Getting Sauced: a post about condiment packets

January 22, 2016 8:27 PM

The Mysterious, Murky Story Behind Soy-Sauce Packets: How Chinese takeout, a Jewish businessman from the Bronx, and NASA-approved packaging have shaped the 50-year reign of a well-loved American condiment (The Atlantic)

The Condiment Packet Gallery

The Sauce-Packet Squeeze: How long do sauce packets last, and can you recycle these old Heinz Ketchup packs? Tedium researched condiment packaging so you don’t have to.

(Soy)beanplating at a survivalist Condiment Packet forum

USE THE SAUCE: ‘STAR WARS’ CHARACTERS, MADE WITH CONDIMENT PACKETS

Condiment package business cards

Can I Eat It? DIY Condiment packets

Ask An Expert: Our 1st grade son is doing a experiment on whether a plastic or foil taco sauce packet will squirt the farthest when burst.

(More) Fun With Buoyancy! How to use a condiment packet to demonstrate how fish use their swim bladder to rise and sink.

Ketchup packaging machine

The ethics of stealing condiment packets, according to this one guy.

Why Are Fast-Food Restaurants Hiding Their Condiments Behind the Counter? A Slate investigation.

posted by Room 641-A (29 comments total)

it's the worse soy sauce ever. utterly flavorless.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:40 PM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I love WY brand soy sauce, but you never see it in stores- only in packets! So many years back I found the company's website and sent them an email asking how much it would be to buy a few bottles. A few hours later I got an email asking how many cases I wanted, and what was the name of my restaurant? I wrote back saying I was just some dude who wanted to buy a couple of bottles for home use, and they responded by quoting me prices for packages of 12.

I decided to just continue stealing handfuls of packets from China Express.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:44 PM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Restaurant to-go soy sauce is shit and fake, but that fish container in the first link is adorbz.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:53 PM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I love the fact that not only has somebody created a gallery of condiment packets, it contains vintage ones I remember but have no idea why. (Why would I have ever used a packet of reconstituted lemon juice? But a huge shock of recognition there.)

Also +1 to the adorable fish-shaped packet. Reminds me of the fish-shaped cakes one of the local food carts used to serve.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:02 PM on January 22, 2016

The OP is missing one timely link I was sure it would have.
posted by Night_owl at 9:09 PM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Wait, there's a "Sauce Superlative"...

Literally... Awesome Sauce!

*Claret or Port Wine and Mushroom Catchup. A pint of each.
*Half a pint of Walnut or other Pickle liquor. (WHA?)
* Pounded Anchovies, 4 oz
*Fresh Lemon-peel, pared very thin, an ounce.
*Peeld & sliced Eschalots, the same
*Scraped Horseradish, ditto.
*Allspice, and
*Black Pepper powdered, 1/2 oz each.
*Cayenne, one drachm, or Curry powder, three drachms.
*Celery-seed bruised, a drachm.

All avoirdupois weight

Put these into a wide-mouthed bottle, stop it close, shake it up every day for a fortnight and strain it (when some think it improved by the addition of a quarter of a point of Soy or thick Browning), and you will have a "DELICIOUS DOUBLE RELISH."

(transcribed from here (Google Books: The Cook's Oracle))

So - who's gonna jump into the hipster Awesome Sauce market with me?
posted by symbioid at 9:09 PM on January 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

And here's a video (sorta advertisement for this company's cookware, but legit recipe) for Mushroom Ketchup.
posted by symbioid at 9:18 PM on January 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Before anyone else asks - water, flour, vinegar, mustard oil, sugar. Tastes great on any pork product you'd like to note- you will note it explodes all up in your sinuses. Put a few drops of mustard oil in your hotsauce to really appreciate the intensity.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:20 PM on January 22, 2016

As others have said, soy sauce packets are crap. OTOH I notice differences in duck sauce packets. I prefer the more orange/peach colored sauce. There is also a bland and sugary version that is a very pastel pink color. That stuff sucks too.
posted by Splunge at 9:34 PM on January 22, 2016

None of my friends admit to liking mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise is the 2nd best selling condiment in the US.

A lot of my friends are apparently liars.
posted by sourwookie at 9:35 PM on January 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

So what's your favorite soy sauce? I grew up with WY at my rural Chinese restaurants. At home I use Kikkoman regular and ponzu, and the Chinese restaurants in LA mostly use Kimlan.

This is a Serious Eats article (of course) about different kinds of soy sauce.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:59 PM on January 22, 2016

sourwookie, maybe your friends are eating mayonnaise, or mayonnaise-containing products, and simply not realizing it?
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:02 PM on January 22, 2016

I rather like San-J tamari. Of course there is always a bottle of Kikkoman around.
posted by Splunge at 10:04 PM on January 22, 2016

Mayonnaise Georg, who lives in cave & ...
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:09 PM on January 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ninth, the next Sun.
posted by Mblue at 10:21 PM on January 22, 2016

There is a world of difference between good mayonnaise and bad mayonnaise.
posted by Itaxpica at 10:26 PM on January 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

There's still one good thing you can do with ketchup packets.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:27 PM on January 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sweet Chili sauce in frozen food
That stuff is good the food not so much
I like that the individual packages keep the sauce from getting frozen solid, everyone hates thawing those things out right?
posted by caterpllr at 10:32 PM on January 22, 2016

God who hates mayonnaise? I mean I know a few people who do but I regard many of them with suspicion!
posted by Carillon at 11:11 PM on January 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

She calls it a "mayonegg."

it's the worse soy sauce ever. utterly flavorless.

From a link in one of the links above: THOSE LITTLE SOY SAUCE PACKETS DON'T CONTAIN ACTUAL SOY SAUCE
posted by Room 641-A at 1:14 AM on January 23, 2016

Mind blown. I never ate Chinese food in the States but the soy sauce fish are ubiquitous in Australia with Japanese take away food. And the lids are red.

I don't eat much Chinese food in Australia (Thai food is the most common take away here, I think) , but I don't remember it ever coming with packets of soy sauce. Is that a thing?
posted by taff at 3:26 AM on January 23, 2016

Wow, glad to learn the ubiquitous take-out packets aren't really soy sauce, but actually are scorched black gas station coffee with a hit of cat piss.
posted by applemeat at 6:28 AM on January 23, 2016

I'm glad that the ketchup/tomato sauce packet article linked in the main article gives the Masterfoods SqueezeMate packaging its rightful place in the sun. (Literally. The demo video follows the illustration of superior tomato sauce application technology by by panning up to reveal that it's all taking place on a beach.)

Still, Americans can take heart that it's actually a US invention, the Sanford Redmond DispenSRpak. You may remember Redmond from previous hits like the butter pat.
posted by zamboni at 7:33 AM on January 23, 2016

I don't eat much Chinese food in Australia (Thai food is the most common take away here, I think) , but I don't remember it ever coming with packets of soy sauce. Is that a thing?

Chinese food in America is not Chinese food in Australia, so it does kind of come with its own traditions in the US.

That being said, every lunch sushi joint in every CBD I've ever been in has had the little fish shaped guys with the red caps. That also goes for dim sims from carveries and some of the takeaway pan-Asian stuff like from the FantAsia chain in Brisbane.
posted by GamblingBlues at 8:24 AM on January 23, 2016

Mayonnaise is Satan's pus. However, I know it's an ingredient in about a thousand other condiments and recipes that I do like, so that might explain why it's so popular despite so many people hating it. (When I make a recipe that calls for mayo, I often have to use 1/2 to 1/4 of the stated amount. Otherwise the finished product just tastes like mayo.)

You can buy empty fish soy sauce bottles at places that sell bento supplies. You can also buy that plastic sushi grass!
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:08 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

This thread is incomplete without the Kikkoman Song

(English subtitles here)

Previously, previously.
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:08 AM on January 23, 2016

I noticed an article about a large blind tasting of soy sauces awhile back...

The winner? Kikkoman, less sodium. Some find that heavier soy sauces with more sodium and sugar are apparently a bit better for cooking, but if your goal is seasoning or adding a finishing touch to your dishes, Kikkoman Less Sodium is really good.
posted by markkraft at 1:01 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

So what's your favorite soy sauce?

I use Koon Chun products as they generally have the fewest ingredients on the label.
posted by andrewesque at 6:28 AM on January 25, 2016

I moved offices last year after being in the same place for 8 years. As I was cleaning out the small bar fridge we used for our lunches I noticed we had loads of soy sauce packets in there. As I was throwing them away I noticed in one of them, the cheapest & crappiest quality soy sauce, had actually crystallized to form one cube of crystallized, I assume, salt. It looked cool so I saved it and gave it to my son for his rock collection.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:12 AM on January 25, 2016