Professor has always been the most adventuresome and outgoing of my children. Unlike many toddlers, he never displayed any apprehension about being dropped at the nursery in church on Sundays, visiting grandparents he hadn’t seen in months, talking to complete strangers. I’m confident he could have taken Pedo Joe by the hand and waved goodbye with a smile on his face.
And the complete opposite of his brother, King of the Picky Eaters, he would eat absolutely anything—as long as it wasn’t moving. (At least he draws the line somewhere.) No fear, no reservations at all. Some of us would say he has no standards at all. He eats some pretty sketchy stuff at times.
So naturally, we’re a little wary of his food recommendations.
He’s been extolling the virtues of fry sauce for the past several years. I finally decided to do some research on the subject. I don’t know if I’d call it fascinating, but it was interesting to me.
The birthplace of fry sauce was a little Arctic Circle (small fast-food hamburger franchise in Utah) hangout in Provo, Utah, where two of the employees experimented with the food. They thought their sauce was pretty good and began offering it to customers, who then began requesting “that fry sauce” when they ordered their fries. Eventually, someone from the corporate offices paid a visit and asked to take a sample back. (Incidentally, that little hamburger joint was half a block down the street from the Russian house where I lived my last year of school. By the time I got there, it was no longer part of the Arctic Circle franchise. And I never ate any fry sauce there.)
I still hadn’t tasted any fry sauce anywhere. Even if it has been finding its way to grocery store shelves, it sounds a bit sketchy to me. I figured maybe it was time to step outside my comfort zone. Probably because I was going on day 3 of a nasty cough and was a bit sleep-deprived.
Searching all over the ‘net revealed that everyone uses the same base: a 2:1 ratio of mayonnaise to ketchup. Beyond that people have their own little seasonings they add. Most agree that a little pickle juice is necessary.
Fry Sauce
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup ketchup
½ teaspoon dill pickle juice
Whisk it all together and serve immediately. Refrigerate leftovers.
Family reviews: I’m not going to lie to you. Nobody—KOTPE, Buttercup, Blueberry Girl, Aaron, and I—likes it. It’s not like it was horrible. But it tasted mostly like dipping perfectly good French fries into slightly sweetened mayonnaise. Who wants to do that? We clearly do not possess the refined palate that appreciates fry sauce. So this recipe is for Professor and the other fry sauce lovers out there.
Links to related posts:
Making Mayonnaise in Challenging Circumstances
Expanded Food Storage: Ketchup
References:
https://magazine.byu.edu/article/provo-origins-of-fry-sauce/
No comments:
Post a Comment