When Condiments Betray You

Jeff, it will take a Miracle Whip to stop him.

I'd be the lashed one to agree with that!

Once I get going it may take you awhile to ketchup with me.

This puts us in a pretty pickle. No doubt you'll be gherkin' us around for a while before you get bored with it. Not sure I'll be able to hold out 'dill then.

-Paul W.

No doubt you'll be gherkin' us around for a while before you get bored with it.

I relish the opportunity!

Chow-chow for now.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Olive to rouille the moment I laid eyes on this thread!

Clearly I am dealing with well seasoned punsters here. Take your thyme, you'll come up with a really food one yet!

[Jenise]

You're tappin' an 'ade new branch of pun potential! Better gribiche my bag and go.

Harissan't any way to stop him? Just keeps hummus'ing along?

You guys appear to be punstoppable!

Tabasco sauce etc. on American tables probably isn't much different.

I found I couldn't shake enough out, and it tasted primarily of vinegar.

However, I found a bottle at the back of a kitchen shelf last month, it didn't have much left in it and the contents had turned a little thicker and were deep brown. I shook several drops into a dish I was cooking and found while eating there was a kick.

I've just been down to see if I could find a date; the top of the box is torn off and there's no 'best before date' or any other clue, except the back label says the recipe is over 100 years old. The new replacement bottle says the recipe is 145 years old....

Interested to see the old one was made in England under license, while the current one was made in the USA, and has a UK label (i.e 'By Appointment to' and the royal coat of arms and the size given only in millilitres.)

I'm making a puttanesca pasta sauce shortly so I'll finish off the old bottle into it.

Tabasco sauce etc. on American tables probably isn't much different.

The new replacement bottle says the recipe is 145 years old.....

That's probably the 'best before' date too.

BTW, have you seen people that have things in their fridge or cupboard that obsessively watch those dates and throw anything out that reaches the date? As if it suddenly turned to poison in the previous 24 hours.

I even had an argument with one of them about a container of sour cream they said was no longer safe. I said "What is it going to do, go sour....? As long as it hasn't turned blue or some other strange colour from mold, it is still edible." That's like saying that oxygen is fatal - it just takes 75-100 years to work.

And just to keep in the spirit of pun-ishment the others seem to be enjoying:

What do you call an expired avocado?

Guaca-moldy

How do you tell if a leg of lamb is too old?

It tastes baaaad.

[Jenise]

Harissan't any way to stop him? Just keeps hummus'ing along?

It will be a Colman day in hell when Bill Spohn quits punning!

Hey - not soy nice to kikkoman when he is down! I'll do better tamari...!

(I know - I should just wok away.)

BTW, have you seen people that have things in their fridge or cupboard that obsessively watch those dates and throw anything out that reaches the date? As if it suddenly turned to poison in the previous 24 hours.

Over the years, I've had plenty of arguments with people concerning "best by" and "sell by" dates. I tell them that their food doesn't turn poisonous on midnight of the stated date. It usually falls on deaf ears, though. OTOH, I'll take their food they're going to throw away. Once I got a pair of grass-fed organic ribeyes that had been stored in a freezer for a day past their sell by date. Makes no sense, but yum for me!

Tabasco sauce etc. on American tables probably isn't much different.

I found I couldn't shake enough out, and it tasted primarily of vinegar.

However, I found a bottle at the back of a kitchen shelf last month, it didn't have much left in it and the contents had turned a little thicker and were deep brown. I shook several drops into a dish I was cooking and found while eating there was a kick.

I've just been down to see if I could find a date; the top of the box is torn off and there's no 'best before date' or any other clue, except the back label says the recipe is over 100 years old. The new replacement bottle says the recipe is 145 years old....

Interested to see the old one was made in England under license, while the current one was made in the USA, and has a UK label (i.e 'By Appointment to' and the royal coat of arms and the size given only in millilitres.)

I'm making a puttanesca pasta sauce shortly so I'll finish off the old bottle into it.

Tabasco's 1st ingredient is vinegar and even new bottles taste vinegary. Chile sauces eventually oxidize and turn brownish. I have a few different brands myself that have turned color.

There's an old joke about telling how long someone's been married by the amount of Tabasco sauce left in the bottle on their refrigerator door.

Once I got a pair of grass-fed organic ribeyes that had been stored in a freezer for a day past their sell by date. Makes no sense, but yum for me!

So YOU are the guy that hangs around the meat section at the supermarket, putting the steaks with the oldest date under newer stock so you can go back and 'discover' old meat ......

Our Superstore automatically marks down meats within a couple of days of the best by date, by 30%. Now that we are doing our shopping at 7 AM to avoid people, we get the chance to grab that sort of thing. Although SWMBO can't be convinced that ground beef can be just as good as steaks under those circumstances. The other one I had to school her on was 'fresh' tuna - she wasn't aware that essentially all tuna in the stores was frozen solid at sea and then sawn up and thawed for sale and final butchering.

[Jenise]

One rule to pay attention to: color is flavor. If the meat's green around the edges, that's a difference you can taste. Nature turned it for a reason. If a hot sauce turns brown, that's a difference you can taste. We can argue safety all night, and I totally agree about not paying attention to expiration dates, but I pay attention to what I can see. And when the color's not fresh, it has to go.

Btw, last week picked up cases of chicken broth and fire roasted crushed tomatoes, the latter an Italian import in tetra paks, that had been priced originally at $4 ea for: get this, 33 cents a carton! I'll use them up in six months.

Nice price!

The local Albertson's is dumping all their candied citron, citrus peels, candied cherries, pineapple, etc., etc, no matter the size for 50 cents. I picked up a couple of 2-lb packages of diced candied fruits and peels, which I'll use in some types of breads, such as the Stolle de Noel I made a few days ago.

Tabasco's 1st ingredient is vinegar and even new bottles taste vinegary.

81% vinegar, 19% chilli - it's not a chilli sauce, it's flavoured vinegar, IMO !

BTW - I didn't taste it in my puttenesca sauce - maybe there was not enough left in bottle.

I keep probably 5-6 hot sauces (actually more if you count things like sambal olek, gochujang, chile oil etc)
Including Tabasco which is primarily used on oysters (if no mignonette every 3rd oyster gets Tabasco, others get lemon)
I like it's vinegary-ness. Peppers are subject to botulism, so they have to be bottled with something to lower ph. Tabasco peppers are hotter than cayenne (used in other Louisiana style sauces), so more vinegar for equivalent heat (Tabasco is slightly hotter than Crystal, considerably hotter than Texas Peter or Franks).
For cooking I generally prefer flakes.

I keep probably 5-6 hot sauces (actually more if you count things like sambal olek, gochujang, chile oil etc)
Including Tabasco which is primarily used on oysters (if no mignonette every 3rd oyster gets Tabasco, others get lemon)
I like it's vinegary-ness. Peppers are subject to botulism, so they have to be bottled with something to lower ph. Tabasco peppers are hotter than cayenne (used in other Louisiana style sauces), so more vinegar for equivalent heat (Tabasco is slightly hotter than Crystal, considerably hotter than Texas Peter or Franks).
For cooking I generally prefer flakes.

Sounds like you're a true chilehead. I couldn't begin to count the number of brands of hot sauces I have stashed around the house. Being a Scovie Award judge every year (except this year because of covid), I get a number of freebies.

I prefer Crystal over Tabasco because of less vinegar, plus I really like the flavor profile of cayenne, The company has an interesting website: https://crystalhotsauce.com/. For cooking, it depends whether I use powdered or flakes of cayenne (I do like powdered cayenne on my corn-on-the-cob)..

Interestingly, Texas Pete is made in North Carolina. I've used Frank's (owned by McCormick's and made in Missouri) for the supposedly authentic version of Buffalo wings invented when chicken wings were free or virtually free. And I'm a real fan of Gochujang. Anyone else?

I'm not really a chilehead, I no longer enjoy intense heat (I used to buy things like Dave's Insanity). But I think a lot of things have subtlety different profiles/uses. Right now looks like we have Tabasco, TPete, Cholula, Cholula Chipotle, sriracha, sambal olek, harrisa, gochugangm chile crisp, chile oil, maybe couple others in fridge. Plus some Asian sauces with varying degrees of heat.
In pantry for cooking a variety of dried chiles, cayenne, hot paprika, red pepper flakes, gochugaru.
It seems strange, but to me none of these are interchangeable.
My reference to flakes was to Peter putting hot sauce in puttanesca, usually for any Italian cooking red pepper flakes are my go to for adding a little Scoville accent.

I used to buy K-Paul's Magic Hot Sauce instead of Tabasco when it was available around here. It's stylistically similar to Tabasco. It uses habaneros as well as Tabasco chiles.

-Paul W.