Do you know why commercial salsa has surpassed ketchup as the most popular condiment?

M

melissa-dallas

Well-known member
Because they have turned it into ketchup. When Pace picante, the first widely available salsa, came out it was thin and lightly tomato colored and flavored, just like if you canned your own. Then Campbells Soup bought them and now all the salsa are thick and sweet and intensely concentrated-tomato flavored. They completely overwhelm anything you put them on, especially eggs. You certainly never see anything remotely resembling them in any good Mexican restaurant.

 
Ah, except for Maggie's Salsa that I discovered over a month ago. It is excellent!

I like the medium. The mild is too mild and sweet and the hot is really too hot! It's the best store-bought salsa I've ever had. You can buy it at Walmart in the dairy section. It's hard to find, but it's there. $2.68 for a pound.

http://www.maggiessalsa.com/

 
I'll have to try it. Thank you. Most of the time I just make my own.

It really only takes a minute to throw some tomatoes, peppers and onion in the blender.

 
Here's my favorite: REC: Salsa

28 oz Hunt's Diced Tomatoes
28 oz Rotel Original
1 bunch of cilantro leaves
1 bunch of green onions
4 or more garlic cloves
2 teaspoons salt, more or less to taste

Whir all together in a food processor until smooth and refrigerate. I have added lime juice to it, but the recipe above is good just the way it is. Chilling it is imperative. Everyone, except those who hate cilantro, love this salsa. It keeps for about a week and freezes pretty well for short periods. It is a medium heat, but Rotel makes mild and hot also.

 
Don't you just love the big food conglomerates and the

torture and crimes they commit on food. Totally agree about the turning salsa into chunky catsup. I had high hopes for Trader Joe's refrigerated fresh salsa, it does indeed look like salsa, but they add so much vinegar to it to preserve it that I can't touch it.

Speaking of big food conglomerate trash foods, I just got back from the grocery (one of the markets where I shop has stopped carrying veal because it has become so expensive no one will buy it BTW).

There was a customer checking out behind me loading onto the belt: stacks of banquet frozen entrees, TV dinners, hotdogs, bologna, cake mixes, and fluffy white wonder bread. No vegetables, no salad, no legumes. All processed foods. I can't even imagine what eating that crap would do to your insides.

 
Between the processed foods a lot of people feed themselves and the fast food...

...on every corner, it's no wonder we are becoming a nation of obese diabetics with high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.

It's up to each individual to decide what their life is going to look like. No one is forcing anyone to eat this way, and the "big food conglomerates" will produce whatever they can sell at a profit. If the consumer only bought healthy food, they would produce healthy food.

When I weighed over 300 pounds, I had no one to blame but myself. My Doc read me the Riot Act and I changed my behavior. It's not rocket science, so I took it on and got the results I set out to get. You are doing the same thing with your eating habits. You've taken control of what you choose to eat and you're reaping the benefits. Any basically healthy person can do the same thing, if they choose to.

My point is simply this: each of us has to decide what we want to eat and understand the consequences of making less healthful choices. Those who do so can expect good results, over time. It is a personal responsibility issue, in my view.

Michael

 
So true to both Richard and Michael's comments

And I wasn't even mourning the health benefits. Just that I can no longer buy a jar of salsa that will last a while in the fridge that isn't nasty. Even the "fresh" one that Sandy recommends boasts that it has agave syrup. Salsa isn't sweetened. I just don't get it.

 
It can be reduced. I sell it and friends and family request it on a weekly basis. smileys/smile.gif

 
Yeah, the jarred salsas are not good. Part of the problem is the fact they are canned...

...using heat. Once you heat onions, they don't taste the same. The citrus and the cilantro suffer the same fate.

I prefer fresh salsa, and don't buy the jarred stuff if I can possibly help it.

Herdez brand is the closest I've found to what you describe as the old-style jarred salsa. It's made in Mexico and imported. I don't know if your stores carry it or not.

Michael

 
I also hate to admit it, because I don't care for most of her recipes, but this does look good!

 
Yeah. Sigh...It is nice to have it in the fridge though, because fresh doesn't keep

and when you live alone it always goes bad. I like to have it on hand to put just a little on breakfast tacos.

 
Traca, I've tried it and I hate it. I just hope...

that TJ's monitors foodie blogs like this.

As I said above, it looks like salsa, and I want it to be salsa (in a pinch when I can't make it), but it's doused with vinegar (to preserve it no doubt), and I cannot abide it.

Ugh.

Anyone else?

 
Even the natural one Sandy is talking about brags it has agave nectar. WHY???

Salsa is NOT sweetened, even to take the acid edge off the tomato.

 
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