Katie and Jen are joined by Tastemade's Frankie Celenza to discuss the history of the ultimate food lube: ketchup.
Who knew ketchup could be so controversial? Co-hosts Katie Quinn and Jen Phanomrat are joined by Tastemade's Frankie Celenza to discuss which foods are OK to smother in the stuff, catsup's surprising original formula (hint: no tomato), banana ketchup (!), homemade ketchup (!!), and why Heinz has remained king.
You can find Frankie's Tastemade show, Struggle Meals, on most streaming platforms, or follow his kitchen adventures on Instagram at @frankiecooks.
Special thanks to listeners for your questions and Brian Quinn (@bqfunk) for our theme music. Have a Q for us? Send us a voice memo for a chance to be featured.
Jen Phanomrat: Hey, I'm Jen.
Katie Quinn: And I'm Katie.
Jen: And this is Either Side Eaters.
Katie: We're friends who talk all about food, and, whether it's across the table from each other or across the Atlantic Ocean. Coming up in this episode, we'll talk about ketchup: the loved and sometimes hated condiment used around the world, though it is contested which foods should be eaten with.
Jen: We'll also chat with the most energetic food host around, Frankie Celenza.
Katie: So Jen, I need to admit something to you right now.
Jen: What, you love me?
Katie: Well, yeah, but that's not--you know that already. (laughing) I--and I'm a little worried I might be kicked out of Italy for saying this. Um, one of--actually, my earliest YouTube videos, I talked about how I love putting ketchup on pizza. I don't do this anymore to be fair. But that was a stance, and it is a thing that exists on the internet.
Jen: It does.
Katie: Um, it's like, it's--this is like my skeletons in the closet that, this might...
Jen: (laughing) It's coming out.
Katie: It's coming--I guess it's coming out, because I'm saying it right now, like a silly pants.
Jen: Hey, I'm here for it. You know me, I--we've spoken about this before. I do like ketchup on pizza, but a specific kind, and we could talk more about--
Katie: Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that.
Jen: But first, let's hear question from one of you.
Call-in: Hi Jen and Katie, this is Jorge. My question is, are you two pro or against ketchup? If you are pro-ketchup, what food do you think requires ketchup as a mandatory condiment? Thank you.
Jen: Thanks for that question, Jorge. Um, Katie, pro-ketchup or anti-ketchup? Obviously you put it on pizza.
Katie: I mean, I have. It's in my past. (laughing) No, no overall--overall I'm definitely pro ketchup.
Jen: Yeah, me too, me too. I'm not ashamed to admit it. It has its place.
Katie: Yeah. It has its place. Totally. I feel like I don't really understand actually why this is such a contentious topic. (laughing) Like, let people do what they want. Like, what's the big deal?
Jen: Exactly. Is there--so what food do you think it, requires it as a mandatory condiment?
Katie: I mean, I'm all about it with my french fries.
Jen: Yes, that's what I was gonna say.
Katie: Yeah, dude.
Jen: Some nice crispy, salty--
Katie: (moaning)
Jen: --balance with that acid, that sweet, that mmm.
Katie: Yes. Yes. My husband Connor is pretty stringently in the non-ketchup camp. So that just means if there's some fries and I want ketchup with it, I have to put my ketchup in like a teeny little corner of the fries thing, because if--if any ketchup touches any of his fries, he is not having it.
Jen: Well it's done, he's like--we need a divorce.
Katie: Done deal. Yeah. Although actually now that I think about it, that should be my strategy. I should just put ketchup on all the fries because then I get to eat all the fries.
Jen: There you go.
Katie: That's it.
(musical interlude)
Katie: So Jen. Have you ever noticed on some ketchup bottles that it says tomato ketchup on it? Have you ever considered, like, why would they clarify tomato ketchup? Like, hasn't ketchup always had tomatoes? Like, has that thought ever cross your mind?
Jen: No.
Katie: Well, the reason for that is because historically ketchup did not have tomatoes in it at all.
Jen: What?
Katie: Yeah, okay. So ketchup actually originally came from East Asia and it did not include tomatoes. So okay, the original ketchup was more like a fish sauce.
Jen: Ohhhh.
Katie: Yeah, like the kind of fish sauce you would think about in like, Thai, Vietnamese food, like...
Jen: Like fermented.
Katie: Exactly. Exactly. It was fermented fish and a whole bunch of other things that we would probably think um, is nothing like the ketchup that we know. Um, so I think that this is really fun. The word for ketchup comes from that origin. So one of the places that made this sauce was the Fujian province in China. And they have a local dialect, the Hokkien dialect, where fish is "kê" and sauce is "tsiap."
Jen: Ahhhhh, that's so dope.
Katie: Yeah, right? So, so way back then, this fish sauce, "kê-tsiap," like, is still, it has come along today to our ketchup. So British sailors got it from Chinese merchants, probably in Indonesia, and then they brought it back to the western world. And they started to make it with ingredients they had on hand. So if you think about it, makes sense. As anything travels the globe, it changes according to resources, right? It has changed so much to be almost unrecognizable to what it once was. But the main thing, if you think about it, Jen, from like, a culinary perspective that these have in common, is that they were looking to pack it full of ingredients with an umami kick. So they're like, what are these Western ingredients we can use that give us that punch of umami?
Jen: Mmmmm.
Katie: So what--what's some other ingredients you think of when you think of umami?
Jen: Miso.
Katie: Mmmm, yes.
Jen: Yeast? Marmite, vegemite. Right?
Katie: (gasps) I mean, okay. Yeah, no, totally, no, that's great, you're right. Okay, I'm just gonna tell you.
Jen: Ok.
Katie: So in the--1727, the Complete Housewife little pamphlet, it included a recipe for English ketchup, and the ingredients included anchovies. That's what I was fishing for.
Jen: Oh, duh. Duh.
Katie: But anchovies, shallots, white wine, white wine vinegar, mace, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, lemon peel, and horseradish.
Jen: Wow.
Katie: Yeah, it does sound dope, right? But like, so much, and basically just really trying to bring that, like, punch of flavor. So alright, so if we're like, a tomato has yet to be seen in this recipe, we're in the mid 1700s now. The first recorded tomato ketchup recipe was from 1812. So this 1812 tomato ketchup recipe was called--I love the name of it: love apple ketchup, and the reason it was called love apple ketchup is because tomatoes used to be called love apples. (laughing) Isn't that so sweet?
Jen: That is so cute. They also sound like my lady bits. (laughing) My love apples, melons, whatever, fruits of all--of all sizes and shapes.
Katie: (laughing) Listen, just choose your fruit and uh...
Jen: And assign accordingly.
Katie: Assign accordingly. (laughing) And okay, so also, it's such a great reason that tomatoes were called love apples, was because for--for a long freakin' time people thought tomatoes were poisonous. And then they were like, eventually--
Jen: Mmm. Like the potato.
Katie: Like the potato--wait, really? People that potatoes were poisonous?
Jen: Yeah. That's another episode.
Katie: So, uh, yeah, not poisonous. Neither potatoes nor tomatoes. And they are in fact delicious. So we're in like, the mid 1800s now, in America, right? And this was before food regulations were a thing in the States. So you want to know how much disgusting gross-ass food there was?
Jen: Yes. I always love to know this stuff.
Katie: A whole buttload of disgusting foods.
Jen: Spill it, spill it.
Katie: Okay, so what some of the things that used to be put in ketchup included, like, pumpkin rinds, apple trimmings--I mean people would just like, put random things in their kitchen and you know, none of that's like, too too gross. That--that's, that's okay, right. But a whole bunch of like, really toxic stuff actually was put in food around this time, such as borax. Uh, yeah, salicylic acid, a whole bunch of stuff that was very, actually, harmful to humans. So in the late 1800s, this guy named Harvey Wiley, he was like completely devoted to food purity. And he put together this crew of guys who he nicknamed the "poison squad" who would eat foods specifically knowing that there were these elements in them. Because Harvey Wiley--
Jen: Hardcore!
Katie: Super hardcore, right? Because Harvey Wiley wanted to like, prove what was dangerous and what wasn't dangerous. And this is what the FDA was founded on, basically. So it enforced proper labeling on food, paved the way for the FDA, and ketchup is a part of this story because sodium benzoate was something that was put in ketchup. And so the poison squad and Harvey Wiley did experiments with it. I like--you're picking up your ketchup bottle right now?
Jen: (laughing) Like, "Hmm."
Katie: Hmm. And so basically ketchup was a part of these poison squad experiments. Part of what founded the FDA. And the big takeaway here is that sodium benzoate in small quantities, like what is used in ketchup making, is not harmful.
Jen: Yeah. I feel like I've seen it often.
Katie: Yeah. In small doss--
Jen: Not too often, but like, in labels.
Katie: It's a thing. Yeah. Because in small doses it's okay. But something that was directly impacted by this was that there's a man who took note of this study. His name was Henry Heinz.
Jen: Ohhhh.
Katie: If you recognize the Heinz ketchup? Yes, okay, so Heinz took note of this experiment and he had an idea in terms of marketing and was like, "Oh, I have a--I have a way to differentiate my ketchup from the other ketchups. So I'm going to find a way to make it without sodium benzoate," which is a preservative, right? It makes it shelf stable for longer. So Harvey Heinz is like, "I'm not gonna put sodium benzoate in mine, and I'm gonna market it as being a more pure, healthier ketchup." And so what he did though, to make it still pretty self--self--self--I can't say that! Shelf-stable, (laughing) was he used fresh tomatoes, which had more pectins, which is a naturally occurring preserving agent. And here's where it comes to viscosity, Jen. And what you brought up earlier, is that because fresh tomatoes had more pectins, it also gave it that gluggy gluggy gluggy...(laughing) viscosity...
Jen: She got thick.
Katie: She got thick! (laughing) Yeah, man. So--and that's why, when you like shake a tomato bottle, it doesn't come out, because--
Jen: Here. Here's a little ASMR while I have the bottle here already.
Katie: Yeah, yeah, do it.
Jen: Okay. Here's your warning, if you're not into this, pull the headphones off now. (laughing) (glugging sound) Yeah, that's that sound, right? That's that recognizable...
Katie: I caught it. Yes, right, because it's not--it's not--it's the gluggies, it's not a liquid, it just doesn't just pour out like a liquid. So we're still in the mid 1850s here, ketchup is just like, totally not--mid 1850s now, the mid--in the mid 1800s. Heinz is like, working his ketchup magic. After the civil war, the American Civil War, which was from 1861 to 1865, ketchup just took off. So by the 1890s, the merchants review called it "the sauce of sauces." In 1896, The New york Tribune named "the national condiment." And it was, quote, "on every table in the land." Do I sound like someone from the 1800s there?
Jen: Sure.
Katie: Like, "every table in the land. On every table in the land." So basically, ketchup has been a big thing and it still is a big thing. Now Americans eat $800 million dollars worth of ketchup every year. As of 2015, the US was responsible for 37% of the global ketchup market, meaning that Americans like it more than a lot of other places, although other places definitely do like it. Um, ketchup is the third best selling condiment. Do you want to guess what would the two other condiments be that give ketchup a run for its money?
Jen: Like here in North America, or generally?
Katie: In America, specifically in America.
Jen: Um, mayo.
Katie: Correct. That's number one.
Jen: That's number one.
Katie: Well done, well done.
Jen: Okay. Number two, soy sauce?
Katie: So this is tricky. Honestly, I don't even know if I would actually call this a condiment, it's more of a dip. Salsa.
Jen: Oh, that makes sense.
Katie: Yeah.
Jen: Chips and dip.
Katie: People love their nachos.
Jen: Like jarred--like jarred salsa.
Katie: Yeah. Okay, so in the US, we put ketchup on like basically everything. I know like, a lot of my friends in the midwest put it on their pizza or dip the crust in ketchup.
Jen: That's interesting. I thought that was a Thai thing.
Katie: Oh no way, that's a Thai thing? (gasping)
Jen: Yeah, I love telling people like, oh, when I--when I was younger and traveled to Thailand, we get like, Pizza Hut, which is like the pizza, right? Locally in my dad's area. It always came with packets of ketchup, and so I would like--I saw--the first time I saw my cousin squeezing some onto a slice, I went, "This is not--no, absolutely not, why? Why would you do that?" She was like, "Just eat it." And I loved it, because it's like, that contrast of a little sweet, and so it goes back to a lot of western Asian dishes, right? We'll have things like ketchup, corn, cheese, right? So ketchup is a big thing.
Katie: Oh wow, that is so interesting, that's so interesting, because here in Italy, that is not a thing. I mean, they feel very--Italians feel very strongly about this. Like, ketchup is for your fries, your patate fritte, don't even think about putting it on the pizza. Like, you--if you do that in public, you will absolutely get stared out of a restaurant. There is no question about it. But so--and I know in Romania it's also a big thing to put ketchup on pizza.
Jen: Oh whoa.
Katie: So here's my question, Jen, for you. Why is it okay to put ketchup on french fries, but not on mashed potatoes?
Jen: Ohhhh.
Katie: It's kind of a similar...give or take, the same.
Jen: Yeah, I mean, is it down to texture?
Katie: Mmmmm, hmmmm.
Jen: Because you've got like crunchy, fried, with--and it needs something to acidic, you know, sweet to...to cut it, or...but then like mashed potatoes are creamy and rich too.
Katie: Yeah, but I think the texture thing.
Jen: But smooth.
Katie: They're smooth, so it's like smooth on smooth, versus crunchy.
Jen: And I want to try that this weekend.
Katie: I mean, why not do? (laughing) Okay, let's talk about banana ketchup real quick.
Jen: Oooh, yeah.
Katie: This is like, very popular in the Philippines, right?
Jen: Yes.
Katie: Okay.
Jen: Super popular.
Katie: Tell me more.
Jen: If you want to know the history of banana ketchup, there's an article, actually, on Food52.com, written by my friend Amelia. It's fantastic. Anyway, so banana ketchup was--I was so proud of it growing up and sharing it with my friends who have never heard of banana ketchup, only tomato ketchup, and I ate that with almost every like, weekend breakfast. So weekend breakfast consists of like, a silog, so some garlic rice, egg, some protein. And there would always be banana ketchup or spicy banana ketchup. And it's like, sweet. So the color is similar, sometimes lighter, but like, I'm looking at my bottle of tomato ketchup, it's a lot more like, consistent. The consistency is consistent. Whereas like, in a bottle of banana ketchup, it's more gelatinous, almost.
Katie: Hmmm, interesting.
Jen: And sweet, very sweet.
Katie: Alright, so there are all kinds of ketchup. This is what we've learned, right? Tomato ketchup is one variety of ketchup, and it is now the most prevalent and popular version of ketchup worldwide, but different countries have different opinions about it, and different ways of using it. So I am dying to hear how our guest today, the one and only Frankie Celenza, how he uses ketchup in his kitchen. So let's call up Frankie, shall we?
(musical interlude)
Katie: Frankie Celenza is the food personality who helps you make delicious food. He teaches you to cook and to do so in an economic way. He's host of Tastemade's Struggle Meals and he's especially adept at Italian food. He is a friend of both of ours and whenever we can pin him down, when he's not zipping around on his Vespa with a chef's knife in his bag, he's always a ton of fun. Frankie Celenza, welcome to the podcast! We both adore you and we're so stoked that you're here to join us, and so we're going to welcome you with some quick fire questions. Do you prefer vespa riding in New York City or in Rome?
Frankie: Rome.
Jen: Oh.
Frankie: For one reason and one reason only. In New York, they do not respect the scooter, and I am driving--and I've done it for 10 years, by the way, 12,000 New York City Vespa miles. Uh, you have to drive like everyone's trying to kill you, because they are. In Rome they respect the scooters because it's 30% of the vehicles on the road.
Katie: Hashtag respect the scooter.
Frankie: Hashtag it's less chance of dying.
Katie: (laughing)
Jen: Cheetos or Doritos?
Frankie: Cheetos.
Katie: Frank's Hot Sauce or sriracha?
Frankie: Frank's Hot Sauce.
Jen: Because by name?
Katie: Yeah, is that a...? (laughing)
Frankie: It doesn't matter. Yeah, no. Uh, sriracha has this garlicky thing that's really great until you realize that it's shelf stable garlic and it's going to be fine, not refrigerated for two plus years. The Frank's tastes like the best chicken wing ever. And even if I'm not eating a chicken wing, I love that taste, like, particularly on an egg and cheese, you know, burrito. Frank's Hot Sauce. It's like, *chef's kiss sound* Ahhh.
Jen: True, true.
Katie: You know what, the correlation with the--with the, yeah, the wings, it's just--it's such a true fact. I didn't even think about it, but that does give it a bit of a leg up.
Frankie: It's great.
Katie: (laughing) Although I feel like I've had wings with sriracha, and that's not too bad either.
Frankie: No, it's not bad. You know, I want the hot sauce, I want the--I want the zing of the vinegar, but I don't want like, the bad breath of the garlic. If I'm going to have the bad breath of the garlic, I want like, freshly confited garlic.
Jen: Okaaaay, Mr. Fancy. Shitting on my sriracha.
Katie: Okay so, (laughing) I have realized also that like, these quick fire questions are never entirely okay.
Frankie: Oh okay, I won't follow them up.
Katie: No no no, it's great. I love it. And actually, the reason I particularly love that--so just based on the way you describe your preference between Frank's Hot Sauce and sriracha, I feel like we're gonna have a lot to talk about with ketchup. So let me start first and foremost with the very broad question of, what are your feelings on ketchup?
Frankie: I think it's a delicious and fantastic condiment. That said, because the flavor pulls in--let's call it three directions so hard, sort of this sweet, salty, and then acidic, it can also be overpowering. So people who really like ketchup and really slam it on the food at an insane rate, are eating ketchup, they're not eating the food. They're covering up the food, they're moisturizing the food, but you get the flavor, that's the same. So on one hand it's this fantastic thing that can enhance flavor if you use it in the right quantity. On the other hand, it can completely mask variances in, let's say hamburger. They all start to taste the same when you put Heinz on all of them. Right? So by that token, if you're there for the meat or the bun or the texture or the cooked to the right doneness, or the onions or not, or the pickles, every time you add more ketchup you're diminishing what you can taste on the others, because of the three sentences that are slammed by ketchup.
Katie: That's a solid argument.
Jen: I like how you say, you know, people add ketchup to moisturize the food. It's like food lube.
Katie: It's a great lubricant. (laughing) Poor food. Poor food.
Frankie: But it's also a--a number of the nuances in the in the underlying product that you're putting ketchup on.
Jen and Katie: (laughing)
Frankie: I mean, you can laugh, but it's true, right?
Jen: Yeah. (laughing)
Frankie: So use it cautiously.
Katie: There it is. Have you ever tried to make ketchup?
Frankie: I did. It was like 10 years ago. I think I watched a Jamie Oliver thing and he was like, "If you make this for your mates you're going to be a hero." And I was like, "I'm going to get into the ketchup business."
Katie: How'd that go? (laughing)
Frankie: I mean, I gave away a lot of bottles for free and like, you know, put my own branding of Mr. Basil on there--
Katie: Oh cuuuute!
Frankie: --and nobody really liked it because everybody likes Heinz better, because it has a ton of sugar in it. And so you're competing with the dopamine hit of the, essentially, you know, the equivalent of cocaine, which is sugar.
Katie: Totally. Yeah. Because like, ketchup--I like, I have also made a ketchup, not from Jamie Oliver but I'm sure it was, give or take, the same ingredients. Tomatoes and cider vinegar and cloves. Just like a bunch of spices, right? Cloves and all spice...
Frankie: Yeah. Star anise and sugar and...
Katie: Yeah. Star anise, paprika, um, onions, garlic. Yeah, just so much stuff, all jammed in there, and it tastes really good. Like, mine tasted good. I was like, "I would use this as I use a ketchup," but just as you said, it's not Heinz.
Frankie: It's different.
Katie: It's different. (laughing)
Frankie: It's like, you're in Italy, right? They don't have Heinz. You're, you're eating, what is it like Muti or something? What's the brand?
Katie: I haven't even--I don't even have ketchup in this apartment.
Frankie: Well, when you find Italian ketchup, you're like, what is this? It's so weird.
Katie: Okay, now I need to go get some.
Jen: How different is it?
Frankie: It's very different. I feel like it's got half the sugar, it's got more of this, like, tomato paste flavor, and I understand why they put mayo on everything, because their ketchup is inferior to ours.
Katie: Okay, now I need to go. I--it's like top of my list now, I need to go get ketchup ASAP here. I can't believe I didn't do that. What a slacker am I?
Frankie: No, you're doing what Italians do, which is not eat ketchup, so you're totally doing the right thing. (laughing)
Katie: Right, right. Uh, and I mean, you must be familiar with how they feel very strongly about ketchup and pizza do not belong together, as some folks in America think they do. And around the world. Do you have an opinion on that one, Frankie?
Frankie: Well, I've never put ketchup on pizza. You know, a good--a good pizza has tomato that's been reduced, so you get the natural sweetness in it. So I get it, I'm with them on it. But I also just want to talk about sort of the hypocrisy of the Italians, because one of their favorite pizzas is wurtsel e patatine, which is hot dogs and french fries. Which is the weirdest pizza topping ever. So on one hand they're like, "You americans, you put the pineapple on the pizza, it's so bad." And on the other hand they're eating freaking french fries and hot dogs on the pizza. It's an even lower brow version of our Hawaiian. I mean give me a break.
Katie: Yeah, you totally called them out there, you really have a point. (laughing) So here's a question for you. Do you know the difference, or have you ever considered the difference, between ketchup, K-E-T-C-H-U-P, and catsup?
Frankie: Cat-sup.
Katie: Yeah, C-A-T-S-U-P.
Frankie: I don't know the difference. But given that the underlying of ketchup is this sort of vinegary, sweet and salty thing, and then tomato ketchup is a variant, and banana ketchup is a variant, I would assume--and one should never assume because it makes an ass out of you and me. You see what I did there?
Katie: (laughing) I see.
Frankie: Uh, I would assume that it's the underlying, its ketchup minus the tomato, but I could be wrong. Am I right or wrong?
Katie: You're wrong, but that's okay. I accept your answer as good effort. I had no idea. I learned that um, ketchup is actually how Heinz first marketed themselves to differentiate, uh, because they were marketing themselves as a more pure ketchup than the others. So they changed the spelling. Um, the "k" comes from the British spelling of it, so Heinz kind of snagged it from that. And then so, currently though, the "catsup" with the "c" is the more common spelling, to this day, in the Southern United States. Okay, so I want to go back to when you talked about how it can easily cover up. Cover up flavors of other dishes, but that it does bring certain elements, such as lubrication, to dishes. And I think that for both of these reasons, it fits with food that is cheap to make if you're workin' on a budget, um, if you're creating struggle meals of any kind, that it would be an easy thing to add. So Frankie, how would you recommend upgrading a meal, giving it a lot of flavor, without the addition of ketchup?
Frankie: Listen, you're both great in the kitchen. So, you know that flavor building happens often during the cooking process and with good technique. Um, at the end, certainly our flavor enhancers give us these dopamine hits, these drug-like rushes, you know, ketchup. If I'm baking a potato, I can salt it, I can wrap it, make sure that it's moist. I can put some butter on the inside. That's great. Those all upgrade the flavor, right? But can I take it a little more with some ketchup? Does that flavor to price ratio increase exponentially when I use two packets of ketchup? I think it does. So while I'm not ever advocating to put a ton of ketchup on all the food, that's not the goal, it does serve a purpose sometimes. Absolutely. Does that answer the question?
Katie: Yeah! Absolutely.
Jen: Any ketchup this season? I think I've seen use ketchup in previous seasons.
Frankie: Oh, absolutely. 100%.
Jen: And that's how I got introduced to your packet drawer.
Frankie: It's so funny. Like, I'm looking at a spreadsheet of 350 recipes right now in a bunch of categories that I've been working on at five AM to nine AM every morning before the distractions start. And while I have all these recipes in my head, plus everything we've ever done on Struggle Meals, I can't think of any instances where I used ketchup on the show. (laughing) I'm just like, recipe overloaded right now. But yes, ketchup has existed in the package drawer form on the show multiple times. Yes, it can increase the flavor and you know, craveability of something that maybe is kind of bland but affordable and filling. So it's great in that sense, and it just brings us full circle to how we started this. Like, ketchup is great at increasing flavor, but use it with caution because it can overpower, and uh, it's like having, you know, ice cream for lunch if you put too much.
Katie: (laughing) Ice cream for lunch. Frankie thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You all can follow Frankie everywhere, Instagram and all of the places, @frankiecooks.
(musical interlude)
Katie: You know, Frankie really got me thinking. Like, how long do you think those ketchup packets that he has in that condiment drawer of his--how long do you think they would last? Do you have any guesses?
Jen: (sighing) Forever? It's going to be like the Twinkie thing where you don't really wanna use it or want to use it, and it just--stand by. It's, it's going to be good forever ever.
Katie: It will survive the apocalypse. Um, well I looked it up and it seems like a bottle of ketchup, an opened bottle, is good for six months. Um, an unopened bottle is good in your pantry for a full year. So if I had to make an educated guess, I would say that a year for those little packets.
Jen: Huh. Use them up.
Katie: TBD. If you all like the show, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. You can also drop us a question using the link in the show notes and in the meantime you can see what we're up to by following us on Instagram at @jeneatslife and at @qkatie.
Jen: And special thanks to the musician who wrote and performed our theme song, Brian Quinn. That's Katie's brother. You can follow him on Instagram at @bqfunk.