My Mind, Blown: Catsup on Italian Beef

My Mind, Blown: Catsup on Italian Beef

Those who know me will, I believe, attest to my open-mindedness regarding food and my eternal fondness for catsup. Even my jaw, however, dropped at dinner last Friday when Taylor, my oldest daughter’s most excellent boyfriend, asked for catsup on his Italian beef.



We had the mega-three-pak from Costco, and Taylor was quite liberal in his application, smearing it on with his finger.



Many of us tend to have our own way of applying this superb condiment, and Taylor massaged the catsup into the meat, folding layers of beef over tomato-y rivulets, mingling the elements to what seemed to be the preferred consistency.



He ate the sandwich. Then he had two more, same way.

Hammond

Dude, you had to gross us out with actual pictures of the act, close ups and everything. You should warn people in the title. Is there a V-code for that? This thread has been rated IC for Inappropriate use of Condiments.

Is that your daughter with the somewhat exasperated expression of resignation? I recognize that look. My mom used to look at my Dad that way, when he would put ketchup on steaks and pork chops.

That is a big bottle. It looks like he is giving the sandwich a transfusion.

d4v3 wrote:Dude, you had to gross us out with actual pictures of the act, close ups and everything. You should warn people in the title. Is there a V-code for that? This thread has been rated IC for Inappropriate use of Condiments.

d4v3,

I've got tighter shots than the ones I posted. I was being circumspect in my selection for this post...but there's no way around the shocking nature of these pix.

Hammond

So, of course, you shot and killed the boyfriend, right?

Um, and what desolate part of the Tasmanian outback did you say he was from?

nr706 wrote:So, of course, you shot and killed the boyfriend, right?

The boyfriend is a great guy, internet exec for an international media company (well traveled; spends 2 weeks in Europe every month), musician, athlete, all-around fine person...and he likes catsup on his Italian beef.

David,

Please don't show this to my dear Wendy. She might begin to think it is acceptable.

Flip

David Hammond wrote:

nr706 wrote:So, of course, you shot and killed the boyfriend, right?

The boyfriend is a great guy, internet exec for an international media company (well traveled; spends 2 weeks in Europe every month), musician, athlete, all-around fine person...and he likes catsup on his Italian beef.

Further proof that no man is ever really perfect.

Where did he learn this practice of catsup/ketchup on the ol' beef? Has he been doing this since childhood or is he from some place where they enjoy bastaridizing perfectly good foods? Like St. Louis?

David Hammond wrote:

nr706 wrote:So, of course, you shot and killed the boyfriend, right?

The boyfriend is a great guy, internet exec for an international media company (well traveled; spends 2 weeks in Europe every month), musician, athlete, all-around fine person...and he likes catsup on his Italian beef.

So she should keep him, but the next time you all get Italian beef from Johnnie's, she should take his sandwich, hit him over the head with it, and then give it to a homeless person.

An acquaintance of mine prefers to smear a copious amount of yellow ballpark mustard on his italian beef sammie. We were at Johnnie's once [only once] and I witnessed it firsthand. The horror...the horror

Mustard on hot dogs is great and ketchup has it's place. But either on IB's is beyond the pale. EEEEY! BLECH! BLECH!

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww


that's all.

I had nothing to do with this and do not endorse the use of catsup on Italian Beefs.

(He's not a doctor, he just plays one at the book fair):D

Despite the horror, you have to admire the technique! Although I can't imagine a less appropriate use of a condiment that I generally don't like anyway, I do appreciate a hands-on kind of guy...

Mhays wrote:Despite the horror, you have to admire the technique! Although I can't imagine a less appropriate use of a condiment that I generally don't like anyway, I do appreciate a hands-on kind of guy...

See, and that's the thing: it was a genuine pleasure to see the way he meticulously folded meat over condiment, working it around until it was just right. Here's a guy who knows what he likes, and it may not be to everyone's liking (in fact, definitely not), but I admire his persistence in eating IB his way, despite the pressure of general revulsion at the table and (I'd assume) elsewhere.

Hammond

My husband does the mustard on Italian Beef thing. Personally, I was a little appalled when I first saw him do it, but I get where he's coming from...where we grew up in Pennsylvania, there is a similar sandwich with thinly sliced cooked roast beef and drippings, but without the heavy seasoning (somewhat oddly called "ox roast, though it has nothing to do with oxen). Because it doesn't have seasonings on the beef, people put mustard or horseradish on it.

While I can kind of get behind the mustard idea, the ketchup thing is just beyond the pale. No excuses.

I sometimes like ketchup on IB, and don’t care what anyone thinks about it. I love a beef, with my own red squeeze bottle, set to a thin stream, so as to precisely aim the tomatoey-goodness on with deliberation.

Between bites, even, like a painter.

What’s hilarious is when you ask for ketchup at Johnnies (EP). They take a couple layers of wax paper, squirt a goodly amount of ketchup into it, and twist it into a kind of pastry bag. If you cut the tip carefully, you can aim your ketchup well.

-ramon

I would have had to excuse myself from the table if I saw the guy put ketchup on the Italian Beef.

Thats as bad as putting ketchup on a hot dog, that is unless you are under 4 years old...

yuck..

I once saw something similar to this at Parky's on Harlem and Madison in Forest Park. There was an out of state man, ( the state shall remain nameless) who ordered a combo with relish, ketchup and mustard. The woman taking orders warned him that it was a different kind of sandwich that does not require condiments of this nature and in fact abhors such dressing. He replied that he ate everything with ketchup, mustard and relish and she said, "this is the first time I have ever served a sandwich this way."
He went outside to eat it on the picnic bench while everyone inside started with the same fascination as watching a car accident.
Unfortunately, the this thread does not seem isolated.

bern bern wrote:I once saw something similar to this at Parky's on Harlem and Madison in Forest Park. There was an out of state man, ( the state shall remain nameless) who ordered a combo with relish, ketchup and mustard. The woman taking orders warned him that it was a different kind of sandwich that does not require condiments of this nature and in fact abhors such dressing. He replied that he ate everything with ketchup, mustard and relish and she said, "this is the first time I have ever served a sandwich this way."
He went outside to eat it on the picnic bench while everyone inside started with the same fascination as watching a car accident.
Unfortunately, the this thread does not seem isolated.

See, this kind of response to a customer seems as nutty to me as the incident at Lao Sze Chuan where a waitress refused to serve GWiv a dish because she was sure he wouldn't like it. What arrogance!

Now, I'm not saying that it's good or bad to want a specific condiment on a sandwich, and I am definitely saying it's weird to put catsup on an IB, but when a customer wants to eat a sandwich his or her way, how in the name of Customer Service can a server suggest that his or her way is wrong? That's just totally wack to me and much more odd than having catsup on an IB.

Incidentally, Parky's on Roosevelt is now gone -- replaced by a Mexican place called, I think, Los Compadres or something like that.

Hammond

PS. I believe the server was being less than truthful when she said she'd never served a sandwich "that way" before. Never? Balderdash!

-ramon

Ramon wrote:
-ramon

I don't see the cicada...