Catsup-a-Thon: Conclusions

Catsup-a-Thon: Conclusions

Sunday afternoon at Kevin's Hamburger Heaven, there were four of us tasting catsup: C2, ReneG, JeffB and me (in the words of C2, the Catsup-a-thon obviously fired the imagination of the board). ErikM came along to express his dismay that we weren't sampling fish sauce, and refused to sample catsup. So there were four testers, and although this may seem like a small subject population, it's an increase of 300% over the subject population in the one-person water survey I recently conducted.

ReneG was the only one of us who had any idea what catsups would be sampled; catsups were placed in numbered plastic boats corresponding to numbered bags. We started by testing 10 varieties, then added some Red Gold from Kevin's counter, which C2 liked. Here are the basic ten we tasted:

1. Del Monte Ketchup
2. Heinz Ketchup
3. Jufran Banana Sauce
4. Burkhardt Curry Ketchup
5. Heinz EZ Squirt (Awesome Orange)
6. Ketchapeno
7. Brooks Rich and Tangy
8. Eaton's Original Jamaican Jamaican Jerk Tomato
9. Muir Glen
10. C2's Homemade

After an extended sampling with first fries and then hamburgers, we each selected our favorite 3. Throughout, to minimize bias and ensure objectivity, we avoided conversation about the various catsups we were sampling. All of us took notes on simple forms.

Here's how the voting went:

Del Monte Ketchup: 25% (that is, one person put it in his top 3)
Jufran Banana Sauce: 25%
Burkhardt Curry Ketchup: 25%
Heinz EZ Squirt (Awesome Orange): 25%
Brooks Rich and Tangy: 25%
Eaton's Original Jamaican Jamaican Jerk Tomato: 25%
Muir Glen:75%
Red Gold: 25%

Conclusions:

Muir Glen was the clear winner (all but one tester put it in the top 3)
No one preferred Heinz
50% of testers mistook Muir Glen for Heinz (this is most interesting)

Tonight, I tried the Muir Glen and Heinz side-by-side. The appearance of both these catsups is quite different: the Muir Glen is almost 'gritty' looking, brownish-red with a flat sheen, while the Heinz is very red and glossy, probably with corn syrup. When tasting just the two, I found that the Heinz now seemed too salty and sugary; the Muir Glen had some nice notes of clove and a little pop from cayenne. Muir Glen is good catsup.

Hammond

Interesting results! So was anyone a Heinz loyalist walking into the tasting? I have tried to convert of few of the long time Heinz-lovers that I know to Muir Glen, and they were not impressed but the ultra-tomato flavor. Of course, people are generally offended by proselytization, which I think is a major factor in their disdain for what one person percieved as a "nuevo-frou-frou-foodie" ketchup.

David,

Were the rankings done in order? That is, do you know what was ranked at #1,2,3, or do you simply have a list of three from each person?

If the former, could you allocate points based on preference? Say, 3 points for 1st place, 2 for second, 1 for third, or whatever makes the most sense to you.

I kinda want to see how much of a blowout it was.

-ed

gleam wrote:David,

Were the rankings done in order? That is, do you know what was ranked at #1,2,3, or do you simply have a list of three from each person?

If the former, could you allocate points based on preference? Say, 3 points for 1st place, 2 for second, 1 for third, or whatever makes the most sense to you.

I kinda want to see how much of a blowout it was.

-ed

Gleam, I have not reached that level of granularity in the data drill-down, but I can tell you this:

Two of the three of us who selected MG ranked it number #1
One of those two voted for only one catsup: MG at #1 -- no #2
One other who ranked MG in the top 3 ranked it #2

So, I'd say Muir Glen pretty much blew out the others.

Hammond

I walked in as a Heinz fan and ranked Muir #1.

Regular Heinz would have finished in the money for me, if I hadn't given two slots to nontraditional ketchups. I liked the plantain-based Filipino ketchup and the jerk, which I recognized to be somewaht exotic. They were spoilers, apples among oranges. (And I must say, though I liked the Jufran banana when I tasted it alone and once, this extra sweet sauce got to be pretty annoying on the fries I had at home later on.) The curry and jalapeno ketchups seemed to use really poor ketchup as a vehicle for not-that-great flavors.

I thought that the Muir was Heinz, because it out-Heinzed Heinz. By that I mean some of the things that make Heinz a better ketchup, complexity, body and a clear clove note, were "more so" in the Muir. Next to the Muir, Heinz tasted a little too sweet and bland. I'd blame it on corn syrup. I mistook it for McDonald's house ketchup (which I don't dislike and I assume aims at Heinz's taste). I did rank the weird orange colored Heinz in my top 4. Maybe the novelty made me give the nod to the oddly colored version over the traditional, since I have to assume that Heinz is able to make them taste the same.

I'd point out that I and others liked the Kevin's house brand Red Gold, which I call the local favorite -- it's from Indiana but there is a huge Red Gold factory/warehouse in Melrose Park or nearby. This is what's on hand at Hopt Doug's. I dislike Red Gold's acidic canned tomatoes, but the produce lends itself to ketchup. Red Gold wasn't ranked because it was not blindly tasted.

To me, both before and after the curtain was lifted, I'd say that the Muir, the Heinz products, and the Red Gold were all within a certain "type" of ketchup, with the Muir clearly being best.

It was rather easy to spot the Heinz big-market competitor, Del Monte, which I called tinny and sanguine. Reminds me of British ketchup, not a compliment.

JeffB wrote:Regular Heinz would have finished in the money for me, if I hadn't given two slots to nontraditional ketchups. I liked the plantain-based Filipino ketchup and the jerk, which I recognized to be somewaht exotic. They were spoilers, apples among oranges. (And I must say, though I liked the Jufran banana when I tasted it alone and once, this extra sweet sauce got to be pretty annoying on the fries I had at home later on.) The curry and jalapeno ketchups seemed to use really poor ketchup as a vehicle for not-that-great flavors.

JeffB,

I realized about half-way through the tasting that I was not even seriously considering Ketchapeno and Burkhardt's Curry. The curry in particular was good, but I just didn't think of these two sauses as catsup, so it didn't seem right to even group them with Heinz, Muir, Del Monte, etc. As you say, apples to oranges (or maybe more like lemons to oranges; they were somewhat similar, but dissimilar enough to make a comparison seem inappropriate).

Hammond

I been toying in my mind how to characterize my participation in this ketchup tasting. Some doubts were largely influenced by an article I read the night before on focus groups. It suggested focus groups tend to choose what�s familiar to them over what�s different to their experience. Possibly bypassing innovation or an improvement because it challenges their known frame of reference.

Translated into the context of a ketchup taste-off. It made me wonder out loud were we tasting the ketchups to find one which most meets our traditional expectations or were we able to look beyond what we expect to what is best. When I ranked the ketchups, I went with what I really liked rather than what I thought a ketchup should taste like. So my top rank was the curry ketchup.

In a sense, we did have a ringer in the ketchup competitors: my submission of the Heinz EZ Squirt (Awesome Orange) ketchup, which not only looked different (like very soft dog poop), it was instantly known to Hammond, ReneG and I as the Heinz product. It was truly fortuitous JeffB came to taste it independently and declare, though it looked strange, it did taste like ketchup.

EZ Squirt not only had a unique look, I used the less than smooth appearance to delineate which other ketchup was the classic Heinz. Biased? Yes, certainly all tasting and focus groups are inherently filled with bias. I simply admit to mine. Also take into account, what has Heinz always pushed in their ads: so rich and thick the ketchup barely moves. A lot of the ketchups had glossy smooth appearances, whereas one had a similar rough texture and dull sheen which number 9: Muir Glen had. It was a very good ketchup, but in my search for the outstanding ketchup taste experience it didn�t place number 1 (it placed 4th) because in a sense I was trying not to choose what was absolutely familiar unless it was an outstanding example. JeffB also believed the Muir Glen was the Heinz.

Another easy-to-identify was number 10, the ketchup I made. I hadn�t made ketchup in a few years, so I forgot some of the nuances of making it. Though the instructions suggest it only needs one hour of simmering, well it needs much more. In my Last-Minute-Lulu mode, I made this ketchup Sunday morning and didn�t have the time to reduce it down to the right consistency. I brought the recipe and the sauce, while watery by ketchup standards, was still a work in progress. I did reduce it on Monday. It looks a lot like ketchup sample 9 from Muir Glen.

Some ketchups were so foreign to my remotest expectations of ketchup, they were easy to taste once and move one. Number 6 had Jalapeno overtones and a heat level I could tolerate, no surprise it was Ketchapeno. Number 8 had a high level of heat by my wimpy standards. Chili seeds were visible. This ketchup was dark with spices. My head jerked when I sample this sauce aptly named Eaton�s Original Jamaican Jamaican Jerk Tomato. Another ketchup one would have thought was in the easy to detect spicey category was number 3: Jufran Banana Sauce. This was more nuanced rather than attack the tongue spicey. I could eat with fries quite comfortably.

My third choice was not on the tasting tubs, rather it was the house ketchup from Kevin�s: Red Gold. This was really thick and difficult to shake out of the jar. It had that rough, dull sheen red texture seen in Muir Glen, Heinz EZ Squirt and my finished ketchup. There was also a strong tomato paste taste present. It met my expectations of a classic ketchup.

In the glossy ketchup category, in some you could see specs of ground spices. In others there was a homogeneous red color, albeit a wide variety of red shading. The outstanding characteristic of sample number 2 was not only the bright red color, the ketchup held soft peaks. This ability to hold a shape suggested there were some thickening agents in there. It also had an almost too perfect glossy look, like a premium ketchup wannabe. Much to my chagrin this was Heinz, which ironically didn�t match my frame of reference for classic tomato ketchup.

So even though I was full of biases and assumed frame of references, the results still had surprises for me. What seemed like a frivolous exercise in chasing nuances nobody cares about, we learned a lot about these ketchups and, in my case, myself.

Hammond and Rene G, I cannot wait for the water taste off.

If you note, I did not specify which product was my choice number 2. I simply cannot remember which one it was.

It was very scientific.

I found the ketchup tasting to be very interesting, not because I'm that big a ketchup fan, but to explore some ideas that came from Malcolm Gladwell's article on ketchup.

In the past when I used ketchup it was usually Heinz, everyone's definitive ketchup. More recently I came across superior (to me) ketchups, first Brook's then Muir Glen. I was very curious to see if others would agree in a blind tasting. Unfortunately the turnout was small enough that no firm conclusions could be supported but I was pleased to see Muir Glen scoring well. I think it out-Heinzes Heinz but, who knows, maybe it's just another low amplitude product.

Here are a few photos from the tasting at Kevin's Hamburger Heaven, mainly to let me play with Imageshack (thanks, gleam!).

The Panel of Ketchups

Top row of 4 at left:
1 Del Monte (partly hidden)
2 Heinz
3 Jufran Banana Sauce (Philippines)
4 Burkhardt Curry Ketchup (Germany)
Lower row of 6:
5 Heinz EZ Squirt, Awesome Orange (partly hidden)
6 Ketchapeno
7 Brooks Rich and Tangy (Canada)
8 Eaton's Original Jamaican Jerk (Jamaica)
9 Muir Glen
10 Cathy's Homemade

Burgers on the Griddle


Burgers Ready to Sample

I think you should do this again...only using3-4 basic brands.

Interesting that this old thread has been resurrected. Weekend before last at Cochon 555, I ran into Doug Sohn and discussed with him a project I'm working on in conjunction with an artisanal catsup distributor. Don't want to spill my candy in the lobby, but suffice it to say that it could radically reconfigure the character the Chicago hot dog -- and perhaps life as we know it.

razbry wrote:I think you should do this again...only using3-4 basic brands.

HI,

I think the real learning experience can be derived from tasting many different vendors instead of the top four.

I happen to have on my desk Cook's Illustrated from July/August, 2006. It featured a ketchup taste test, their results:

REcommended:
1. Hunt's Ketchup
2. Heinz Organic Ketchup
3. Annie's Naturals Organic Ketchup

Recommended with reservations:
1. Del Monte Ketchup
2. Heinz Ketchup
3. Muir Glen

Not recommended:
1. World's Best Ketchup
2. Westbrae Natural

Regards,

David Hammond wrote:it could radically reconfigure the character the Chicago hot dog -- and perhaps life as we know it.

Say it ain't so! Anathema!