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We're usually talking about foods we love here on Slashfood, but occasionally we talk about foods we hate. This post had so many comments about yucky foods that freak out people. So here is my most hated food combination. Eggs and ketchup. I find the smell personally disgusting, especially with scrambled eggs. My mom used to use ketchup on her eggs when I was a kid and one day I tried it. Well I have to say it was loathe at first taste, and smell. It has this weird sickly sweet, odor reminiscent of vomit and corpses. Well, maybe not really, but it feels that way to me. I wonder if somewhere way back when I was young, I was ill and my mother served these to me and then I barfed. I can't think why this smell would be so powerful to me.
A few years ago I ordered one of my, several times a year, road trip treats. I was on my way to several days of food and wine events and needed some quick calories to sustain me on the drive. This is usually the only time I do this, and I requested a breakfast sandwich of ham, bacon, eggs, and cheese on a toasted, buttered, kaiser roll at my local deli. I got to my car and as soon as I opened the bag that odor wafted out. The pong (as my English mom would say) made my nose hairs curl. KETCHUP WAS ON MY EGGS. Holding the bag at arms length, wishing that my arms were even longer, I proceeded back to the deli and dropped the offending substance onto the counter and requested an edible sandwich.
Not long after this I was starting on a vacation road trip with fellow blogger and good buddy Joe DiStefano, heading up to Down East Maine and New Brunswick, Canada for a week or two of camping. We ordered breakfast sandwiches at the same deli and headed out to the car. Before we even got in I smelled that rank excrescence assaulting my sense of smell and sensibility. JOE HAD ORDERED KETCHUP ON HIS EGGS. I made him stand outside my car to eat his slop why I ate my tasty sandwich inside, with the windows rolled up. Lucky for him it was a gorgeous summer day.
So what about you folks? Who else hates the smell/taste of ketchup on eggs? Anyone?
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6-20-2008 @7:49PM Peter said... 100% agree. Ketchup is for kids and has no place in any cuisine except as a base for making BBQ sauce.
Hamburgers and french fries get mayonnaise, and hot dogs get mustard. If you even think of coming near me with ketchup with those foods, you're gonna get hurt.
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6-20-2008 @8:13PM Pyrofish said... When I was a kid, I worked on a farm in NJ. One of our jobs was sorting tomatoes on the picker for the ketchup plant. Upon arriving at the plant, there were these giant mountains of white foam. I didn't know what they were until a worker came out with a fire hose and blew the foam off. It was one of the trailer we had filled several days before. The acidic rotting tomatoes sit outside and foam up before they have a chance to use them.
To make matters worse, ketchup isn't actually red, it's more milkish-clear until they color it. Pretty nasty. I still eat it, but not often.
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6-20-2008 @8:19PM Big John said... I'm not the only one that hates that combination! Thanks for the vindication.
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6-20-2008 @9:23PM Sharon said... I second the disgust with all things Chef Boy-ar-dee, and with ketchup on eggs as well. My personal "ick button" gets pressed when I'm served food which has fruits and vegetables together in one dish (i.e. Waldorf Salad). Nope. Uh-uh. Just not right.
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6-20-2008 @10:03PM bluefunnel said... I hate ketchup on my eggs but my wife seems to find it necessary. I shudder every time she slops it on.
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6-20-2008 @11:05PM James said... After seeing this post, I immediately went to fry up 4 eggs, douse them with ketchup (with a little tabasco) and ate it all up. Loved every bit of it.
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6-20-2008 @11:56PM Bernie B said... I'm in the same camp. Ketchup and Eggs are disgusting. My buddies and I in college would often go out late to the local greasy spoon and they'd apply the Ketchup or Hot Sauce. I'd have to sit on the other side of the table. Also, if you're going to use Ketchup on anything it has to be the "good" stuff. Generic Ketchup doesn't fly..
Foods I refuse to eat;
Veal - makes me vomit every time, though Veal Stock is okay. Weird
Liver & Onions - Foul
Undercooked Egg Whites - Over easy? I don't think so
Fruit Cocktail or Mixed Veggies - sad that kids get subjected to this every day
Neapolitan Ice Cream - 3 inferior quality Ice Creams in one box.
Fish - Actually, I like fish. Just in the midwest you can never tell how fresh it is. Crapshoot.
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6-21-2008 @12:55AM rainey said... Not ketchup on scrambled eggs, but a fried egg sandwich wouldn't be the same without it.
And when I have a big American breakfast I'm quite fussy about well done hashbrowns with ketchup, topped by the bacon and then fried eggs over easy. When it's all properly stacked and the yolks are broken so that they flow over the whole thing and you get a bite of everything together it's pretty damned close to perfect!
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6-21-2008 @8:48AM rybek_23 said... Me, I'm a person that eats ketchup to EVERYTHING, like I eat tomatoes with ketchup. But eggs+ketchup? nooo way, it makes me want to puke in an instant. What kind of crazy idea anyway to put ketchup in your delicious eggs?
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6-21-2008 @8:49AM Pyrofish said... I had a girlfriend that ate ketchup with her mashed potatoes. That was really nasty. It turned them pink. She tried to justify it by saying that people eat ketchup on french fries, which is obviously potato, so why not on mashed...
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6-21-2008 @9:59AM Bill said... I am a Ketchup hater in general and I agree the smell of it on Eggs is horrible. I wouldn't eat ketchup on anything though, talk about a way to ruin the flavor of anything...ugh.
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6-22-2008 @12:56AM Jason Levine said... I'm in the loves ketchup on his eggs camp. I grew up dousing my eggs with (probably too much) ketchup. I don't use it all the time now, but from time to time I feel the need to add a little ketchup to my eggs.
I don't think I have any foods that I'd like banned, I don't hate any food that much. A few years back, I might have said coconut, though. Not because there's anything wrong with it per se, but because I had an incident involving coconut as a kid. I went to a birthday party, ate some coconut cake, and proceeded to, um, "return" the eaten cake. Chances are, it wasn't the coconut but me getting sick, but my mind linked coconut's taste with that "return." Not a good brain association to have when trying to enjoy a food.
I've recently decided to give coconut a second change mainly because I'm trying to get my 4 year old to try foods that he "hates" (without ever trying mind you). I don't love it yet, but I don't loathe it anymore either. I guess some progress is better than no progress at all.
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6-22-2008 @2:27PM MJ said... ok eggs on occassion and no whites in the scrambled version. fried white cooked and yolks think but runny! Fish........if it isnt fresh toss it!Any seafood that isnt fresh not frozen!!
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6-23-2008 @3:22PM leigh said... The smell of a food that immediately makes my gag reflex spring into action is anything MAPLE. Maple bars, maple syrup, maple candies. I have to remove myself from where ever the smell is coming from ASAP. I think this dates back to our family road trips when I was a kid. My dad would always pick up a box of maple bars to eat in the car, so we never had to stop for breakfast or snacks. Except I got intensely car sick as a child, and omg the smell of the maple trapped in the car did NOT make it better. I also can't eat donuts, pancakes, waffles, anything related to maple syrup without my stomach locking up, even if there's no maple around.
Also, the smell of ketchup or BBQ sauce after it has started to dry (like on a plate you ate french fries on the night before?) makes me stomach sick from 10 feet away. I think it's the vinegar smell. It is so weird how our brains work.
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6-23-2008 @10:43AM Katherine said... What everyone is describing is Garcia Effect. I can't believe someone hasn't pointed this out sooner!
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6-23-2008 @12:11PM JMForester said... Katharine- thanks for mentioning the Garcia effect about learned food aversions, I haven't heard that term since my under grad psych days.
-JMF_
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6-24-2008 @3:06PM Kayla said... Reading your post almost made me vomit. I detest the smell of ketchup. I work in a hospital and it is nauseating to walk into a patient's room while they are eating anything involving ketchup. Yuck!
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6-25-2008 @3:10PM Arrancar4 said... I like ketchup with eggs.
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6-25-2008 @3:59PM AndreA said... I'm a also in the group that likes ketchup on eggs (plus tabasco) Pyro - you're making me glad I'm on lowcarb and have to make my own ketchup- at least I know what went into it!
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6-26-2008 @4:00PM Gastronomique said... Ketchup is not a food. Ketchup is a disgusting, nasty thing that smells of cooked tomatoes. NEVER, NEVER under any circumstances will I eat tomatoes that are cooked, nor ketchup in any form. I can tolerate salsa if the tomato is raw and the flavor pretty much overridden by the other ingredients.
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