Fancy that

If I'm to believe the packaging, McDonald's serves "fancy ketchup".



My first suspicion that the ketchup wasn't actually fancy was the decision to package it in a flimsy plastic pouch, like the marketing department insisting that "fine" should be added to the text of the label on a box of wine. "Fancy ketchup" should arrive in something special, like a specially designed match box so that the push-through drawer reveals your ketchup in a ready-to-enjoy format. With the deflated-ketchup-balloon system, every time you open a packet you accept the possibility that you will be decorating yourself with drops of tomato sauce. Maybe your hand, maybe your sleeve, maybe the appearance of a mob assassination on your lapels. They are far too volatile for anything more than "plain ketchup".

What's supposedly fancy about it, anyway? Squeezed out, it doesn't sparkle. (Sparkle is a sure-fire path to fancy---my daughters fancy princess fairy army will support me on that.) The texture is ordinary. (I expected fancy ketchup to have the consistency of warm brie cheese; this was the texture of cold tomato soup.) There are no herbs. (I'll share a secret: there's a million to be made on herbed ketchups. Basil ketchup would make a burger sing, sage ketchup for meatloaf. No longer will customers have just one ketchup bottle in their fridge---they'll have the ketchup section in the door, right next to bloated salad dressing section. Ahh, the joys of profit via manipulation of consumer appetites.)

Frankly, I can find nothing fancy about it. I think it ought to be relabeled. I'd suggest "just ketchup" but that has a quasi-green vibe, like we took out all the bad stuff, which in ketchup's case would be the ketchup. "Ketchup" wouldn't work because the consumer would wonder, "Is this ketchup fancy ketchup?" confused that the omission might have been a design decision rather than a removal of the fanciness. No, the answer is culinary accuracy: "mere ketchup"

"That burger smells good---what've you got on it?"
"Mere ketchup."
"Dude, you're still using mere ketchup? You need to get hip to Bill Reagan's Gourmet Ketchups. This burger would pop with some of his thyme ketchup."

Gluttony is a dubious virtue

One of the food-bearing watering holes in my neighborhood has opted to use their plastic-slotted-letter sidewalk sign to advertise one of their new food specials:
"One-pound Monster cheeseburger with fries $8.95."

One-pound burger. One pound of ground beef is what we order at the supermarket to make burgers for our whole family---me, my wife, my daughter, and a mini-burger for the dog---and even between that gang, the dog winds up with more than just her mini-burger. One pound of ground beef is what you’d get if you ordered a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder and told the cashier, "And add three more patty slabs."

My question is simple: Why? One pound of ground beef on a bun is literally larger than your stomach. Our hunger responds 15 minutes later than our appetite, and since it likely takes longer than 15 minutes to eat a one-pound burger with fries (it would take me the better part of an afternoon) the last bites of that burger strike me as more the completion of a dare than the final satisfaction of a growling belly. My friend Steven was extolling the virtues of one of Portland’s favored chicken-fried steak purveyors, and his description of his favorite included its reasonable size; when talk turned to other restaurants who serve oversize portions of the same item, he said, "I don’t want my meal to be a challenge." In such a challenge, reaching the finish line is hardly a victory.

I suspect this is meant as an enticement in a down economy, a huge meal at a somewhat affordable price, but it’s also the residue of the old "more is better" mindset, the misunderstanding that if plenty is satisfying, more than plenty must be more satisfying. It’s the mentality of the 64 ounce Big Gulp and all-you-can-eat pasta joints ---these things create the illusion that we need to consume as much as possible in order to maximize the "value" of the investment. But it seems to me that the best way to get value is to start by making better investments.