[soundwave106]

Sometimes the only real problem with "commoner food" is that, being commercialized, they lose variety, which can lead to that boredom you speak of.

Take ketchup. From what I understand, a century ago, making homemade ketchup was a lot more common, and there was quite a bit more variety in the spices used. (This old cookbook -- http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/books/settleme... -- has three recipes for "catsup" on page 439-440 alone.) One of my great grand-aunts regularly made ketchup in Indiana, and it was very different from commercial ketchup. A fair bit runnier (no xantham gum), a fair bit "sweeter" (it used regular sugar instead of corn syrup / HFCS which may have contributed to this), and nice notes of garlic.

Commercial store bought ketchup, meanwhile, unfortunately seems stuck either being Heinz ketchup, or imitating Heinz ketchup.

[TeMPOraL]

Interesting. Ketchup is actually one of the products that I'm most picky about. When I come to store, I have a choice of 5 - 20 different varieties (depending on the store size); each of them tastes different, every company has a different idea about its consistency (some are dense, some are almost as thin as tomato juice). If they've lost variety, they must have done that over an orthogonal variable I don't even realize could be a spectrum.

[deanCommie]

This is not an accident: http://gladwell.com/the-ketchup-conundrum/

[thret]

My mum always made her own ketchup. I distinctly remember helping as a kid - picking the tomatoes, washing them, hand grinding them and stirring the pot. The whole house would smell deliciously of tomatoes all day long. A sauce evoking that memory would have a strong impact on me.