I recently joined in to a Facebook conversation all about how we like our fast food. Do you get pickles on your cheeseburger, wasabi with your sushi, what do you get a pizzeria, etc.
There was a definite trend to my answers. Cheeseburgers plain. Sushi plain. No extras. No mustard, ever. Because I still believe that mustard is a way to mask the taste of slightly-spoiled meat. Same with wasabi. If my meat or sushi is off I want to know. And why eat a bite of cheeseburger if all you’re going to taste is pickle? I want it to taste like a cheese and burger, that’s complicated enough.
This rule only applies to condiments and vegetation. Spices are fine. (Well, except for when I doubled down on the cinnamon in my last batch of butter chicken after halving the garam masala and tomatoes. It was … cinnamon yogurt chicken?)
So I’ll give you spices, especially garlic and onion, it seems like they help kill any growing bacteria. But condiments are right out. Blergh.
Of course, the big exception is coffee. Doctor that up so it doesn’t taste like coffee at all, please.
What are your views? Do you like catsup with a hint of burger?
4 responses to “Masking Flavors”
I do like ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions on my dirt-cheap fast-food cheeseburgers, though, as well – it’s such a nice and vaguely nostalgic combination of flavors.
Also, I am a ranch dressing addict. and I will always get as much guacamole and sour cream and tzatziki as possible.
And I like being able to vary or alternate flavors slightly throughout a meal, so I like some condiments if it’s otherwise going to be All The Same (and I love the pickled ginger that comes with sushi, although I usually don’t eat it *with* the sushi, because sushi is interesting/complex/tasty enough on its own).
But if there’s a food I like in itself, then I don’t like to smother that flavor, esp. with something that ends up tasting all-the-same like a drenching of vinegar-based hot sauce – but there are plenty of flavors I consider complementary and which I will happily eat together (fries and nearly-anything, potstickers with dipping sauce, etc.)
Of course, all that is irrelevant now that my body puts a kibosh on many interesting foods and most condiments. But so it goes.
Do you have views on dipping things in melted butter or garlic butter? What about having foods that “come with” their own sauce, such as curries? Or having raw veggies with hummus or dip?
Well, when I’ve seen guac and sour cream it’s in a little serve-serve glob. You can shove it off if you like. And dipping sauces are also self serve. I think you hit it – I don’t want someone else to decide how much catsup will please my palate.
Yes. With strong flavors, odds are good that your palate and their palates will not agree, so having the condiments available (if they’re decent condiments, anyway) instead of pre-applied is good. (I even like that system better with sweet & sour pork – it stays crispy and you can dip it in the sauce and then eat it with rice and it is soooo good. But I am also cool with sweet and sour pork that is pre-mixed.)
KC – I always get take out, so the pork is never pre-mixed.