Pasta with Ketchup: A Heavenly Guilty Pleasure or an Absolute No-Go?
Eating at my grandma’s house used to be a real treat. Her specialties? Pancakes with currants, those thick, greasy Big Americans pizzas from Dr. Oetker and… Spaghetti with ketchup. When I recently told my boyfriend about this, he couldn’t believe his ears. What?! Pasta with ketchup—WHO comes up with that?! I didn’t find it all that strange, but apparently there are clearly two camps that are diametrically opposed on this.
There’s even a full-blown discussion about it on Reddit. Like me, one reader wonders why people are so disgusted by it. Of course, you still have to jazz it up a bit with cheese, fried egg and sausages, he says (though I find that last part very strange. WHO adds fried egg and sausages to pasta?!). But what’s wrong with the taste of ketchup on your spaghetti? Pretty much everyone likes the sweet taste of ketchup, right?
Pasta with ketchup: the ideal student meal
Here are even more reasons why the writer on Reddit is such a fan: it’s the ideal lazy meal, and it’s incredibly cheap too. That means it ticks every box for the ideal student meal.
The writer also says that it ‘tastes almost exactly like the pasta with tomato sauce you make at home’. Hmm, I don’t entirely agree with that. In my opinion, nothing beats a pan of homemade tomato sauce. There’s no arguing with that. Right?
Furious reactions
The anti-ketchup camp on Reddit is certainly letting loose. ‘Pasta with ketchup sounds awful’, ‘An absolute crime against food’ and ‘This is a disgusting idea and I would genuinely struggle to remain friends with someone who suggested it’ are just a few of the furious reactions. One person even says he was in shock for the entire year after seeing his German housemate eat pasta with ketchup and cheese. And yet another reader says that ‘a school serving this would definitely make the news’. Ouch.
Many people also think the argument that it’s so cheap is completely absurd. ‘A bottle of ketchup is definitely not cheaper than a tin of tomatoes’ and ‘Can’t you just buy tomato sauce instead of ketchup?’ people write. They do have a point, of course. A quick check of the Albert Heijn website shows that the cheapest bottle of tomato ketchup costs 95 cents, while the cheapest tin of tomatoes costs 69 cents. So you don’t necessarily have to resort to this controversial meal to save a few cents.
A beloved dish with a nostalgic touch
Another thing we learn from the discussion: in some countries, pasta with ketchup is completely accepted and embraced. In Germany, as we’ve already read. But also in Sweden. ‘It’s an important part of Swedish cuisine, and everyone who has ever studied here will tell you that it’s just as common as ramen noodles,’ someone writes in a response. Another person says that in Sweden, they eat their meatballs only with pasta and ketchup. Spaghetti meatballs and ketchup, then.
I really don’t think ketchup on spaghetti is all that strange. Or is it culinary sacrilege? Am I not really a foodie now that I’ve admitted this? I’ll just hide behind the fact that it’s tied to a lovely memory for me. Apparently, several people feel the same way. ‘I admit that I ate this as a child’ and ‘Yes, it’s a lazy children’s meal with no nutritional value, but I still love it’ are among the comments I read. And here’s another good one: ‘Comfort food doesn’t have to taste good, it has to taste like something from your childhood’. Preach.
What do you think? Is a plate of pasta with ketchup culinarily acceptable? Otherwise, I have another fun debate for you: can you put ketchup on a kroket? That, I find to be a real no-go—although I can’t properly explain why.
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