Palate Palette -- Sizing Up Life's Basic Condiments

CUTTING THE MUSTARDS.

And ketchups.

With relish.

This may be a use of the word "cutting" that you are unaware of. I first ran into it a couple of years ago when I got a call from a local food manufacturer. I was working on recipes for pasta sauces.

"Come on down," he said. "We are having a cutting of tomatoes."

It sounded rather boring, but I thought I'd go. I grabbed my favorite knife and drove down to Mascio's Italian Specialty Foods. As it turned out, I didn't need the knife. A can opener might have been useful, however.

In the food business, a "cutting" is a sampling - a critical tasting.

In the above-mentioned cutting, we were focusing in on several brands of canned tomatoes. Some were from small California packers I had never heard of; others were from the industry giants like Hunt's.

The point of all this? I was surprised to learn how much of a difference there could be between what were essentially similar or supposedly identical products and what the final taste and financial consequences would be.

Yet all of this was with a product I had been buying and using all of my life.

I wondered about other food staples. I had always bought the same yellow mustard; the same "Dijon." Always bought the same brand of ketchup. These purchases were almost as ingrained as unchallenged prejudices. As indeed they were. They were based upon habit and brand loyalty - not informed preferences, and certainly not on any kind of side-by-side taste testing.

So, with the advent of the outdoor cookery season hard upon us, I assembled four experts: one adult male (who doubles as a writer), one adult female, and two teenagers whose average, collective consumptions of hamburgers and hot dogs significantly exceeded the national norm.

We limited ourselves to ketchups and mustards readily available in the Seattle area, and for good measure added a few relishes. The point was not to discover "new" or esoteric brands, but to evaluate common condiments we had all already used, but never tasted critically.

For example: The expressed favorite ketchup for all of the tasters had been Heinz. We all liked it and agreed that we liked it, but why?

Therefore, with several bottles of Dad's Root Beer as palate cleanser, a pot full of boiled hot dogs (Hygrade's Ball Park) on the simmer and a half-dozen white-bread hot-dog rolls, we proceeded.

The ketchups were the first and the easiest. Onto a clean white plate we cut up a bunch of franks into one-inch pieces. Why Ball Parks? Because they were universally acceptable, not too heavily smoked, widely used and relatively neutral in taste - OK, bland.

We squirted out two tablespoons each of Del Monte, Hunt's and Heinz. The new "thicker" Hunt's was the most visually attractive. It was more viscous, and a slightly darker red.

But it was unanimously agreed that the Hunt's Ketchup was the least appealing of the three in terms of flavor. "The dominant flavor is tomato paste," said the woman, and the kids and I agreed.

Del Monte had the brightest, most "fresh" flavor profile - and was the "reddest" red - but was dubbed slightly less complex than the standard American favorite, Heinz, which came in first.

We sipped Dad's Root Beer and slogged on.

Mustards were not so easy. First, there are many different categories of mustards, and it doesn't make much sense to compare them all to a single set of standards. We broke them down into four groups:

Mild yellow, dark and spicy, whole-seeded and "Dijon."

We tasted French's against Nalley's and Plochman's mild yellow mustards. The Nalley's was somewhat coarser ground and harsher flavored. It didn't look as smooth and silky as the others, nor did it taste that way.

The panel split evenly on the Plochman's and the French's. They are quite similar. The Plochman's has a slightly more spicy aftertaste and a heavier mustard flavor. French's has a brighter, more accessible flavor and is minutely less hot.

I had the feeling that you could not overdose on French's - that is, you could slather it all over a hot dog to a depth of a quarter inch, if desired, and still enjoy it. Whereas the same amount of Plochman's might be excessive.

For a pate, a heavily smoked "real" Frankfurter or cold meat loaf, I'd choose Plochman's. For a hot dog in the back yard, the French's. Both, however, are excellent, almost refreshing, light mustards.

Most commercial mustards are diluted with vinegar or water or a combination of both. The bright yellow mustards have been blended with tumeric to enhance color.

Dijon mustards were originally diluted with verjuice - the sour pressings of unripe grapes, and an old Roman ingredient. Now they are mixed with white wines, typically Champagne, or mild vinegar. The less sharp Bordeaux mustard is made with unfermented grape juice.

The two Dijon mustards we matched were the heavily advertised Grey Poupon, Plochman's Dijon With White Wine and Inglehoffer's Hot Dijon. They provided interesting contrasts. All are stimulating, aggressively seasoned mustards whose dry, crisp flavors have become mainstream in American restaurants in recent years as a salad dressing additive.

We found the Plochman's to be smoother and more mellow than the Grey Poupon or the Inglehoffer's. The Grey Poupon was hotter and somewhat sharper. The Inglehoffer was darker, much more hot, more "winey" and had overtones of garlic.

It's noteworthy that many of the more aggressive mustards can taste strident or excessive by themselves, and only reveal their scope when eaten with foods.

"When you get down to it," the woman friend said, "when it comes to mustard, it is better to eat it than to taste it."

We picked the Plochman's as the superior Dijon. Grey Poupon was second.

In the spicy-brown category, we sampled Gulden's, French's Bold 'n' Spicy and Nalley's Horseradish Mustard. Gulden's came in first, with French's second. No one could detect any horseradish in the Nalley's.

The whole-seeded mustards included Grey Poupon's Parisian, Inglehoffer Full Strength Stone Ground and Plochman's Natural Stone Ground.

We divided on this. The Inglehoffer is a sweet, dense, complex mustard. Small amounts of it would go a long way and it would be ideal on meats that had been braised in acidic bases, like sauerkraut, or a country ham. The Plochman's was fresher tasting, less hot and had a more natural mustard flavor (i.e., less manipulated). But two of us opted for the Grey Poupon, which is really a hotter variation (with whole mustard seeds) of their Dijon.

There are dozens of expensive, boutique mustards available. We tried one that was exceptional: The Silver Palate's Green Peppercorn Garlic Mustard, which held all the flavors indicated on the label and blended them elegantly.

It was expensive ($3 for a seven-ounce jar) but subtle and provocative. It would go well on anything from roast beef to a mere salami sandwich.

If you try this sort of thing at home, be advised that there is an undeniable taste-bud fatigue involved. Three-quarters of the way through, I gave up on Dad's Root Beer and poured myself a glass of chilled white wine.

"Under some circumstances," I said, "root beer just doesn't cut the mustard."

(Copyright, 1992, John Hinterberger. All rights reserved.)

John Hinterberger's food columns and restaurant reviews appear Sundays in Pacific and Fridays in Tempo. Gary Settle is photography editor for Pacific.