Sunday, October 07, 2007

French gastronomy.

I have this French friend that shares easy-to-make recipes with me. I am very thankful to her for the ratatouille and tarte au thon recipes that have become weekly dinners in our household. This past week, she told me that (sometimes) her family eats this for dinner: pasta + ketchup + shredded Gruyère cheese. I sat there for a minute thinking about eating pasta with ketchup. Not pasta sauce, but ketchup. Heinz tomato ketchup? What I put on my french fries and scrambled eggs? Interesting. Later that night, TH told me that pasta avec ketchup is a popular meal here. Really? I gotta try this. So, last night, while TH was eating a nice big bowl of spaghetti with pasta sauce, I sat next to him with a mound of pasta, a mound of shredded Gruyère cheese, and a bottle of Heinz curry flavored ketchup (that's the only bottle of ketchup we have in the fridge at the moment). Surprisingly, the meal was not half bad. And I'd probably eat it again.

I never knew that the first ingredient in ketchup is sugar (!!!) and not tomatoes. Yikes.

Has anyone else tried this combination?

8 comments:

Rebecca H. said...

This is how Grandma used to make pasta for dad, don't you remember?

Penny said...

Never tried it with ketchup but we often just have pasta just with butter and cheese. Thanks for mentioning ratatouille - I'm in a recipe rut - we've been eating the same thing a bit lately but I love ratatouille so I've make some this week :)

The Late Bloomer said...

This is hilarious -- the French like to claim that this is an American habit, but I have never seen a single American use ketchup in pasta, whereas the French are somewhat known to do this, in place of spaghetti sauce. It kills me!

Leah said...

Whoa, I've never heard of this before. Gotta say I might have to try it now!!

Suz. said...

Emily, thanks for visiting my blog recently. :) I see you are keeping up with NY news. I think you should submit this meal suggestion to the Times. :)

Diane Cransac said...

And to think D incessantly teases me about my ketchup usage...

Jennifer said...

I've seen mayonnaise on pizza, but not ketchup with pasta. Not sure I'm too keen on that idea but I guess I'd try it if someone put it in front of me!

Anonymous said...

Only slightly embarassed to admit that I eat ketchup on pasta all the time and always have. Not sure where I got the idea (my mom, maybe?) but it's a common meal at our house.