By Kristy Smith
In preface, all I can say is it’s a good thing this happened early on a Sunday afternoon rather than during the weekday lunch rush or I probably wouldn’t be alive to tell the story.
I went through a Wendy’s drive-thru in hope of procuring an affordable lunch: a six-dollar Biggie Bag, to be precise. That order comes with a small burger, French fries, soft drink and 4 chicken nuggets. That’s no big(gie) deal, but this occurred right after that food chain had re-named some of the dipping sauces for its nuggets.
As you probably realize with fast food restaurants, they aim to live up to their category name. That requires their patrons to get with the program and know exactly what they want before arriving at the microphone and speaker box to place their order. It also requires NOT asking a bunch of questions that result in holding up the entire line of patrons in vehicles hoping to place orders during lunchtime.
In response to me saying into the microphone, “I’d like a six-dollar Biggee Bag,” I got peppered with questions: “Which sandwich? What drink? And what dipping sauce?” I was prepped to answer the first two queries. “I’d like a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger and Diet Coke ... and ... and ...” My voice trailed off into vocalized pause world following my initial decisiveness. I had spotted the new dipping sauces on the menu board and was trying to figure out what was what. It didn’t help there were several from which to choose.
“Um ... ugh ... ah ... I’ll take the ranch ... no ... I want the sweet chili ... oh ... better make that the scorchin’ hot sauce.” I must have done it right because my stammering got me an, “Okay, your total is $6.36. Please pull forward.” The man driving the truck behind me let out a loud sigh. Clearly, he had been worried I would take all day based on the way I had tripped over my words.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold up the line” I said to the girl who took my money. “No worries,” she replied, “I’ve seen a lot of people be a whole lot stupider in the drive-thru.” Well, that was a back-handed compliment if ever I’ve received one! But no need to get offended. It could be much worse: I could have to work in fast food and deal with this kind of stuff day in and day out.
So goes a typical day in America – land of crazed condiment connoisseurs. While I couldn’t find any official rankings on the most condiment saturated nations, AI summarized aptly “ ... countries with diverse culinary traditions, heavy street-food sandwich cultures, or massive consumer markets offer an extensive variety of sandwich spreads and sauces.” That has led to food trucks frequently being outside my workplace.
Granted, the food truck observation is anecdotal, but I’ll add to it. As someone who shops a large supermarket weekly, I feel qualified based on my surveillance of the busy sauce aisle to present over-ample evidence of American condiment-obsessed purchasing habits.
Flying-off-the-shelves mustard offerings include these varieties: maple, horseradish, stoneground, spicy brown, honey, Dijon, jalapeno, sweet and spicy, dill pickle, hot honey, grey poupon and whole grain.
If that hasn’t boggled your mind, try locating a jar of Kraft Miracle Whip or unadulterated mayo among the white salad dressings and mayonnaise, of which there are multiple types: olive oil, avocado oil, buffalo-style, horseradish, spicy chipotle, dijo, Italian, garlic, Japanese, smooth-n-creamy, whipped, Sriracha and truffle. Yes, that’s right – truffle – for my BLT? WTH?!
There’re also multiple sauces bearing restaurant names, including Chick-fil-A Sauce, Tony Chachere’s (pronounced sa-shur-ee’s) Creole-Style Steakhouse, Popeye’s Blackened Ranch Dipping Sauce, Subway Roasted Garlic Aioli, and Buffalo Wild Wings. Holy crap!
Americans like to pretend that having 58 sauces crowding our fridge doors qualifies us for a culinary badge. It doesn’t. We need to ditch the “thrive on variety” mentality and stop clogging the fast food drive-thru lanes and our arteries. Nobody’s that special sauce, so get off it!
————————
Kristy Smith is a contributor to the Climax Crescent. Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.
In preface, all I can say is it’s a good thing this happened early on a Sunday afternoon rather than during the weekday lunch rush or I probably wouldn’t be alive to tell the story.
I went through a Wendy’s drive-thru in hope of procuring an affordable lunch: a six-dollar Biggie Bag, to be precise. That order comes with a small burger, French fries, soft drink and 4 chicken nuggets. That’s no big(gie) deal, but this occurred right after that food chain had re-named some of the dipping sauces for its nuggets.
As you probably realize with fast food restaurants, they aim to live up to their category name. That requires their patrons to get with the program and know exactly what they want before arriving at the microphone and speaker box to place their order. It also requires NOT asking a bunch of questions that result in holding up the entire line of patrons in vehicles hoping to place orders during lunchtime.
In response to me saying into the microphone, “I’d like a six-dollar Biggee Bag,” I got peppered with questions: “Which sandwich? What drink? And what dipping sauce?” I was prepped to answer the first two queries. “I’d like a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger and Diet Coke ... and ... and ...” My voice trailed off into vocalized pause world following my initial decisiveness. I had spotted the new dipping sauces on the menu board and was trying to figure out what was what. It didn’t help there were several from which to choose.
“Um ... ugh ... ah ... I’ll take the ranch ... no ... I want the sweet chili ... oh ... better make that the scorchin’ hot sauce.” I must have done it right because my stammering got me an, “Okay, your total is $6.36. Please pull forward.” The man driving the truck behind me let out a loud sigh. Clearly, he had been worried I would take all day based on the way I had tripped over my words.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold up the line” I said to the girl who took my money. “No worries,” she replied, “I’ve seen a lot of people be a whole lot stupider in the drive-thru.” Well, that was a back-handed compliment if ever I’ve received one! But no need to get offended. It could be much worse: I could have to work in fast food and deal with this kind of stuff day in and day out.
So goes a typical day in America – land of crazed condiment connoisseurs. While I couldn’t find any official rankings on the most condiment saturated nations, AI summarized aptly “ ... countries with diverse culinary traditions, heavy street-food sandwich cultures, or massive consumer markets offer an extensive variety of sandwich spreads and sauces.” That has led to food trucks frequently being outside my workplace.
Granted, the food truck observation is anecdotal, but I’ll add to it. As someone who shops a large supermarket weekly, I feel qualified based on my surveillance of the busy sauce aisle to present over-ample evidence of American condiment-obsessed purchasing habits.
Flying-off-the-shelves mustard offerings include these varieties: maple, horseradish, stoneground, spicy brown, honey, Dijon, jalapeno, sweet and spicy, dill pickle, hot honey, grey poupon and whole grain.
If that hasn’t boggled your mind, try locating a jar of Kraft Miracle Whip or unadulterated mayo among the white salad dressings and mayonnaise, of which there are multiple types: olive oil, avocado oil, buffalo-style, horseradish, spicy chipotle, dijo, Italian, garlic, Japanese, smooth-n-creamy, whipped, Sriracha and truffle. Yes, that’s right – truffle – for my BLT? WTH?!
There’re also multiple sauces bearing restaurant names, including Chick-fil-A Sauce, Tony Chachere’s (pronounced sa-shur-ee’s) Creole-Style Steakhouse, Popeye’s Blackened Ranch Dipping Sauce, Subway Roasted Garlic Aioli, and Buffalo Wild Wings. Holy crap!
Americans like to pretend that having 58 sauces crowding our fridge doors qualifies us for a culinary badge. It doesn’t. We need to ditch the “thrive on variety” mentality and stop clogging the fast food drive-thru lanes and our arteries. Nobody’s that special sauce, so get off it!
————————
Kristy Smith is a contributor to the Climax Crescent. Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.
