What is it about Heinz Ketchup that makes it so wonderful?

I am a Heinz fan. Hunt’s and any of the organic stuff I try just tastes bland. I do try to buy organic and healthy when possible but ketchup is one of the things that I am willing to buy brand name. Granted I don’t even eat ketchup very often, usually only when making pulled pork. But it’s probably the sugar that makes Heinz so delicious.

Tastes like burning.

Hunt’s and Heinz are both good brands, but Del Monte ketchup is just evil!

See, I don’t want my ketchup tasting of tomato. I want it to taste like salt and sugar, but mostly salt!

Heinz makes a Reduced Sugar variety that tastes just the same to me (no doubt they have replaced the sweetness 1:1 with sugar alcohols). I just wanted to pimp it here so people maybe start buying it and it doesn’t disappear from the shelves :slight_smile:

Ever go to an eatery where the establishment has tried to pull the old ketchup switcheroo? That is, put the inferior quality, bulk-sale brand in the Heinz bottle and hope no one can tell the difference.

Personally I can’t but my wife, ever the connoisseur on matters such as these, has her spidey sense go off and knows immediately.

For me Heinz=Ketchup. When I see Hunt’s on a table it makes me feel like I stepped into a parallel universe.

They may be filling it with Heinz from the big ass can and the can makes it taste funny.

They also make a style called “Simply Heinz” that uses sugar rather than HFCS. I can’t tell the difference, and it lets me stick it to Big Corn.

Sure, Heinz is pretty good.

Die blasphemer! Use his blood to flavor the Hunt’s!

It was a proposal, don’t think it actually became law/regulation. I suppose that doesn’t mean that it’s automatically wrong, although parsimony would suggest that they changed it because most Americans say ketchup.

It’s from my area originally, but the Bay Area is firmly Heinz territory. Where is Hunt’s popular? The Midwest? Is it for people who put Ranch dressing and Miracle Whip on everything?

See, I think of Heinz as the Miracle Whip of ketchup myself. Hunt’s has purity of flavor. Heinz is just some bastard tomato-like condiment. That said, I do have both in the fridge.

So far as I know, “catsup” and “ketchup” were always pronounced the same in the United States.

Oh you pedants :slight_smile: say in this context also means write. FWIW, American Heritage and Collins give both, plus a third slight variation. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it spoken. I only remember Mr. Burns being confused by the difference and saying both distinctively different.

I’ve definitely heard cats-up. Click on the audio link here.

We switched to this and can’t tell the difference either.

I just wish I could buy Heinz Mustard at my local groceries. I am reduced to stealing it from restaurants.

For myself, Heinz has a certain vinegar to sweetness ratio that no other ketchup seems to come close to replicating.

It’s mostly their particular vinegar taste I like best. Hunts is just awful.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece about why items that win taste tests don’t sell as well as their competitors. IIRC, Pepsi wins over Coke in a taste test because it is sweeter, and sweeter is more appealing in one or two sips. If, however, you drink a whole can, Pepsi becomes more cloying, and the same people who rated it more highly on the first sip will now rate Coke more highly. The same principle applies to many, many other items and tastes other than just sweet.

Sorry, don’t remember the name of the piece, but it was definitely Malcolm Gladwell. It could have been collected in Blink…I listened to it on a long car trip, coming into Columbia, SC in the winter a few years ago.

Yeah, you see, I would consider Coca-Cola Classic to be more cloying than Pepsi. I rarely drink either, but it seems like the former sticks to my teeth. It may not be sugar, but it’s… something.

Nah, for me, Pepsi definitely seem the less “dry” of the two.

I don’t drink them, either. Just reporting on what he wrote about the sip test, and the overall preferences of consumers. Individual tastes vary, of course. He also considered the influence of the label, if it is revealed. The comments on wine tasting were very entertaining for the sardonically inclined.

I pity the rest of the world, that doesn’t have the experience of All Gold Tomato Sauce (which is what we call ketchup). Made with just tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and spices. We get your Heinz stuff here too, and it’s OK, but it’s not All Gold.