Life or Death Debate: Dipping Sauce

Post by **Mike** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:36 pm

Life or Death Debate: Choose the hill you want to die on over a completely inconsequential matter of opinion and defend your position as if the lives of your family depends on it.

The judges will score the round arbitrarily whenever they damn well feel like it.

Debate #2: What is the best dipping sauce?

Post by **Mike** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:39 pm

And note that my intent with these is obviously to be silly. Whatever your answer I expect people to go back and forth as if this is literally the most important issue in the world. That includes trash talking other people's choices even if (especially if) like last time, they are all opinions you mostly agree with. No one should be taking offense.

If it turns out that this is not fun, then we will change it or stop doing these. We're just having fun.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:43 pm

Melted garlic butter. I mean, c'mon! It's garlic and butter! What's not to love about that?! You clog your arteries while keeping vampires at bay!

Post by **Mike** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:51 pm

Garlic butter!? Where's the versatility? I'll take Heinz ketchup all day every day! You can put that shit on sandwiches, burgers, fries, pizza, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, grilled cheese, eggs, green beans, tater tots, and so much more! (All real things I've watched people put ketchup on--yeah, okay, mostly me. What's your point? Stop judging me!)

Sugar, salt, vinegar... uh... red! There's a reason ketchup is the number one most popular condiment in America.

U! S! A! U! S! A! U! S! A!

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 7:57 pm

You haven't put melted garlic butter on "sandwiches, burgers, fries, pizza, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, grilled cheese, eggs, green beans, tater tots, and so much more!" ?!?!?! Go try it and report back. You'll be a changed human. Go on, we'll wait.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:10 pm

Right on, Eliahad! You can put garlic butter on all that shit, and it's all the better for it! Ketchup/catsup can't even decide how it's supposed to be spelled!

Post by **Mike** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 8:38 pm

Bah! The essence of good dipping sauce is that it accentuates the food being dipped. It should be complimentary. Garlic butter, while indeed tasty, overwhelms the flavors of anything it goes on. If all I wanted to taste was garlic butter, then why bother putting it on any of those things? All I need is a loaf of bread and my bowl of garlic butter to go to town on. It's all the same. Hell, you know why people dining at Red Lobster love the garlic butter dipping sauce for their lobster? Because nobody ever told them that lobster was shitty garbage food that the public was tricked into thinking was fancy just so fisherman could quit throwing the horrible things back. But you put the things in garlic butter, and suddenly all you're tasting is garlic butter. Neat frickin trick.

And speaking of "Fancy", every bottle of Heinz ketchup is certified by the U.S. government to be Grade A Fancy. Everything with ketchup is fancy. It classes up the joint.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:03 pm

Yeah, I suppose you're right. The answer is Sirracha anyway. I mean, that guy gave away his recipe for free. HE WAS THAT CONFIDENT IN IT'S AWESOMENESS!

Post by **Mike** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:43 pm

Eliahad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:03 pm Yeah, I suppose you're right. The answer is Sirracha anyway. I mean, that guy gave away his recipe for free. HE WAS THAT CONFIDENT IN IT'S AWESOMENESS!

Srirracha? You mean spicy-ketchup? Hell yeah, that stuff is awesome, which is why Heinz makes srirracha ketchup. You've really just described a subset of the greatness that is ketchup. I am so far ahead in this game!

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:46 pm

Srirracha?! More like Sri-notcha! C'mon, the factories where they make that stuff just stink up the whole neighborhood. Garlic butter is where it's at, and that's that.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:41 am

Garlic butter is excluded because of the high incidence of lactose intolerance in adults, particularly people of color.

But I suppose Camp Garlic Butter didn't think of that when they were sitting on their thrones of White Privilege.

The right answer is ketchup. It's sweet. It goes on everything. It's plentiful and easily accessible to people of all economic strata (unlike garlic butter). AND it's the perfect complement to some of the most widely consumed foods.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 6:34 am

Depends on what your definition of "best" is. If by "best" you mean blandest but cheapest and most prevalent, then I'll let you have your ketchup. If by "best" you really mean most flavorful, that improves everything it comes in contact with, that brings you closest to heaven, then ketchup has nothing on garlic butter.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 10:21 am

You realize, of course, that you are all wrong? Ketchup is a one trick pony. One note of overwhelming tomatoiness that overwhelms even when you add sirracha to it?

Mayo. Now there is a utilitarian delight. Have it plain. Add garlic to it. Sirracha. Pickles. Malt vinegar. And now you have a whole range of options that ketchup can't hold a candle to.

Also, ketchup is the worst. What the hell is wrong with all of you?

Post by **Mike** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 10:28 am

Well, the corporate shill is in the pocket of Big Garlic... Ooooooo... big surprise there, Tahlvin. Way to go out on a limb for your pungently aromatic overlords.

At least ketchup comes from entirely naturally grown ingredients produced by the honest toil of free Americans. Do you even know where your precious "garlic butter" comes from? 100% artificial chemicals derived from the fear-sweat of orphaned puppies. You monster.

And don't even come at me with your mayo as a universal dipping sauce crap, Eli. You can take that socialist propaganda right back to Europe with you, you elitist.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:49 am

Let's go back to your premise that you put ketchup on everything. You PUT ketchup on everything. You're not going to actually go and dip things into it are you? Fries, sure. But chicken wings? Calimari? Deep fried mushrooms? No! Those go in other, far superior DIPPING sauces.

If this were a debate about best "putting on" sauce, it still wouldn't be ketchup, but at least it could compete in the category.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 12:17 pm

Hold the presses! I've found the best dipping sauce, and it's a compromise between mine and Eliahad's:

And ketchup is harvested from hemorrhoids. Take that weak sauce and get out of here.

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 3:31 pm

The Princess Bride. Seriously, it covers every flavor profile. You want sweet? There's interplay between Buttercup and Westley, which is completely driven by the pure, sweet aspects. Salty? Again, Westley is a player, but this time it's his interactions with Fezzini, primarily in their interplay in their battle of wits. Sour? Just enough tinges to make this noticeable without overplaying. The conversation between Buttercup and the King, for instance, in which she acts kindly towards him, but admits to her planned suicide - yet he is too senile to catch her warning signs. Some may even arge a tinge of sour in the relationship between Miracle Max and Valerie - whatever happened to make their still strong love become so playfully vicious towards each other. Bitterness is present in both the characters of Count Rugen, which dominates at first, but is then later eclipsed by Humperdinck. Spice? Inigo Montoya. You need umami? Well, that's Fezzik. How savory is it when the interplay between the two mercenaries arises yet again? Have you ever eaten a rat? Not the small amount of rat that is probably in most processed foods, but like an actual rat, one of unusual size? Probably not - but yet even THAT gets incorporated and is seen as one of the highlights of Princess Bride, an ingreedient that would hide in most other dissping sauces. I dare say there is not a single nugget, chip, or fry that could not improved by this tasty delight.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 3:59 pm

I can't refute this.

Stan · Post by **Stan** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:48 pm

Garlic butter is too runny to be a good dipping sauce. Unless you like grease stains on your shirt.
Mayo is just fatty paste. I bet the people who like it were the kids who ate paste.
Ketchup is alright but you can kick it up a notch by using most of the same ingredients and going with Barbeque sauce.

BBQ! the sauce so great that that gets multiple spellings.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:51 pm

So far darcs is winning and the rest of you are so far from culinary understanding that I don't even know how to begin. I'll give it some thought and get back to you, but I fully expect Bill to drop in here at any moment and blow this whole thing up with a defense of horseradish sauce or Gochujang, either of which is a thousand times better than anything on the above list. Y'all haven't even discussed ranch dressing, which all the unwashed masses agree is better than ketchup or mayo or garlic butter or even bbq or any of this other crap. Send up a flare when you have advanced in your subtlety of palate sufficiently to embrace horseradish, and then we can work our way through some Asian dipping sauces. Then you're ready to learn about how fries belong in gravy, and then we can talk about the types of gravy and how you dip things in them. Peasants.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 7:11 pm

No. You don't get to just fling a handful of crap at the wall in the vain hope that something will stick. Have the courage of your convictions and make a goddam stand! Until then, I can't hear you. Ketchup is still the obvious winner.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 8:13 pm

See!? See!? Can't even refute that ketchup is a putting on sauce. I call shenanigans!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 8:38 pm

How ridiculous to suggest that you can't dip things into ketchup or that we don't dip large chunks of food into ketchup! Of course we do, If we have the courage to fill a large enough bowl of it, or better yet one of those double stacked paper custard cups you might get in a cafeteria that serves ketchup in a giant pump!
But you know what? Ketchup is still just an inferior sugar sauce fit only for the likes of DJT to dip his hard, rubbery steak into before gumming it around.
Anything ketchup claims to be able to do, another sauce does 10 times better, at minimum!
Fries? You're supposed to make a delicious gravy to go along with that steak or that roast beef you're eating, or even that chicken, and then you dredge that plump and juicy fry down in the savory gravy. If you wouldn't slap ketchup on a delicious piece of meat then why would you slap it on a french fry?
In fact before you would do that, you would dip that fry deep into the heart of a Wendy's Frosty.
I tell you I will explain about gravy once you're elevated enough to understand all the ingredients that go into it. DO you even know what the master sauces of cuisine are?!

Post by **Mike** » Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:09 pm

Thank you for your rousing defense of ketchup, Phoebe, but sadly everything you say is without weight or substance, because you are incapable of taking a stand on which dipping sauce is the best. Maybe the next topic.

But now I am reminded of how much I LOVE dipping grilled cheese sandwiches in ketchup. Mmmmm. Or better yet... a good cheese frenchie. With a side of tater tots. So good.

A round of ketchup on the house!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 12:24 am

The very notion of dipping an innocent grilled cheese sandwich in bloody ketchup is shocking and grotesque. Did you get that idea from watching '80s horror movies, or from your latest beach picnic with Trump, since he didn't have a hockey puck of a steak available and had to resort to Velveeta on toast? You know he doesn't make his grilled cheese with decent cheese either, or even real cheese. Whatever it is says "cheese food" on the label and that's why it's getting dipped into ketchup. Nauseating. Ketchup: The sauce for people who can't handle spicy food and think that A1 is too intense and savory an experience for meat. Cows died so that people could drown the taste of their tender flesh in A1, and that wasn't even good enough for you people. You wanted to coat it in a sugared, syrupy tomato byproduct, probably because of your deep seated guilt about not being a vegetarian or maybe because of some sadistic malice you bear against the actual cow. Either way it's a travesty of justice and decency.

Horseradish comes from a root of a beautiful flower. People who like ketchup would probably just eat the flower, which they wouldn't taste because they would have dipped it in ketchup.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:48 am

I get it. You're a self-hating ketchup lover. Who else would offer "but horseradish" as a rebuttal. The torture for you here must be exquisite. I am so sorry.

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:24 am

Ketchup contains every flavor profile: sweet, salty, savory, spicy, and bitter. Which is why it is so satisfying.

Unfortunately, it does pale in comparison to the other dipping sauce that contains these same flavor profiles.

The Princess Bride.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:16 pm

DMDarcs wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 9:24 am Ketchup contains every flavor profile: sweet, salty, savory, spicy, and bitter. Which is why it is so satisfying.

Unfortunately, it does pale in comparison to the other dipping sauce that contains these same flavor profiles.

The Princess Bride.

But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you. Are you the sort of man who would put the ketchup into his own goblet, or his enemy's? [pauses to study the MAN IN BLACK] Now, a clever man would put the ketchup into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I'm not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the dipping sauce in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the dipping sauce in front in front of me.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:23 pm

Ketchup is just sweet and salty, pardon. Of course I love ketchup: whenever I want to go slumming with a Big Mac, or visit a restaurant so crappy that they serve gravy out of a jar (or not at all) and don't even try to make their own sauces, I have to have something for burgers and fries. Does that crap substitute for greatness qualify as the "best"? Do you prefer Tonya Harding to Michelle Kwan? Would you trade in your own grandmother for a random woman for whom you gave up your seat on the bus, because that's what the circumstances demanded?
Even Arby's tries to elevate life by offering Arby's sauce and horsey sauce. Even Arby's.
I don't even see what the point of having taste buds is if all you're going to do is shovel crap across them and call it greatness. It's like being one of those people who owns a Maserati or Bugatti and then drives it around the block once a year.
To be human is to be able to experience the subtle profundities of sauces. And no, I will not discuss sauces with you heathens.
You haven't even picked up your first real weapon or set of armor, yet you think you're fighting the ultimate boss.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 2:20 pm

[Side note: the judges tell me they're going to leave this open til Monday, but they also say they have a pretty clear idea of the winner.]

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 2:30 pm

My kid says garlic butter and horseradish are stupid. Ketchup is fine, but he thinks y'all are dumb for not saying ranch. I said, "Why ranch?" He said, "Shut up. Seriously. Because it's ranch."

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 2:57 pm

See: even your child has managed to become elevated beyond the rest of peasants here. Since he has risen all the way up to ranch dressing on the strength of his own essential good taste, you owe it to him to explain what raifort is, how to make a bechamel base, and then - only if the fates are willing to assist - perhaps a simple veloute is in his future. My thoughts are with you child.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:40 pm

I just don't understand your constant references to "uncultured tastes" and "peasant food" and such. "Peasants" make some of the best goddam food in the world! You're gonna throw around words like bechamel like it elevates your food or some shit? Bechamel ain't nothing but butter, flour, and dairy. Your fancy ass bechamel is step one to making chipped beef on toast or biscuits and gravy. I make shit-on-a-shingle that feeds my whole family for around five bucks, and it is sooooooo good. That's poor people food.

I've tried and enjoyed (and sometimes even made from scratch) pretty much every option above. This isn't about what's GOOD. They're all good in the right context (even horseradish, I recently discovered). And it's not about our favorite sauces, because if it was about my favorites I'd be yelling for Hot Ones Los Calientes or sriracha or a good sambal or Thai peanut sauce (or sambal oolek WITH peanut sauce... mmmmm), but I'm not putting sambal on EVERYTHING. No, it's about what is the BEST dipping sauce. And that is clearly ketchup.

If it was about who could clench their ass the tightest while naming french words for foods, then I promise you'd have this in the bag, but it's not about that.

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:51 pm

My pick: none

If the food needed dippings to change it's taste it should have that taste on it to begin with.

We ordered garlic knots tonight and it required us to pick two dipping sauces and I'm like welp, and I don't like wasting good but that's two dipping sauces going straight into the trash. Or it'll hang out in our fridge for the next year and then go in the trash.

If I must pick, it'll go to a veggie dip. Celery is fine on its own but I admit it's probably the least exciting food flavor. Sprucing up food found in nature I understand. Adding flavor to an existing concoction, less so.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 4:39 pm

Mike wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:40 pm Your fancy ass bechamel is step one to making chipped beef on toast or biscuits and gravy.

And? Thanks for proving my very point: do you make chipped beef on toast by slathering ketchup on everything? Are you going to dip your biscuits in ketchup instead of gravy? QED. My work here is done.

If a sauce made from flour and butter and milk is too "fancy" for you because you're hostile to any foreign names I don't think you can be helped. Just go ahead and drown your freedom fries in sludge that helps line John Kerry's pockets. Go ahead, lap up your processed corn syrup flavored with salty tomato juice and pretend you're eating the natural food of the country people. They're too busy eating their noodles in gravy and mopping up every last drop of it with crusty bread to notice you. They're busy boiling things in a stock pot so they can dip their slices of roasted beast into a velvety coating of heaven, and pour it all over the carrots for good measure.

Ketchup is what Moloch himself spits out after chewing up the innocent young, while the factories belch out filth and workers who can't get health insurance forget what you're supposed to do with a whisk and a saucepan.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:00 pm

poorpete wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:51 pm My pick: none

If the food needed dippings to change it's taste it should have that taste on it to begin with.

That's like saying entries should have sauces on the plate, or salads shouldn't have dressing on the side. You basically saying hot pots or meat fondue aren't valid.

Invalid response. Please try again.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:01 pm

Dude it is very hard for some people to process two tastes at once! Think back to when you were young and you wanted completely separate piles of all the types of food on your plate. People can't get past this sometimes. They don't know that when you dip things in another thing, You're supposed to taste both the things.

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:10 pm

Phoebe wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 1:23 pm Ketchup is just sweet and salty, pardon.

Vinegar is a key ingreedient.

DMDarcs · Post by **DMDarcs** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:11 pm

pcgsknzj wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:58 pm viagra pills

No, VINEGAR. Not Viagra.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:37 pm

DMDarcs wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 6:11 pm
pcgsknzj wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:58 pm viagra pills
No, VINEGAR. Not Viagra.

I wouldn't have thought of vinegar as a dipping sauce... more of a seasoning or condiment really, but I suppose fish & chips are served with a little cup of vinegar that can be used for dipping. (Or the imitation vinegar that is usually served nowadays).

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 7:37 pm

Kyle wrote: ↑Sat Jan 08, 2022 5:00 pm That's like saying entries should have sauces on the plate, or salads shouldn't have dressing on the side. You basically saying hot pots or meat fondue aren't valid.

Yes, no sauces with entries.
Salad and meat I'll accept as they are added to natural foods.

Like the thought of taking a chicken wing, already excellent and tasty as plain, then smother it in buffalo sauce or a sauce of similar unbearableness, I'm not a fan but it's valid. But then dip that in blue cheese or ranch dressing??? No thanks. If you need to mask chicken in multiple overwhelming flavors maybe you just don't like chicken. At the very least, you don't respect it.

Dipping sauce, the druthers of the disrespectful

Post by **Mike** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 8:29 pm

No sauces except on natural foods?

Sorry, spaghetti.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:30 pm

DIPPING SAUCES! If you dip your individual spaghetti strands in tomato sauce...I just don't know who you are.

Fondue is /totally/ a dipping sauce. So is hot pot.

The entries in this debate need to be dunked. So, no, slathering something in ketchup doesn't count as dipping it in ketchup.

Fries and grilled cheese, that's all I've heard for dipping into ketchup. Ranch beats /that/ by a mile. Which again, I go back to Mayo and it's versatility for the dunk!

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:53 pm

Yah, gimme spaghetti with sauce yes please. Make me dip it no thanks.

I approve fondue dip. It's experiential. Like a chocolate fountain.

I also approve da dip

bralbovsky · Post by **bralbovsky** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 11:02 pm

This is a strange, sad world we have come to inhabit...dipping sauces.

Much as I love fondue, I consider it a different animal because of temperature. It's a specific cheese or confection preparation. and hot pot, don't let's get me started on Hot Pot. If I wanted to cook, I wouldn't have gone out to eat; we can have a discussion of whether the various boiling media are really sauces, but I think that too violates the spirit of this definition.

Sauce isn't really accurate here in anything other than consistency. In a rational world, a sauce is something like a gravy or BBQ sauce, derived from the food itself with a purpose to complement a base flavor, or even coax the meat from the bone.
Dipping is confusing as well. Like the aforementioned celery that becomes a vehicle for the peanut butter, in our present definition we confess that the remains of the chicken (parts is parts) is so inexpertly salvaged it might as well be a ragged bone, or our potato so pasty and invisible that we need something to conceal the pointlessness of our excesses, and what we're looking for is something to put on a barely edible spoon.
Not even revenge...the true taste of The Princess Bride.... can salvage it.
I submit that I'd prefer my chicken to taste like chicken and my chips and fries to taste like potatoes, but if you insist...

ke-tsiap.
Originally a fish sauce the consistency of soy that eventually evolved to include tomatoes, has really one thing going for it: it stimulates all of the generally accepted taste receptors. It is, therefore, the shotgun of flavors, tough to miss with it. Ok, one more asset: it's its own preservative. The acids and salt allow it to travel well. Not so many years ago, when hunger was the natural state of humanity, this was a decided advantage, however, despite what the limited Mr Reagan said, it is not a vegetable, and the tomato has been too adulterated for it to remain a fruit.
Having said that, it is, like adding salt or sugar or jalapeno, a cheat as far as adding actual flavor. As implied in previous posts, it conceals rather than reveals, the underlying tastes. The judges may determine that this is, in fact, the point.
Mayo, ranch, most other dressings, have an egg base, and egg, added to cakes or other recipes, is well known as a chemical party animal. It changes texture and flavor in a variety of ways depending on the timing and manner of its introduction. While these, or honey or molasses or peanut butter are candidates, their actual, real flavors make them not really "sauce." This is certainly more substantial than catsup, but not as versatile, and risks being overcome by the oil base (there goes the garlic butter too, same fate)

If the chip or nugget is a delivery system, let's have it deliver something worthwhile. Nobody sneaks a spoonful of the leftover catsup (or dressing) after the party. A well-made Salsa is a much better choice. It has identifiable elements (as if it were a favorite novel) instead of being pureed beyond recognition. While I understand that tomatoes have vintages (like any fruit crop) the ability of a chef to create her own profile and texture for a salsa makes it a superior product, out of reach of the likes of Wendy or Ronald.

In a time when too many of our friends can't taste, or barely, let's not surrender to bloody volume or convenience.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Jan 08, 2022 11:36 pm

My hopes were so high and it started off strong:
"a sauce is something like a gravy". Correct.
Let's think about this from another perspective, since the group is getting lost amid fevered concerns about dipping individual strands of spaghetti into things. Who can even guess what sorts of horrible things y'all put on your spaghetti.
Anyway, what kinds of things do we dip into sauce? French fries and chicken nuggets. Raw vegetable sticks and chunks. Biscuits and breads and pitas and naan. Meat and slices and chunks, fish sticks and even sushi. Things like chips and pretzels go into dip, which is different from sauce.

Now that we've established what we dip, into what do we dip all of these things? There's one answer, one simple and perfect and universal answer, and it also happens to be the best tasting: Gravy.
What is gravy, you ask?
Gravy is a child that comes from a very special mother.
Its mother is flour browned in butter. But if you can't eat gluten and dairy, there are ways to make substitutes.
Likewise, the roux of flour and butter is then thinned with a liquid and flavored with other things. If you don't eat meat, use flavorings made from mushrooms and vegetables. If you don't eat dairy, use wine or other options.
The point is that you thin your roux, and if you're doing it the right way you use broth to make a veloute, and if you want to make the best possible dipping sauce, you flavor your veloute with pan drippings, dry mustard, cream, and horseradish.
Now you have a sauce, and it tastes really good, filled with umami and glittering joy.
This is the best sauce, but just like its inferiors (ketchup, ranch, salsa, etc), it comes in sub-varietals. They're all still gravy; you still want to dredge your chunk of bread in them or dip your vegetable until it's sopping.
Maybe you like parsley, maybe you like mushroom or a little mirepoix, a splash of wine or sherry, or a dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Maybe you want chicken drippings or beef; maybe you want vegetarian onion and garlic.
However you get the job done, at the end of this process you have gravy, and gravy is what we dip things into, if we want to dip them into something that tastes the best.
Go ahead: dip your crab rangoon in sweet chili sauce. It will still taste even more delicious when dragged through a plate of brown gravy.
Even chunks of hot dog taste better in a creamy horseradish veloute. Try it and see.
Tiny roasted red potatoes? Crispy cold carrot sticks? Half a cherry tomato? Leftover cornbread? Heavy steak fries, tater tots, or tiny matchstick fries? GRAVY. They all go in gravy. Happiness is gravy.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sun Jan 09, 2022 2:30 pm

So you're just going to let any old emulsification in? Do you know what's the worst? Badly made gravy. All gluey and lumpy. Also, it's another slather device. Deconstructed poutine isn't poutine. You pour gravy, you don't dunk in it.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Jan 09, 2022 2:41 pm

Any sauce can be poorly made. Ever tried runny, crappy ranch dressing or ketchup? Enjoyed some clumpy, sour mayo lately? This is not a contest of which sauce can be destroyed most effectively, it's a contest of which sauce is the best dipping sauce, and the answer to that is Gravy. Not just any old crap out of a jar! I mean pan gravy, made in a pan! Gravy with little crusted bits and gently moistened and thickened roux. Savory umami gravy, a little peppery and salty, a little silky and buttery, smoothly coating and dripping off the back of a spoon.

Squishing your crunchy chicken tender down into a juicy repository of Flavour, mixing the perfect combination of moistness onto your hefty steak fry, lightly dipping the cool tip of a carrot stick, dragging your crusty bread into the last of the liquid to sop up every golden droplet, or dipping your tongue straight down to lick it off that shining plate.
Gravy.

bralbovsky · Post by **bralbovsky** » Sun Jan 09, 2022 8:58 pm

Ya'll know she's right.
Two frustrations:
Gravy is very situational. Ketchup, even salsa is sort of standardized...industrialized, if you will. It's a trap, but whom will we turn to for good gravy? Bespoke gravy. Gravy that has been handmade for just the potatoes or crust in your hand?
Also, no one in my circle knows the secrets to cold gravy.
These two caveats make gravy, while indisputably the best, also a pleasure reserved for a privileged few.

bralbovsky · Post by **bralbovsky** » Mon Jan 10, 2022 7:10 pm

I have a guilty pleasure. On my way home, I stop for a whole rotisserie chicken, too hot to carry from the store without gloves, a box of croissants. By the time I'm home all the dark meat is gone, as well as a few croissants that I use to soak up the juices that otherwise risk spillage and a mess. The bread in the juices is functionally dessert....
All this to say...gravy.