A ketchup/bbq on chicken question?

Question

Well, quite honestly after eating chicken for many years during my life I've realized something. When eating it, dipping it usually causes one of a couple results.

BBQ - Tasty, fantastic, savory.. mixes with the chicken, and has a good taste. Can be put on top of a peice of chicken, chewed into and it mixes with the taste of the chicken itself.

Ketchup - When put ontop of chicken it stays seperate from the chicken itself only keeping its own residual taste/giving the chicken no flavor, but for some reason when missing either ranch or BBQ we still turn to ketchup?

Ranch - Mixes completely with chicken, probably due to MSG.

My question is really - why is there such a difference between ketchup and bbq, both should be simular - both are sweet, both can have a tang to them. But only one (BBQ) mixes with the flavor of the chicken itself. Ketchup will just sit on top/when you bite into the chicken it will go away and you will taste the chicken without the ketchup mixed in with it....

So why is that?

Answer 1

I suppose it could be because BBQ sauce has an inherently oaky, smoky flavour, due to the flavourings and preservatives they use, which happens to complement the 'blank canvas' taste of most chicken quite well - whereas ketchup is designed primarily to taste good with chips over anything else!

Just a quick thought off the top of my head. I think you'd have to ask a professional recipe designer for the definitive answer!

Answer 2

My tongue always lets my stomach sort out things like that!

Answer 3

interesting observation