[frogulis]

Is that so? As an Aussie, Heinz is not a new brand for me, but I definitely associate them with beans before ketchup (tomato sauce (dead horse in rhyming slang)). Canned baked beans are not thought of as a natural nor healthy option - is that the perception of Heinz as a company in NA, or is it just the ketchup product that's thought of as better/safer/more natural?

[keiferski]

Your comment reminded me of the Mad Men story arc (set in the 60s) which is about Heinz being associated with beans, not ketchup.

In the US, today I'd say Heinz is almost overwhelmingly associated with ketchup, so it's interesting that their ad efforts didn't make it to Oz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiCW6wlFBc

[arethuza]

"Beanz Meanz Heinz" is etched into my memory from my youth in the UK.

Certainly when I think of Heinz I think of beans not ketchup.

[jjkaczor]

Huh - they once ran ads for ketchup that said something like:

"Heinz, there are no other Kinds": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JplL1XzVV4

[foobar1962]

The Australia market was dominated by Fountain Tomato Sauce, and possibly Master Foods. Heinz Ketchup wasn't easy to find, and it may have been named Tomato Sauce rather than Ketchup here.

[frogulis]

These days they may have a better association with "ketchup". My sister affirms that (Heinz) ketchup and tomato sauce are distinct products, but I'm not so sure.

[jraph]

For me, a ketchup is tomato purée / paste + suger + salt + some vinegar + possibly some seasoning (pepper, herbs...). Tomato sauces is a larger category of any kind of tomato based sauce in which we could shoehorn ketchup. A tomato sauce could be purely salted and without any sugar in it, though a pinch of sugar can mitigate the acidic taste.

[drivingmenuts]

I've bought Heinz Beans at a grocery store in Austin.

In the import section.

And they weren't bad, but not great either.

[nkrisc]

As an American, I had to do a terrible impression of an Aussie accent to hear how “sauce” and “horse” could possibly rhyme.

As for Heinz, my impression has always been that it’s the standard, mass-produced supermarket fare that is probably not healthy/natural. Nothing they make that much of that lasts for so long can possibly be so.

[dragontamer]

The science of long lasting food is well known.

Boiling kills most bacteria. Acid kills the leftover Botulism spores (one of the few diseases that survive boiling). Seal while hot and the food can stay good for a year or longer.

Tomatoes already are near the acid point that kills botulism. Just gotta lower pH a little more with either lemons or vinegar. And bam, success.

A professional would need to measure the pH to be sure as acidity levels differ. But we've been canning tomatoes for nearly two centuries now, the science is well tested and well figured out.

> Nothing they make that much of that lasts for so long can possibly be so.

Refrigeration was invented long after preserved foods. You couldn't match a Roman Legion 500 miles without preservatives.

Salt, olive oil and wheat. It must have sucked to be a Roman Legion but less so than other troops.

It's why 1lb of salt was worth 1lb of gold back then. The secrets of long lasting food (fermentation, salt, and other methods) is millennia old. Canning is relatively new (boiling+sealing simultaneously), a 1800s era discovery. But canning's health effects are well studied.

[actionfromafar]

Do you mean salt was worth as much as gold, literally?

[dragontamer]

> Do you mean salt was worth as much as gold, literally?

EDIT: Deleted my previous comment.

EDIT: I seem to have gotten the story backwards. It was West-Africa who needed the salt, but they had so many gold-mines that Gold was near worthless. Woops!!

So any European who brought salt past the Sahara Desert could trade 1-lb of salt for 1-lb of gold.

[kikokikokiko]

This is 100% BS. It probably comes from the same myth that in ancient times, people were paid in salt, since it was sooooo valueable, and ergo, salary.

[eru]

That's at best a common myth, but was never literally true.

However salt was more expensive than today. But measured in eg hours of the average person had to work for to afford something, almost everything is cheaper today than almost any time in the past. Especially goods. (Services or land, not so much.)

[eru]

> As an American, I had to do a terrible impression of an Aussie accent to hear how “sauce” and “horse” could possibly rhyme.

I guess it help to start with a non-rhotic accent.

Going off on a tangent: I was very confused when one Calvin and Hobbes comic rhyme 'macabre' with 'job'; I figured out later that it's because American accents are weird.

[nkrisc]

Actually I assumed that they were adding in an R to “sauce”, almost like “source”. I don’t know many Australians, but from what I can remember I think they are likely to pronounce the R in “horse”. Now I don’t know.

[justsomehnguy]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/macabre

[eru]

See also https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/macabre#Pronunciation

(UK) IPA(key): /ˌməˈkɑː.bɹə/, /ˌməˈkɑː.bə(ɹ)/

(US) IPA(key): /məˈkɑb/, /ˌməˈkɑ.bɹə/, /ˌməˈkɑ.bɚ/

[frogulis]

They rhyme perfectly in an Australian accent :D

Not rhotic, plus the vowel in "sauce" tends towards "or" rather than "ah". Hope that's a comprehensible explanation of our esoteric pronunciation :)

[pests]

I feel like its similar to "source" being turned into "sauce".

[bigger_cheese]

I'm Australian and I've always pronounced "Source" and "Sauce" such that they sound the same.

I think the rhyming slang part comes from Cockney slang my Dad always used to say "Dogs Eye and Dead Horse" to mean Meat Pie and Tomato Sauce.

He had other strange slang he'd use too like "Oxford Scholar" to mean "One Dollar" - UK uses pounds though so no idea where that one originated...

What is the American pronunciation of Sauce? If I had to guess maybe they pronounce it so it sounds like "Sores" or "Saws".

I don't know if I've ever heard an American say Sauce. On most American tv shows they talk about 'Ketchup'. Eg Hot Dog and Ketchup, which is a Frankfurt with Tomato sauce on a bun (doesn't really have the same ring...).

[pests]

Ha, yeah I'd say its pretty close to "saws"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCm4VS9VMSM

That's 100% spot on.

I'm in the northeastern area of the country, it may be different for other areas.

[nkrisc]

> What is the American pronunciation of Sauce?

Where I come from, it’s more like “sos” or I think “sas” in IPA.

Most often like “saws” (the cutting tools would be “sawz”)

[dreamcompiler]

"Saws" except the last consonant is a true "s" sound, not a zed :-)

[dreamcompiler]

In the US, Heinz is definitely more associated with ketchup. When Americans think of canned baked beans (which is rarely), Van Camp's is arguably more well-known.

When I think of Heinz these days I think of the politician John Kerry, because he's married to the heir to the Heinz family fortune. But that's mostly because my brain is weird.