food

Ketchup lives in the cupboard and other wars

Domestic food rules are the last acceptable battleground of absolutely rigid personal conviction.

No one has ever changed their mind about where ketchup lives. People have changed religions, football teams and genders more readily than they have moved the red bottle from cupboard to fridge or back.

Food rules are like this because they are inherited, not chosen — each one is a little flag of the house you grew up in.

Ketchup: fridge?

It escalates. Milk before or after the teabag. Beans touching the eggs. Pineapple's citizenship status on pizza. Every household treaty is one dinner guest away from collapse.

And the strongest opinions belong, reliably, to people who cannot cook.

Someone puts the milk in first, teabag second. Be honest about what you feel.

Would you actually correct a host about food in their own home?