Boil Your Own Ketchup - Preview

Yup, that's what I did yesterday. Along with the eldest and the youngest of my family.

Since I'm functionally still on the road, although in a way at home, I shall have to postpone the editing of all the photographic proof and the detailed report of the process for another time. At least a few days.

For now, I shall focus on another aspect of what we did.

Namely, what the point is...

I think we've been doing it for the sake of it. For fun. Out of habit. Out of pride. Because it is way too delicious not to do it... Or out of the silent consent that it must be done because we, the once young generation, demanded it.

It all began with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles original cartoon, when pizza was introduced to my family and my grandmother had no choice but to learn to make it. Or let my grandfather continue to buy us pizza from bakeries near the marketplace.

Then it was Ketchup.

It was actually pretty good when it was first introduced to our markets thirty years ago. Good enough to our children's tastes, anyway. The adults, though, had some pride at preparing a great variety of canned goods for generations. Pepper or tomato appetizers, included.

So, for decades, we've had our family recipe. Which I almost know now. I did some of the manual labor yesterday and next time I'll tell you about it with words and pictures.

Now, a small amateurish calculation.

If you actually consider the cost at which we produced about 25 (differently sized) jars of homemade ketchup, it turns out we're paying about 5 Euro per jar. For comparison, cheap bullshit ketchup costs about 1 Euro and Heinz would be about 3 or 4 Euro for the same amount.

We just tend to not calculate...well, anything, usually. Preparing homemade stuff is a good hobby and the quality is the best, but it is not as free as my elders tend to think.

They never calculate their labor and time.

They usually use their own tomatoes but not this time. This is the cheapest expense, anyway.

There's fuel for the cars, and fuel for the fire.

There's the minimum equipment needed. Reusable, true.

There's some water.

The jars, reusable.

Worth it!

But give me a pause before next Ketchup making session, please!

Thanks for viewing!

Stay tuned for lots of tomato and tomato produce pics ;)

Yours,

Manol