Fry sauce

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Fry sauce and fries.

Fry sauce is a regional condiment served with french fries. It is usually a simple combination of one part ketchup and two parts mayonnaise. When spices and other flavorings are added, it is similar to—but thicker and smoother than—traditional Russian dressing and Thousand Island dressing. Fry sauce is commonly found in restaurants in Utah, Nevada, much of Idaho, eastern Washington and rural Oregon, but is also commonly found in supermarkets across the country, as well as available by mail-order. Occasionally other ingredients such as barbecue sauce are substituted for ketchup, and certain other variations on the sauce (created independently of the Utah version) exist outside of the United States.

1 In the United States
2 International variations
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] In the United States

The Utah-based Arctic Circle restaurant chain claims to have invented fry sauce around 1948.^[1] Arctic Circle serves it in its restaurants in the western United States. Many other fast-food restaurants and family restaurants in the region, such as Carl's Jr, Crown Burgers, Apollo Burger and Hires Big H, offer their own versions of the sauce. It is also featured at In-N-Out Burger restaurants in California, Nevada, and Arizona.

Until 1999, Utah franchise locations of McDonald's also carried fry sauce. The chain stopped stocking the condiment because of the high waste it produced: because of its mayonnaise content, the sauce spoils after a single day if left unrefrigerated. Nevertheless, many other national fast food restaurants in Utah and nearby states serve fry sauce.

Among the most popular souvenir pins during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City were ones that depicted fry sauce. Originally sold for US$7.50, these pins became valued at over $60 before the Olympic games started.

[edit] International variations

In Iceland, a condiment similar to fry sauce called Kokkteilsósa ("cocktail sauce") is popular.^[2] Originally, the sauce was used with prawn cocktails—hence the name—but in course of time, it became indispensable with French fried potatoes. However, Icelanders use the sauce with more or less all food, including hamburgers, hotdogs, and fried fish. Most Icelanders claim that this condiment was invented in Iceland in the 1950s.^{[citation needed]}

In France, many Turkish restaurants and other fast-food establishments serve fry sauce and call it sauce américaine; it is also common for customers to request "ketchup-mayo"--a dab of mayonnaise and a dab of ketchup--alongside their french fries at such places. Both American sauce and the more thousand-island like sauce cocktail (somewhat similar to that of Iceland) can often be found in supermarkets, and occasionally also premixed "ketchup-mayo."^[3]^[4]

In Argentina, a similar condiment known as salsa golf, or "golf sauce," is a popular dressing for fries, burgers, and steak sandwiches. According to tradition, the sauce was invented by Nobel laureate and restaurant patron Luis Federico Leloir at the "Golf Club" in Mar del Plata, Argentina. ^[5]

In Germany, a popular product called 'Rot Weiss', meaning 'red white' is sold in toothpaste-style tubes, and consists of ketchup and mayonnaise.

In the United Kingdom, Fry Sauce is commonly known as burger sauce.

In Puerto Rico, the sauce is commonly known "MayoKetchup" and is prepared with Ketchup, Mayonaise, garlic and a hint of lemon. The sauce is often used as a dip for surullos and other fried dishes as part of the traditional cuisine of Puerto Rico.