AND TO GO WITH THAT…
A FEW WORDS
ABOUT KETCHUP
BROTHER BRUNO’S PIZZA, WAYNE
The pizza fries at Brother Bruno’s Pizza in Wayne come topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella
cheese, just like a pizza. From there, you can add pepperoni, sausage, bacon — pretty much
anything you can put on a pizza. $3.50 to $5.50. • 200 Hamburg Turnpike, Wayne;
973-790-3321, brotherbrunopizza.com.
MUNCHY’S, LITTLE FALLS
If it’s classic, unpretentious disco fries you’re
after, head to Munchy’s in Little Falls. Its
Mudslide fries are smothered with a layer
of gravy and then coated with big slabs of
cheese. Are they fancy? No. But they sure
are good. Munchy’s also offers crunchy, sea-
soned curly fries — the fun, springy shape will
delight you just as much as they did when
you were a kid. $2.90 to $3.90. 139 • Route 23
S., Little Falls; 973-256-7960, munchysnj.com.
SHAKE SHACK, WAYNE
Burgers and milkshakes get much of the love
at Shake Shack, but its crinkle-cut fries are
just as lovable, if not more so. Imagine: the
powers that be once even tried to replace
the fantastic crinkle-cut fries with hand-cut
fries. The public outcry was so great, Shake
Shack wisely brought them back. Shake Shack
fries have a wonderfully crisp outside that
wraps around creamy potato, and their deep
ridges hold ketchup so well. $2.99.
• 96 Willowbrook Blvd., (862) 684-8660,
shakeshack.com/location/wayne-nj
W
hen it comes to meaty,
salty, greasy foods,
there’s one perfect side-
kick that beats all the
rest: Ketchup.
The history of ketchup is a long,
rambling trip through different countries
and decades. The name comes from
the Hokkien Chinese word kê-tsiap, a
type of sauce made from fermented
fish. That sauce was likely brought to
Southeastern China from Vietnam. The
British discovered the sauce in Southeast
Asia and attempted to make it them-
selves in the late 17th century, but that
version was made with things like mush-
rooms, walnuts and oysters. Scientist
and horticulturalist James Mease was
the first person to record a recipe that
put tomatoes into ketchup in 1812.
It’s easy to forget about this humble
condiment, since we’ve been mindlessly
smothering burgers with it, squeezing it
onto hot dogs and collecting cups of it
to dunk our fries in pretty much since
we began eating solid foods.
Hardly anyone ever says, “That
burger was good… but how about that
ketchup?”
But maybe we should. Perhaps we
should pay a bit more attention to
ketchup, that bright and zingy, sweet
and acidic staple. It’s the sauce that has
added moisture to our mom’s bone-dry
chicken, drowned out the taste of the
offensive chickpea burger our vegetarian
friends have served us, and saved our
tongues from blistering by cooling our
French fries straight from the fryer.
WAYNE MAGAZINE MAY 2019
43