Monday 28 May 2012

More about civilization: tomato sauce

Everybody needs a change from their occupations, every now and then. Accountants probably inventory the contents of their paperclip boxes. Doctors probably disassemble Barbie dolls. And journalists, this I know with almost absolute certainty, produce top ten lists of things that range from 'sexiness' in male and female celebrities, to really stupid ways to die.


Humans have an innate tendency to order and categorise things. This is why journalists manage to get away with producing lists, instead of covering things that really matter, such as the sex lives of the people on their 'sexiest' lists. In fact, lists are so alluring that it is quite possible to find lists of the most popular lists. Read that again: it might not make sense, but it is for real. Or, according to number seven on the list that I have just made up of top ten ways to say 'authentic', it is 'dinkum'.

Lists start early in life, with letters to Father Christmas itemising 'most of the stuff in the shop and all of the stuff on television', carries through to work with 'things I can put off for a while until it becomes a total crisis', and ends up with 'people who are going to get embarrassing inheritances or absolutely nothing at all'. Like it or not, we are completely hooked on lists.

My favourite lists are the ones about inventions, science, best horror movies and the perennial stupid ways to die. I also enjoy the ones about things that made civilisation possible: fire, builders, movable type and the iPod. I like adding my own little goodies to the list... like tomato sauce, which is shamefully absent from the civilisation list.

I am sure that any parent will agree with me on the need to include tomato sauce. Tomato sauce, or ketchup as it is called elsewhere, is absolutely vital for kids. In spite of the controversy in the USA over the classification of ketchup as a vegetable, tomato sauce is the closest that a scary number of kids come to vegetables. It is also one of the few ways that parents can get children to swallow broccoli and peas. So there's the first reason: tomato sauce is part of a health diet.

Tomato sauce is also vital on the lower end of the culinary scale.

Certain foodstuffs have to be eaten at certain times, for instance hot dogs and hamburgers. These foods are not healthy, but they do have the benefit of being filling and the fact that they are wrapped in bread, which makes them easy to eat where there are no plates, for example on the fly in the last two minutes of the lunch break.

The problem with these two vital elements of the daytime feeding trough is that they are revolting on their own. Even the addition of a piece of wilted lettuce and a few strips of insipid pickled gherkins do little to enhance the flavour. It is only with the addition of tomato sauce that they become bearable. If you want to test this, try eating a hamburger or hotdog without the ketchup. All you have to do is ask for them to hold the tomato sauce. Go on... I dare you! And the same applies to chips.

If you take up the challenge, you will also quickly notice another vital culinary function of tomato sauce: it has replaced margarine as a way of lubricating the bread.

If all of this seems a bit silly, ask yourself what would life be like if you had to nag kids to eat vegetables for half an hour at every meal, or what life would be like if you spent half an hour every morning assembling a healthy lunchbox for the office?

Tomato sauce not only greases the bread. It also greases civilisation.

The dominance of tomato sauce may not last forever though. A quick scan of the top ten list that I have just made up of things that kids love on their food shows that sweet chilli sauce is now at number two. Somehow, enterprising food manufacturers have managed to produce chillis that are not hot and that go perfectly with large amounts of sugar.

Tastes are formed in childhood, and the children are forcing us to change the list. Whatever the case, tomato sauce really is important.

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