Condiment Courtesy

Ketchup in the fridge people are no better than sock-shoe, sock-shoe people. 

Please check out my Patreon and throw in a a few bucks a month so that making comics can continue to be my job.

If that doesn’t suit you, how about buying yourself a nice shirt or print from my store. That’s almost entirely self-serving when you think about it. Getting yourself a present, that is. You deserve it. You did a good thing one time, and now you need a reward lest you forget why you do good deeds at all and descend into your own personal moral chaos spectrum.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , .

0 Comments

  1. But… fridge ketchup is best ketchup! So cool and fresh, so delightfully contrasting with the heat of a freshly cooked burger. So tangy. Room temperature ketchup loses its flavor notes.
    Of course, this only applies to Heinz. No other ketchup made has flavor notes.

  8. Why do you keep making up new stereotypes? I keep my catsup in the refridgerator because that’s how my grandparents did… do you want desert heat temperature catsup on your foods?
    Perhaps you are the strange one Joel.
    … and stop making up new stereotypes!
    What’s next the bread in freezer people? (I don’t do that one, but know it exists).
    How about cigarettes in freezer people?

    • The bread refrigerator people ARE messed up. The ones who freeze it at least do it because they buy a BUNCH of bread at once, and when you thaw it it’s not bad. Keep it in the fridge, tho, and it goes stale about 3x as fast just to save it from molding as quickly. Totally not worth it.

      • I’ve never run into bread – refridgerator people, only bread freezer people. It isn’t because they buy bread in bulk, it’s just where they keep it. If they plan to use the bread, the bust out the toaster.
        I don’t know the whys of it, I don’t tend to use much bread personally. I do tend to use gourmet catsups though, and it takes me a while to go through them. Perhaps if someone uses A LOT of catsup, it may make sense to not keep it in the refridgerator. I don’t use a lot. Also, I live in a desert, and hot catsup is just plain yucky.

  9. Sign me up for the throat cleansing. One of the bonuses of having sauce in the fridge is that you have it with hot food so you get that delicious balance of hot and cold, not hot and luke warm.

    • Hey! I resemble that remark! (I also refrigerate my ketchup, and I *gasp* don’t even *wear* shoes anymore, and only wear socks in the Winter. [Sandals, Vibrams, or bare feet *FOREVER!!!*])

    • “Real” peanut butter should be refrigerated, or it separates. If you eat that processed Jif or Skippy or whatever, then sure, keep it out.

      • Yup, real peanut butter doesn’t have preservatives, added sugar, or other additions to prevent separating.
        I keep both peanut butter and tahini in the fridge. Otherwise as with any nut nut product, these can get rancid over a period of time.

  16. Ketchup definitely does ferment. Want proof? Why do you think restaurant ketchup bottles are opaque while store-bought ones are clear? It’s because they reuse the bottles, and they don’t want you to see the festering grossness that collects on the bottom because they never clean them. If you ever open a ketchup bottle at a restaurant and it spurts, AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE. That stuff is a cesspool of spoiled fermented rot. Demand a fresh bottle, and if they won’t give you one, never eat there again. Better yet, just don’t use ketchup bottles at restaurants. It’s food poisoning waiting to happen.

    • When I last worked at a restaurant (20 years ago), we would wash Heinz Ketchup Glass bottles in the Industrial dishwasher, then refill them from the Giant bag of ketchup what was attached to the wall in the pantry area. So the labels were gone after the first washing.
      It was cheaper that way. I can’t remember if the ketchup was Heinz brand
      What was disturbing was that every so often a bottle would “shatter” out of nowhere. Obviously the glass of these bottles were not made to handle the intense heat of the dishwasher!

  18. Ketchup is a last resort condiment. When you can’t get anything else for your fries and they are the horrible, dry, crispy kind that can’t stand tastewise on their own metaphorical feet. The only thing worse in the condiment hierarchy is mayonnaise and its even worse brother Miracle Whip.

    You judge people for fridge-ketchup, I judge you for having ketchup in the first place.

  20. Don’t worry guys, Joel is clearly just employing the classic psychological tactic of projection, a common fallback of all twisted, deranged, weak-minded psychopaths. You see, though he’s a mentally warped freak who thinks that just because a condiment CAN be left unrefrigerated, therefore it SHOULD be left unrefrigerated, in his deepest soul, he KNOWS how wrong and demented his views on proper food dressing storage are, but he can’t reconcile his depravity with his strongly ingrained (disgusting) desire to slather his food in piss-warm tomato syrup, so he must project his self-loathing onto the opposing position, namely those who put their semi-liquid garnishes in the fridge where they belong, as God intended. He, just like all of us, KNOWS how horrid he is, but he MUST attack the good and righteous cold ketchup lovers of the world to maintain the final remaining faint thread of connection to rational, decent society that he has left, that he desperately clings to as a means of convincing himself that he’s a real person and not some aberrant monster existing at the fringes of our proper and noble bottled sauce-chilling civilization. He is not to be attacked or mocked, but to be pitied.

    • And lest it not be clear, the previous post is TOTALLY SERIOUS, and NOT a work of comedy or satire, I SWEAR TO GOD #duh #blatant_sarcasm #oppositedaywheee

      Honestly, there used to be a time when I didn’t have to disclaimer my jokes . . . I miss those days,

      • It isn’t about the ketchup. Joel is playing a longer game here. He is causing us (parents) to mistrust other children and stop inviting them over for sleepovers. Soon Joel will be the only parent hosting sleepovers, which, being the only way to ditch our kids, we will naturally take advantage of. Only it will be him, taking advantage of us. And then, only then, will the pickle relish come out. See, it wasn’t about the ketchup.

  21. Until ketchup can make up its fucking mind as to whether it’s supposed to be sweet or sour or salty or WHAT, count me out. Pass the Lea & Perrins….

  22. I feel sad for anyone that has never enjoyed a nice catsupsicle on a warm summer’s day.

    And sock-shoe, sock-shoe is the only way for me.

  24. Used to have this problem with chocolate syrup. My entire life, my parents believed it didn’t need to be refrigerated, and it DID grow mold in time. Basically, I wouldn’t touch the stuff until I finally convinced them to start storing it in the fridge, around the age of 17. Same problem with Parmesan cheese, should be stored in the fridge for the best shelf-life. My weirdest thing, though, is how I prefer room temp mayo. I once found shelf-stable mayo at a restaurant supply store and bought a bottle of it and was the happiest I’ve ever been with a condiment.

  25. Why would your shoes be anywhere near where you put on your socks? Shoes stay by the door. Socks are in the bedroom.

    Next you’ll be telling me people don’t wear slippers around the house.

  26. I grew up in a house that refridged the syrup (“Oh. Just run it under hot water to speed up the pouring, dear.”)

    I moved out at 18 and for the last 20 years never had a bottle in the fridge.

    • This is seriously horrifying.

      I had a similar experience. My mom insisted that all food trash went in the freezer until trash day. The rest of your sandwich? Freezer. Banana peel? Freezer! When I moved out I started doing that because I didn’t know any other way and my girlfriend pointed out how pointless it was. Throw that shit in the trash and take the trash out every week. Problem solved. I felt so free.

      • OMG this reminds me of my friend’s uncle who after each meal, would put his plate or bowl in the freezer. This way he could reuse dishes forever without having to wash them.

  27. Thanks Joel, now I can sleep better at night. Both my wife (queen of ketchup) and I don’t keep it in the fridge and I at least put on both socks before I put on my shoes. I’ll have to set my spies onto my wife to see what she does with her socks/shoes (since she gets up at 4:30 and goes to work long before my sleeping carcass stirs for the coming day). But she loves just wearing socks around the house, so I suspect she’s ok.

  28. WoW, As I commented during that comic, I am a Sock-shoe-sock-shoe,… And I keep my Ketchup in the fridge,….. What else proves my mental problems?? Getting up from either side of the bed? Never combing my hair? Always doing my taxes at the last moment?

  29. Alright, I’m going to have to put my two cents out there:
    While ketchup/catsup/whatever is primarily vinegar & salt (yay old school preservatives) which don’t really go bad on their own, there is the tomato & sugar (or corn syrup, depending on the brand) and those things will go bad with time. It can last in a pantry/wherever at room temperature without issue if you’re using it regularly, but if it’s a “every now & then” usage than you want to keep that stuff cold to delay things growing inside.

    Yes, it says to refrigerate after opening on the bottle, but a number of things with that (or the great “use within X days of opening”) will remain good well beyond what the label says (and people can always sniff before using to check if it’s gone, it’s not that hard)

    Fun fact (and a non sequitur of sorts) shampoo bottles didn’t use to have that “lather, rinse, repeat” stuff on them, and a dose of Alia seltzer is only 1 tablet. Marketing folks figured if the consumers use twice as much product each time, they’d buy more (common sense really). Look at an alka seltzer box & read what the recommended dosage is (unless they’ve finally changed the packaging) and you’ll see that you only need the 1 tablet (packaged as part of a pair in an non-resealable package)

    …um, yeah, kinda went off track there.

    Peanut butter cups belong in the freezer! Junior mints too!

    • Think about the HE and Sharktopia universe–Joeltopia would be a SCARY SCARY place to live in. Two words: Poop. Robots.

  33. Well, this escalated quickly. I refrigerate my condiments, because the coolness saves its flavor for when I pour them on hot dogs, burgers, steaks, or any kind of heated up cow meat.
    But if it’s any consolation, I put on my socks before shoes, unless it’s going to be really hot that day. Then I just wear sandals.

  34. The fridge ketchup trend really took off after they lowered the salts (both NaCl and sodium benzoate) which helped keep it fresh in the pantry. In other words, in the past it didn’t go bad in the pantry but these days it for sure might.

  37. *playful intention* What is *wrong* with you? So many wars. How do you find the time?

    P.S. What is up with that jagweed comment on the Huffington article insisting you are a rip off of Penny Arcade, which, how, and why?

    Your work is hilarious and not about video games, at least not recently. Do you get that noise often or is this just one crazy spouting off?

    • What’s up with someone saying something shitty in an internet comment?

      What kind of response am I supposed to offer? I don’t read Penny Arcade, I don’t care for their culture and I don’t care what a random stranger thinks about a comic I drew 3 years ago. I never would have known about it if you hadn’t pointed it out, so I guess that encapsulates my level of concern.

      • So there is this scene from Parks and Rec where Ann talks about a ridiculous holiday Leslie and she celebrate (Talk Like A Pittsburgh Pirate Day) that she follows with, “Which, how, and why?” This confused me in that way.

        Figured you had already seen it and were laughing at the dude’s idiocy.
        Legit just wondered if that had ever happened, because it was so fucking puzzling.

        That was kind of the point of the “your work is hilarious”, so how could it be anything like that other stuff. Because your stuff is actually quality, which is why I read it all the time and PA never.

  39. who cares about the tomato sauce. (that’s its name where I come from). I cant stop laughing at those dangley breasts on psycho-mum.

Leave a Reply