{"id":103333,"date":"2026-10-02T01:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T05:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=103333"},"modified":"2026-07-02T10:16:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:16:31","slug":"qotd-ketchup-us-vs-british","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/qotd-ketchup-us-vs-british\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Ketchup, US vs British"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Let&#8217;s start with the one sauce that theoretically bridges our cultures: tomato ketchup. Surely, I thought, this crimson staple would be the same everywhere. How wrong I was.<\/p>\n<p>American tomato ketchup is unapologetically sweet \u2013 basically a tomato-flavored sugar delivery system that goes perfectly with everything from french fries to scrambled eggs (yes, we do that). It&#8217;s thick, rich, and designed to be squeezed with abandon.<\/p>\n<p>British tomato ketchup, I discovered, has more of an edge. Less sweet, more vinegar-forward, with a thinner consistency that actually enhances rather than masks the food it touches.<\/p>\n<p>Heinz may have started in America, but the British version tastes like its more sophisticated cousin who studied abroad and came back with refined tastes.<\/p>\n<p>The real revelation? Many Brits find American tomato ketchup cloyingly sweet, while I initially found British tomato ketchup disappointingly tart. It took a few months of adjustment before I appreciated the more nuanced British approach \u2013 though I still secretly prefer the American version on certain foods.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out it&#8217;s not just my imagination. American Heinz uses high fructose corn syrup while the British version uses regular sugar, which explains why my taste buds were a bit confused.<\/p>\n<p>Marianne Jennings, <a href=\"https:\/\/anamericansguidetobritishlife.substack.com\/p\/beyond-ketchup-and-ranch-dressing\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Beyond Ketchup &#038; Ranch Dressing&#8221;, <em>An American&#8217;s Guide to British Life<\/em><\/a>, 2025-05-25.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s start with the one sauce that theoretically bridges our cultures: tomato ketchup. Surely, I thought, this crimson staple would be the same everywhere. How wrong I was. American tomato ketchup is unapologetically sweet \u2013 basically a tomato-flavored sugar delivery system that goes perfectly with everything from french fries to scrambled eggs (yes, we do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,74,41,13],"tags":[1126,262],"class_list":["post-103333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-food","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-culturalappropriation","tag-culture"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-qSF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103334,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103333\/revisions\/103334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}