspberry mustard…the list goes on and on. This is because people who are mustard lovers appreciate good taste, and they appreciate taste variety. For this reason, mustard lovers have embraced the improvement and diversification of their condiment.

But ketchup didn’t follow the pattern other condiments did. When you walk into the store, are there 15 different delicious ketchups for you to choose from? No, there is Hunt’s, Heinz and a store brand. No matter which you buy, it’s the same exact substance people were eating during the Hoover administration.

Ketchup lovers are stubborn, naive and have a terrible palate. So they don’t demand a better ketchup. Thinking that ketchup is fine how it’s always been is like thinking that your Commodore 64 is as good as my Playstation 2. It’s not. It sucks ass, no matter how many times you’ve set the high score in Oregon Trail.

So I say to ketchup lovers: Why would you not want to buy a more delicious or unique ketchup? Why not a premium, high-end ketchup? Garlic ketchup or spicy ketchup? A sweeter or a richer, fuller ketchup? Premium, high-end ketchups exist, but they continue to fail because ketchup lovers shut them out. Every other condiment in the world is getting better and more diverse, but not ketchup. It’s staying the same because you are too stupid to know you could be eating something better.

So consider this a call to action for all casual eaters of ketchup out there. I’m talking to those of us who think ketchup is mediocre, but squirt it on our fries because we don’t have anything better available. Every time you see someone lathering up their eggs with ketchup, spreading ketchup on their turkey sandwich or squirting a heaping mound on a slice of pizza, explain to them that they are the problem, and they need to be part of the solution.
If we all work together, we can reach a point where there are dozens of high-end ketchups in the grocery store for us to choose from. And you know who else will appreciate that? Ketchup lovers. Because right now, they’re too stupid to know what’s good for them.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites