Originally Posted by
superslomo
If you think "simple ketchup is the equal of all of them" when it comes to great sauces, I think you are extrapolating in a pretty big zone based either on a lack of experience with good sauce, or the possession of extremely questionable taste. Your choice, but not one you can expect most people to share, except for William Randolph Hearst, as I recall (could be wrong here) he ate ketchup on steak consistently. I love me some ketchup, but for a steak it just has all the wrong flavors to my palate.
Fair enough regarding your palate, but you're wrong about the implications of liking ketchup on steak. First of all it is a very close relative of the so-called "steak sauces", sort of a simpler version containing tomatoes, vinegar, and sugar but not for example the raisin paste and orange puree of A-1. And they sell a bunch of that stuff. You can forget about the lack of experience thing, that just ain't the case. I have tried many bottled sauces and made many other fresh ones over the years. Actually I like them all, but ketchup (And we are talking exclusively about Heinz here. Others need not apply) is unsurpassed TO MY TASTE. As to whether that taste is defective, well that is just name calling, and it has no basis except self-puffery. I can accept you don't like it; why can't you accept that I do?
My take is that steak is such an important status symbol to people that it has to be protected from degradation. Like @
zymphad says, "It's just a cow," (or steer for that matter). Why does it have to be protected from the big red boogie man?