another way in which Aussie English is simply better

[deird1]

Just been having a big forum discussion about what "sauce" is.


This all started because of someone mentioning different names for different foods, depending on where you were from. And someone disputed the idea of "ketchup" being "tomato sauce".

At which point I tuned in...
Me: And tomato sauce is absolutely ketchup. Or rather... I've never seen ketchup, and only heard of it in American books/tv, in which it is being used in precisely the way I'd use tomato sauce. So if I hear "ketchup", I'm going to mentally substitute "sauce".

To which an American, appalled that I was misunderstanding what ketchup was, gave me a definition.

Helpful American: Ketchup, catsup, katsup, or any of the other ways to spell it, isn't strictly speaking tomato sauce, as I understand it. Ketchup is, according to the WikiP, "The ingredients in a typical modern ketchup are tomato concentrate, vinegar, sweetener (corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, or other sugar), salt, spice and herb extracts (including celery), spice and garlic powder. Allspice, cloves, cinnamon, onion and other vegetables may be included."

...which is what I meant by tomato sauce.

I found this confusing.

In the mean time, someone else was getting confused by me.

Confused American: So what would you call the substance that goes on pizza, to distinguish it from the stuff that goes on french fries (or substitute preferred term)?

And...

Another Confused American: Personally, I don't know what this 'tomato sauce' stuff is. There's tomato puree, which is tomatoes plus blender, unless you're buying commercial canned stuff in which it's tomato paste plus water. From there one may add all sorts of things to it, depending on what one intends to use it for, whereupon it becomes pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce or ketchup or what-have-you.

At this point I ran off to check Wikipedia.




So...

What Aussies Mean By Sauce

There are two relevant Wikipedia articles: this one, on "tomato sauce", and this one, on "ketchup".

"Sauce" could mean anything of that kind of gloopy consistency - although it will almost certainly be tomatoey in some way unless I specifically specify otherwise.

Then there's "tomato sauce", by which I mean ketchup. It's for putting on sausages, or maybe on hot chips, and stuff like that.

Then there's "pasta sauce", which is usually how I'd refer to tomato sauce. That's assuming it's going to go on pasta. You could, conceivably, have "pizza sauce". Although, to the American mentioned earlier, who asked what I'd put on pizza, I confusedly replied: "tomato paste, obviously". (Why would you use anything else?)



The other night I ended up solving my leftover Scotch eggs problem by having them with some heated up stuff that...
Well, I ended up describing it to my housemate as "that tomatoey, sauce-ish sort of thing, with all the chopped tomatoes in it...", because I had no idea what it had been intended for, so I didn't know what it was. Had it been for pasta? Was it pasta sauce? I was baffled.



So really, all I wanted to say was: yes, I do mean ketchup, that's what tomato sauce is.




(Also, just to stir the pot: America, I don't know where you get your weird naming conventions from, but "marinara" means it comes from the sea. It should have fish in it. The stuff you're mistakenly calling marinara is "napolitana".)

Comments

[deird1]

I'd say the difference between syrup and sauce is that syrup is sweet and sauce is savory. Of course, now I'm trying to work out the difference between chocolate syrup and chocolate sauce... both of which I've had... and there's some kind of reason why they're not the same... *is getting confused*


Maybe that's an American story that's been repeated so often it is believed to be true, but surely someone Italian would have stepped in by now and contradicted it? It was repeated in many different places, including at least one dictionary.

Hmm. I think we need to consult some Italians.

[slaymesoftly]

Hmmmm if I had to make a distinction, I guess I'd say chocolate syrup is thinner than chocolate (hot fudge, specifically) sauce, but yeah - pretty lame distinction. Probably up to the mfg what it ends up being called.

Yeah, I was wishing I could read Italian so I could try some Italian web sites. On the other, hand, while I love the Aussie vs Am discussions (Alwaysjbj and I used to spend hours on YM comparing word usage and pronunciations in our respective countries), I'm not a foodie and really should even be in a conversation about cooking. :)

Just realized that soy sauce and worcestershire sauce are very liquid, so my theory is shot all to hell. :)

[deird1]

Whereas my theory kind of hinges on chocolate being savory...

[peroxidepirate]

Is it helpful for me to mention chocolate-based Mexican mole (that's mohl-ay, not moal) sauce at this point?

:D

[deird1]

What's that like?

[peroxidepirate]

Mole is delicious! It's a savory/spicy sauce made out of chili peppers (for which at least one other English has another name, I think, but I can't remember it) and nuts or seeds and chocolate, all crushed up together and used as a marinade/cooking liquid/sauce-to-add-after-cooking for chicken or other kinds of meat.

(comment repeated with link!fail hopefully corrected.)

[slaymesoftly]

Ah, see there's one of those foodie things. I know "sweet" of course, but "savory" is one of those 'what does that even mean?' words for me. *g*

[angearia]

Where is Riccadonna? She'd know.