2026, Food, History, Kids, Mysteries

Condiments Muscle Memory

36 Comments

Muscle memory is an amazing thing.  On Saturday, YA and I had our next-door neighbors over for lunch.  Just veggie burgers and corn on the grill.  At the last minute, we decided it was a little too chilly to eat outside, so I set the table inside.

I set out seven little bowls in the kitchen.  Onion slices, tomato slices, pickles and Boston lettuce to get started.  Just as I started to squirt ketchup into the fifth bowl, YA walked in and immediately said “what are you DOING?”  I told her I was putting the condiments in bowls and she pushed back with “WHY?”  It took me a few minutes of standing at the counter, looking at the bowls before I realized why I was about to put ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise in little bowls.

When I was growing up, condiments went into little bowls. Not just for when we had company, but all the time.  Even when we had dinner at my Nana and Pappy’s on Saturday nights, condiments went into little bowls.  In fact, if condiments ever went on the table in their bottles, it was called “pinkert style”.  It wasn’t until I was in high school that my mom told me why.  When she was growing up, they lived a few houses down from the Pinkerts.  Apparently the Pinkerts never put their condiments into little dishes… they always just set the bottles out willy nilly.  So it turns out that my grandparents calling that “pinkert style” was actually quite pejorative – I never knew.

While I almost automatically put out little bowls when company comes over, YA and I do not do this when it’s just the two of us.  Of course, YA and I eating a meal that requires condiments on the table is fairly rare.

On Saturday I put out the bottles; I really don’t need to be the third generation getting little bowls dirty in the name of shaming some family up the block from my grandparents!!

Any habits that have come down the generations in your family?

36 thoughts on “Condiments Muscle Memory”

  1. I must have been around 7 years old. We went to visit the grandparents and extended group of cousins centered in and around Worthington. On the corner up the street from the grandparents’ place, there was a church. (Not my grandparents’ church.) The pastor there was Rev Minnema. The son, about the age of my brother and I, was Teddy. One day, Teddy came to play. He had his shorts or trousers belted very high. Apparently, one day not that long afterwards, I belted my own pants up high, and was told by my mother, “you look like Teddy Minnema.” She didn’t mean this as a compliment. The metaphor has hung with me ever since.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  2. Not my family but Robin’s and hence to me. In her family, a serving spoon with holes or slots to drain liquid was called a runcible spoon. My family didn’t call it anything, so I readily adopted the term. I was aware that Edward Lear had used it in “The Owl and the Pussycat” but for many years had no idea that it was not an actual thing and just a whimsy of Lear’s. Robin had no idea either. Her Dad was a fan of Lear.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    2. Per Merriam Webster:

      noun
      run·​ci·​ble ​spoon | \ ˈrən(t)-sə-bəl- \
      Definition
      : a sharp-edged fork with three broad curved prongs

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

  3. I’m trying to think if we ever had ketchup at either grandparents table. I don’t think so. Mustard was never present during my childhood.

    Ketchup at my parents was always in a special plastic squeeze bottle, never the one it was bought in.

    Being part of the minister’s family meant eating out was usually dinner at a farm. Homegrown and plenty of it, but not a lot that wasn’t grown in the upper Midwest.

    “Foreign food” was pizza and chow mein. Meatless? Please.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. I’ve probably mentioned this before, but the reason that we always had ketchup and mustard at my Nana and Pappy’s house is that the only time we ever ever ate at their house was on Saturdays, which was hamburger and french fry night. My mother refused to eat there the other nights of the week due to the whole “Pappy would only eat certain meals on certain nights” all of which my mother had decided she would never eat again once she moved away from home.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

      1. Certain meats on certain nights??? Where any of those meats organ meats by any chance?

        Reminds me of the man who Freecycled the tongue, liver, and heart from the half cow or pig he’d buy from a local farmer every six months, or so. He had my email address filed under “weird meat lady.”

        I’m wondering, too, MIG, do you recall any of your farm dinners involving weird meat?

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

        1. No weird meat for a company dinner! But I grew up eating liver and if we bought a 4H animal for the freezer, the other weird meat got ground up with regular beef.

          My dad hunted so there was usually pheasant and venison in the freezer too. Also fish.

          Another thing we had about once a year was morel mushrooms. Heavenly!

          It never occurred to me, but I grew up eating a lot of things you just can’t get in a grocery store.

          Liked by 2 people

        2. The only three that I remember were liver and onions on Monday nights and crabcakes on Tuesday nights then the ever popular hamburgers and french fries on Saturday nights. Only seven dinners. And no heated up leftovers either. Ever.

          Like

        3. Husband grew up in a household where Friday dinner was always fried herring. To this day he has such an aversion to most fish that avoids whenever possible. The only exception is canned tuna, which for some obscure reason he likes.

          Like

  4. We only had the ketchup and mustard on the table when we ate outside in the summer. Dad would grill hamburgers, and we would eat on the deck. I didn’t like hamburgers as a kid. I’ve never really liked ground beef, so I don’t have to eat it anymore. If we ate something around the dinner table that needed ketchup or mustard, Mom would put a dollop right on our plates for us.

    Certain things are passed down: oyster stew on Christmas Eve; pronouncing “Onamia” as “ah-ne-m-eye-ah”; singing this song while collecting the trash to take to the township dump… https://youtu.be/icwPsVLdFEM?si=X9BzEFJiVWlNb6Hc

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  5. Ketchup goes on meatloaf is my memory. Hamburgers as many have noted is summer grilling food.

    Funny how what we eat has changed over the last 50 years or so.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    My mother’s family was overly devoted to saving money on everything, whether you needed it or not. It took me a long time to understand that not everything that is cheap is a good buy. If you buy something that is cheap just because it is cheap, but you do not need it, you still wasted money. If you take home something free and you do not need it, then you have to do something with it. Like throw it away. Otherwise you are a hoarder (and many of mom’s relatives are hoarders) But it could be thrown away before you bring it home by the person that gave it to you!

    Wow, that turned into a soap box.

    My Dad’s family was filled with personable people…who smoked and spoke with a distinctive Midwest accent. Dad switched from cigarettes to a pipe. Grandpa smoked. Dad’s cousins smoked. There were ash trays everywhere. Thank goodness I cured myself of that habit early on by trying it and getting sick. The Midwest accent sounded like Lawrence Welk. Dad’s family were also “warshers.” That mid-Iowa into Missouri pronunciation of “wash” or “squash” or “gosh” became warsh and squarsh and “garsh.” I said that, too, until high school when I decided I did not like that pronunciation. One childhood friend still “warshes”. When she retired from teaching, all her colleagues wore t-shirts that said “Oh My Garsh” for her retirement party.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    2. And related to your first paragraph (I read the second first and responded).
      “An elephant for a quarter isn’t a bargain if you don’t need an elephant!”

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

    3. I began leaving St. Louis well before I actually moved away. I started changing pronunciation to some of my words as early as sixth grade. warsh and Warshington were the first two.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. We always had ketchup growing up. In the fridge right?? Warm ketchup is just wrong…
    Kelly and daughter like their mustard. I’ve never been much of a fan of it.

    Speaking of muscle memory though, there was a light switch on the wall outside the laundry room. Left there from a remodeling project 25 years ago.
    After last years remodeling, the switch got moved into the laundry room. But Kelly and I are still reaching for that switch when we come up the hall.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  8. This building is 36 years old, build before code required bathroom light and fan be on the same switch. I am startled every time I throw the bathroom light switch and there is no fan noise.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. Both my grandmas came over from the Old Country – Mom’s mom would always say the Swedish “tack sa mycket” in place of “thank you very much”, and my mom would still do that on occasion. I even find myself invoking it now and then.

    Thinking…

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  10. Right now we are engaged in a typical family activity of having grandchildren stay over once school is out. Grandson will be at our house this week since his school is out as of 12:00 today, and his daycare is closed for the rest of the week. We are at the Brookings Public Library, per Grandson’s request, and we will head back to Luverne after his soccer game this afternoon.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  12. Husband read your post, VS, and texted me at work: “I’m a Pinkert.” We’ve had conversations similar to yours and YA’s while I’m preparing a meal. I put many condiments–barbecue sauce, mayo, pickles, sour cream, salsa–in a little bowl. Exceptions are ketchup, some mustards, and bottled salad dressings. (How do you get the leftover ketchup back into the bottle?)

    The habit came from my mother. She grew up poor and might have wanted to look “proper” by serving condiments in little bowls.

    Although I’ve spent most of my adult life trying not to be like my mother, I picked up some of her frugal habits. I keep rubber bands and twist ties in little bags to reuse. I sometimes clean and reuse zip-close bags. I save gift bags and bows. Mom always saved gift wrap too, but people must have been more careful in unwrapping presents back then.

    Mom kept ketchup in the fridge and butter on a little plate in the cupboard. I keep butter in the fridge and ketchup in the pantry. The butter habit skipped a generation. Daughter keeps butter out on a shelf, which amuses me because she’s a stickler who carefully reads the “Use by” dates on food and wouldn’t touch something a day past its expiration date.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    2. Little spoon can get the ketchup back in the bottle but the real talent is to put out enough ketchup that everyone gets enough but leaves just a smidge in the bottle of the bowl. My mother was really good at that.

      We have a very nice butter dish with a lid that lives in the cabinet. Ketchup in the fridge.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  13. I remember ketchup coming in glass bottles. The glass bottle often required the insertion of a table knife to encourage the flow of the red stuff.

    I have a memory of attneding a company picnic at a former job. Someone was grilling burgers. At the table of condiments, I stood by while the company president tried to squeeze out mustard from a fresh bottle. Nothing was coming out, so he unscrewed the top and held it up to the light to peer through it, loooking for some obstruction. All the while the bottle was sitting on the table, sealed up by a foil seal. He was unfamiliar with the intricacies of opening a mustard bottle in the modern world.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

Leave a comment