Regardless of what side of the fence you're on, one thing is certain. When Heinz announced via Twitter the possibility of their mayonnaise-ketchup mashup appearing in American stores, people went nuts.Plenty rejoiced at the idea. Suddenly the days of having to pull BOTH the mayonnaise and ketchup containers out of the fridge, squeeze them into a container, and mix them together, will be far behind us.Many seem pissed, though, and it feels like maybe, just maybe, you're not seeing the whole picture. Let's dive in:
First off, Heinz didn't invent Mayochup.
In fact, Henry J Heinz didn't even invent ketchup, he just developed it into how we know and love it today. Early versions of ketchup didn't necessarily include tomatoes, but were instead made out of egg, mushroom, or fish products.
Heinz seems fully aware they're not teaching you anything new from the tweet that started this whole mess:
Seems harmless enough, right?
But then, bloggers in search of clicks (if you're reading this, then I already have yours... thanks!) added buzzwords like "invented" or "created" and even "new" like so:
And while the Riot Fest article reads a bit tongue-in-cheek, people still took it a bit seriously, like this guy:
Or this person, who I seriously hope is joking (she hasn't responded yet):
Secondly, the name...
The side effect of the many walks of life claiming they were either graced with the divined intuitiveness to combine the two condiments, or the victim of a lucky fry-plate dip-mix accident is that they all came up with a different name. Step Brothers called it "fancy sauce." In some latin countries it's known as "salsa rosada" (a.k.a. pink sauce) or "salsa golf." Utah calls it "fry sauce"
Some take it seriously...
At the end of the day, Heinz got what they wanted. The tweet stands to reach a million votes before they close the "polls" and I wouldn't be surprised if they turned around and released it anyway. It's already available overseas. (or from different brands, as seen above). And if you're one of those who thinks it's an incredible lazy move to bottle two common items that can be easily combined, let's have a chat about cocktail sauce.... (or is it Horsechup?)