Condiment Expert Guesses Which Condiment is More Expensive

I'm Scott Norton and I'm a condiment expert.

[whimsical music]

Wow.

[bell rings]

Let's dive in.

So we'll start with ketchup A here.

Smooth, glossy, reflecting a lot of the light

that comes off it with a sheen.

And we'll give it a sniff.

Some sweetness that we smell.

And a little bit of spice.

You can also start to see a little bit of water

pooling around the edges of ketchup A.

Water is leeching out of the tomato particles,

out of those cell walls which have collapsed

when cooking and this we call syneresis.

This is a bit of a gloopy product.

Definitely an industrial ketchup

that is really quintessential for a ketchup.

And ketchup B texture is radically different.

You see almost a chunkiness here.

Something that has little ridges.

A little bit less syneresis and is generally

more of a textured product.

Giving that a sniff, it's more muted.

Less tartness, a little less sweetness.

Not as much spice and maybe a little bit more bitter.

And this is actually a looser product

as you can see here, it's actually got less viscosity

and it's dripping off the spoon.

So first we're gonna taste ketchup A here

and what better to dip it in than its best friend

the french fry.

Gonna dip that in there, give it a munch.

It's a nice, salty fry.

And we get the acid and we get the sweetness

of the ketchup coming through.

Definitely a classic complement.

All right let's move to ketchup B.

Now let's give this the fry test.

Coats the fry very well.

Doesn't have the acid that it needs.

Doesn't have the saltiness that it needs

even with the presence of salt in the french fry.

I have to say this is definitely a different ketchup

than the classic ketchup.

Ketchup A is something that is gonna immediately speak

to us because it's the ketchup of our childhood.

A ketchup that we formed an emotional bond with

when it was one of the first foods that we could

actually control ourselves at the dinner table

when our parents gave us a bottle of this stuff.

You know that this ketchup has a big market,

a big audience.

This is the ubiquitous ketchup in America,

and because of that ubiquity,

there's very high production volumes

which allows the price to decrease.

Whereas ketchup B here is likely made with a more

artisanal, small-patch process.

My wager would be that ketchup A is the cheaper

of these two ketchups and ketchup B is the more expensive.

So let's find out. [drum rolling]

There's a huge difference here.

Ketchup B is almost nine times as expensive as ketchup A.

That is a massive difference when we think about

two things that have the same name or more or less

the same product.

So just because these two ketchups have very different

price points doesn't necessarily mean that one

is better than the other.

Don't let anyone tell you what ketchup you should

or shouldn't be eating based on nostalgia

or based on the culinary arts.

In fact, beauty is in the eye of the beholder

and nowhere is that more true than in ketchup.

Two delicious looking mayonnaises.

Clearly we immediately see a difference in color.

With mayo A being a little bit more yellow,

a little bit more golden,

maybe communicating to us that there's a higher

egg yolk content.

Mayo A, quite mild.

A little bit vinegary, a little bit sour.

You can see from the texture here that this one

is really thick without a lot of air pockets in it.

This is really like a homemade mayo.

Has stiff peaks and holds its character really,

really well with a nice yellowish color.

And in mayo B, we have something that's a bit more white.

Perhaps less egg yolk.

Mayo B, pretty inert, not a lot of flavor coming off

of this one.

And looking at the texture, it's a bit more gloopy

and anemic with less stiff peaks and higher air content.

An air content like this which suggests that

perhaps it was made more with an industrial mill

than with a typical home-style blending method.

So why don't we taste mayo A.

Let's dump one of these bad boys in there

and see what we get.

Mm.

Great mouthfeel, really complements the starch

in the fries and the salt in the fries

and that fat carries the flavors and dials them up.

So now mayo B, let's give it the fry test.

Give a dip here, texture's actually quite nice.

Cloud-like.

It doesn't quite hold up to the fry.

It doesn't accentuate the saltiness

and I can taste that synthetic preservative

that I don't love as much.

I can also taste far less egginess.

Far less of that rich and savory flavor that you get

from mayo A which would suggest to me

that this has less egg yolk in it.

Looking at both mayo A and mayo B,

I would wager to guess that mayo B is the less expensive

of the two, so let's see where we're at, yeah.

Well the proof is in the pudding.

At much higher price point, we have mayo A

at 74 cents an ounce and much less expensive,

14 cents an ounce for mayo B.

So a very wide margin between the price of these two mayos.

If you're shopping for mayo, you wanna look for a mayo

that does have a relatively high calorie count,

something that packs a punch when it comes to fat.

That's gonna drive a delicious texture.

That's gonna lubricate your sandwich better,

and that's gonna stand up great in something like

a tuna salad or a potato salad.

Looks like we have two mustards here.

My guess is that these are actually

two different types of mustard.

This one is likely a yellow, and this one is either

a Dijon mustard or it's a yellow mustard that has oxidized

and gone off.

Let's try mustard A.

Let's give it a sniff.

We get some acid on the nose and it's pungent,

and a bit spicy.

So something that we should remember with mustard

is that there are a couple different types of

spiciness or heat.

There's the spiciness and the heat that we know

from chili peppers which comes from capsaicin,

kinda burns the mouth.

That's very different than the type of heat

that you get from mustard which is a gustatory heat

that actually is felt in the nose.

This is a mustard that has a bit of that gustatory heat,

though it isn't an intense spicy mustard.

We'll start with a tasting spoon here.

You see when we look at this yellow mustard right here,

it's got a strong, vibrant hue which comes from both

the yellow mustard seeds and the turmeric

which is bright yellow.

It's totally homogenous.

This one doesn't have any flecks of anything in it.

And with mustard B,

it's a bit more mild.

Almost a bit sweeter actually and less spicy in the nose.

This mustard here, when we look at it closely,

we'll see that there are these little brown flecks

in a sea of light golden yellow.

Those brown flecks are likely the exterior

of the brown mustard seed and give it more

of a pungent flavor.

So now why don't we try giving them a taste.

Let's taste it with a pairing, in this case a pretzel.

Mm, really nice, really flavorful.

Though the bitterness comes through additionally

as we have the salt and the crunchiness

of this pretzel here.

Looking at mustard B, we'll taste it with a pretzel.

Mm, sophisticated, yet strong.

This is a mustard that, unlike this mustard here,

it actually pairs quite nicely with the pretzel

and compliments the saltiness and the crunchiness

of this pretzel.

So looking at these two mustards,

our yellow mustard over here which is very vibrant

and straight ahead, and our Dijon mustard over here.

I can likely infer some differences in quality

and costs and in price points.

There are three types of mustard seeds,

the first is yellow, which is likely what mustard A

is made out of.

Yellow in color and potent, but not overly spicy.

The second type of mustard seed is a brown mustard seed

that has an exterior which is brown

and an interior which is lighter.

That's likely what mustard B is made out of.

Third type of mustard seed is oriental mustard seed.

It's stronger and it's much more rare

to find oriental mustard in America.

The price of mustard seeds doesn't vary that much,

but the price of the white wine which likely

went into this Dijon mustard and the scale of production

that a yellow mustard like this probably enjoys

would lead me to believe that this is the less expensive

mustard of the two and this is the more expensive mustard.

So let's see what we get. [drum rolling]

All right, the Dijon is four times as expensive

as the yellow.

That's a significant difference in price

and likely to be expected.

Dijon mustard is famously a premium product.

As evidenced in advertisements of two people

in Rolls-Royces coming next to each other

and asking each other for a product like that.

This is a more quotidian mustard,

but it's hard to find a bad mustard.

If you're eating a simple hot dog, a ballpark frank,

this might be the perfect mustard to complement it.

But you might not put this on a cheese board.

Instead, you might lean for something like a Dijon mustard,

a milder, more complex flavor, and a decidedly

more grown-up mustard.

Ranch, the granddaddy of dressing.

Salad dressings in America are about a $3 billion market

and ranch is 40% of that.

It's by far the most popular dressing in this country

and for good reason.

So let's start with ranch A here.

We immediately see that there's an off-white,

almost eggshell color to it.

A little bit creamy, a little bit brown.

As we give it a sniff,

we don't get much, it's fairly mild, not very acidic.

And nutty.

And I don't quite know what's driving that nutty flavor.

When we look at ranch B,

we see a very similar texture but actually,

almost more rubbery, almost more like Elmer's Glue,

and decidedly more white with more pronounced specks.

As we smell it,

almost no nose on this.

There's not really any flavor volatiles coming off of this.

It's relatively inert, but let's taste it

and give it a try.

So why don't we taste B with a carrot.

On a carrot, it really holds its own.

See, a carrot is mostly water and so you need

the saltiness and the savoriness and intensity

of the fat in this ranch dressing to balance out

with a carrot, and it actually does that quite nicely.

This would do the trick of making a salad

taste fatty and savory and salty

and basically distracting someone from recognizing

that they're eating vegetables in the first place.

Tasting ranch A.

Mm.

Decidedly less going on here.

There's less savory flavor, less fatty flavor,

and this nuttiness has become almost a sweetness.

I don't quite know how to describe what I'm tasting.

Before we fully judge it, let's try it with a carrot stick

and see what we think.

It almost disappears on the carrot.

Doesn't have the saltiness, doesn't have the savoriness.

Doesn't have the intensity and the fattiness.

This is likely a lighter dressing

when it comes to calorie counts and probably doesn't have

any agents that make it more savory.

As I look at these two ranch dressings,

pretty hard to determine the quality of ingredients

because the fattiness of it really overwhelms

the details that you get.

Likely the spices that are used are relatively similar.

They I think both come from dry spices.

Though both the fattiness of this and the savoriness

of this to me would suggest that this is probably

a more recognizable, mass-produced, industrial product.

And this one is maybe a less well-known brand,

or an off brand of some kind.

Both of them deliver that ranch flavor,

but ranch B certainly seems like it's more straight

and narrow in terms of what people expect

when it comes to ranch.

Ranch B is the least expensive of the two

and ranch A with its interesting nutty flavors going on

is probably the more expensive of the two,

but let's see what they are. [drum rolling]

Tada.

60 cents for ranch A and 30 cents for ranch B.

Ranch A is essentially double a cost of ranch B

and I think that's fairly consistent

with what we tasted here.

The tricky thing about ranch is that the flavors

that you might love and respond to so much

might be synthetic ingredients and chemicals

that you might not want to eat.

So it's really important to read the ingredient list

of ranch and all dressings that you're gonna be eating

and actually taste them to see what you like.

You can find ranches that are natural,

that will taste much stronger, more potent

and much more delicious than ranch A here.

So I don't necessarily wanna give non-traditional ranches

a bad name just 'cause we had this experience

with ranch A.

At the same time, if you like the intensity

and the nostalgia factor and the savory flavors

that you might get in a ranch like B, give that a try.

So let's take a look at barbecue sauce A.

We pick this up and we look at the texture.

We can see here that it's not very viscous.

It's pretty watery, actually.

The color is a nice, deep red and when we give it a sniff,

it has a really satisfying flavor.

A bit acidic, a bit sweet and a bit smoky.

But certainly barbecue sauce A doesn't really have

any thickeners in it at all

and it doesn't have enough sugar content to really make it

gloopy and jammy the way that B is.

As we look at barbecue sauce B,

we'll see here that the texture is significantly thicker

and a bit gloopier.

Giving it a smell.

We have a lot more smokiness, a lot more sweetness,

and the color of course is a deep brown molasses,

significantly darker and we said earlier

it's got a thicker, almost gloopy texture.

Which might suggest that this is a much sweeter product

with a higher sugar content.

Let's taste barbecue sauce A.

But of course, we can't just eat it on its own.

We have to eat it with at least some type of meat.

Even though this is not a barbecued product,

but we're working with what we got.

Mm, mm.

Brings wonderful tanginess.

The perfect degree of smoke, the perfect degree of sweetness

and a very dippable texture.

As a condimenteer myself, a true respect

for what they've done with this barbecue sauce.

So how does this sweet, smoky and ardently spiced product

stack up when it's on a chicken tender?

Mm.

Really approachable, really easy to eat.

But doesn't have the tang that I'd like.

But I think if I had to guess, a kid might prefer

this barbecue sauce over A because barbecue sauce B

has that sweeter profile.

I might think that it could be made with something

like a high fructose corn syrup which as we know,

is cheaper than a cane sugar or potentially

even a fruit sugar which is what A might be made from.

Tasting barbecue sauce A and B,

I would definitely guess that barbecue sauce A

is the pricier of the two and barbecue sauce B

is the less expensive, so what do we have here?

I'm right.

This is about half the price that barbecue sauce A is,

but compared to some of the other condiments

we've seen today, the difference of these prices,

one being double, is not nearly as much as we've seen

in other categories where it's been up to four

or even nine times in some cases.

If you're actually cooking with a barbecue sauce,

I would recommend a barbecue sauce that is like A

which is less sweet and more acidic.

The acid is gonna cook, tenderize and marinate

the meat a bit more and also sugar is one of

the first things to caramelize.

So if you were to coat a piece of meat in barbecue sauce B

and then grill it, that sugar's gonna carbonize,

but if you don't pull it off in time,

it's gonna almost taste like burnt toast

which isn't a very attractive flavor.

These are both really edible, approachable barbecue sauces,

though I still have a favorite in A.

Pardon me for double dipping.

A lot of people have pre-conceived notions

about what a condiment should or shouldn't be.

But you don't necessarily have to follow that dogma

or that nostalgia.

Condiments are all about individualizing

and adding your own flavors to food.

It's about customization.

So go outside your comfort zone.

Try new things.

And follow your gut.