It started, like many things do, with me mocking my mother on Twitter, but this time my followers turned the tables on me.
Every time my mom is in my house alone she takes the ketchup container off the kitchen counter and puts it in the refrigerator. Initially that seemed crazy to me, but it turns out I’m apparently in the minority by not refrigerating my ketchup. I’ve always been something of a rebel, so this isn’t that surprising.
On the ketchup container it says “for best results refrigerate after opening,” but a) that clearly implies refrigeration is not a must, and b) perhaps I prefer slightly less than peak results from my condiments. I am, after all, a rebel.
Other considerations in The Great Ketchup Debate of 2011, as it will come to be known in the history books:
1) Cold ketchup is pretty gross, especially on hot food.
2) Most restaurants don’t refrigerate ketchup, although admittedly they go through the stuff a lot quicker than one solitary fatso blogger.
3) Ketchup at ballparks sits out in the sun all day and the death toll has been relatively minimal (this isn’t so much a legitimate consideration as it is a lame attempt to incorporate some aspect of baseball into the post.)
4) I’ve posted more than 5,000 tweets on Twitter and no topic has ever generated this much response, which is either fantastic or really sad.
5) This whole thing is going to be incredibly funny when I die from some sort of ketchup-related illness later this week. I hope someone records my mom’s eulogy and sends it to me in hell.
In the meantime, though, what say you, HBT Nation? Refrigerate or not?
UPDATE: Craig has chimed in with his opinion on the topic, in picture form. However, given the presence of Gatorade in the same refrigerator I’d say his opinion can be ignored.