An Interesting Sauce

I was watching hockey this evening as I ate dinner, and there was a Heinz ketchup commercial that came on that stopped me dead in my tracks. I'll warn you now that this article isn't about hockey, but about something I learned about food thanks to the commercial. I'm the last person to tell anyone when to use or when not to use ketchup for their own personal tastes, but I can assure you of a few certainties: I will never put ketchup on eggs, it's a vital component to most barbecue sauces, and I do appreciate ketchup potato chips. The sauce, though, doesn't get used very often in my house unless it's summer and the barbecue is filled with hamburgers and hot dogs.

So why am I talking about ketchup tonight? Well, the Heinz commercial that aired on a US-based television station is below. Listen to the animated young lady's choice of sauce for her spaghetti.

Not gonna lie: I was mortified when I heard this young lady singing about eating Heinz ketchup on spaghetti, and I was even more concerned that her two parental figures or guardians were sitting at a table where this was allowed. Ketchup on spaghetti might be the best way to ruin perfectly good noodles, and I'm concerned that Heinz may be encouraing a form of child abuse by portraying this young lady eating ketchup on spaghetti.

All joking aside, being a bit of a foodie, I had to know if this was a real thing that people did. The sweet nature of ketchup makes it hard for me to put on most savoury items, and spaghetti, in my books, certainly deserves a more robust sauce than sugar, tomato paste, and water. And that's when my world shattered as I found out there's an entire country whose been serving this dish - ketchup on spaghetti - for decades.

According to legend, the dish originated back in 1945 and is credited to Shigetada Irie, the chef of the Hotel New Grand in Yokohama who devised it to feed US soldiers following World War II. Reportedly, Irie named the dish after Naples, Italy thanks to spaghetti's Italian roots, leading to the yoshoku dish - Western cuisine with Japanese influences - of spaghetti tossed in ketchup with bell peppers, onions, and ham or bacon. Today, other ingredients may include sausages, mushrooms, peas, and parmesan cheese.

The market for Japanese cuisine is still popular, so you might be asking if there are pre-made sauces that one can buy rather than making this whole ketchup-based sauce. That answer is "yes" as several Japanese retailers have pre-made sauces such as this one, and the dish has even made its way into mainstream pop culture in places such as the animated Powerpuff Girls, video game Final Fantasy XIV, and as an animated icon for Japanese processed food company Kagome who makes tomato-based products.

I want to be clear that this Japanese dish is far different than what Heinz showed us in the animated advertisement for its ketchup, but there is a small measure of truth regarding people who put ketchup on spaghetti. I have not attempted to make this dish and I'm not sure I want to, but all accounts online of people trying it seems to indicate that it is, indeed, a tasty dish that surprised them with its umami taste. I'd assume that the ketchup would provide a sweetness to the flavour profile with the peppers and onions, so maybe there is something to this spaghetti-in-ketchup dish.

Apparently, ketchup on pasta also happens in places we'd consider more "western" than Japan as well. Sweden will add ketchup to pasta rather than a marinara sauce. Denmark also falls into the ketchup-on-pasta countries, and these two countries rank somewhat behind both China and Indonesia for this phenomenon while being slightly ahead of places like India and United Arab Emirates. Again, I'm not here to tell the peoples of these countries that their pasta sauce choices are wrong, but I simply can't imagine ever pulling the Heinz bottle out if there's a plate of penne or fettucini in front of me.

Let me be the first to say that Heinz promoting the idea of putting ketchup on spaghetti as shown in their commercial may be one of those things I'll never understand. Running that commercial in places like Sweden, Denmark, China, and Japan may get a better reception than in Canada or the US, but Heinz is welcome try to grow their "No Sugar Added" Ketchup product however they like. After all, the Kraft Heinz brand is only worth about $52 billion, so I think they may know something about marketing their products.

I don't know how many of you use ketchup as a pasta sauce, but I'm thinking it's not many. While it can be used in a number of ways, having an animated child sing about putting it directly on top of spaghetti seems like a weird angle to try and sell ketchup with or without sugar. And while I may one day try Spaghetti Napolitan just to see what it's like, I can assure you that I won't be bringing out the Heinz squeeze bottle the next time I make pasta at home.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!