Utah's ubiquitous fry sauce is the regional king of condiments: 'I love it'
Part ketchup, part mayonnaise, fry sauce has a harmony of flavors so perfect it should sing with the Tabernacle Choir
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fry sauce is so delicious it should have its own motto and serve as an inspiration for Americans of all tastes.
E pluribus umami — one savory condiment from many.
Fry sauce is a unique taste of Utah, available in almost every supermarket condiment aisle and diner-counter squeeze bottle.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HOT BEEF COMMERCIAL, A MINNESOTA COMFORT-FOOD CLASSIC, IS THE ‘MOST DELICIOUS THING YOU CAN EAT’
"It was the only option we had growing up," Cedar City margarita and fry-sauce aficionado Lisa Bohne told Fox News Digital.
"It’s always there. It’s just what I always ate. And I love it."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fry sauce, a blend of ketchup, mayonnaise and secret spices, is the signature condiment of Utah. As with any condiment, especially the house-made kind, everybody has their own version of it. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
Fry sauce is part ketchup, part mayonnaise and all delicious.
Born in the Beehive State, the sauce has since seeped over the borders of neighboring states and filled pockets of flavor throughout the American West.
As with any condiment, especially the house-made kind, everybody has their own version of it.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}You can spice and flavor fry sauce any way you like. Most restaurants do.
Ann Barton, former owner of the late great Cedar City hotspot Top Spot, said the establishment's secret fry sauce was more ketchup than mayonnaise.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The folks at Top Spot also packed their sauce with a top-secret flavor bomb.
"We used Lawry’s Seasoned Salt," she said.
Fry sauce offers an iconic taste of Utah, much as its weathered red canyon rock formations provide one of the state's signature landscape images. A scenic road is shown in Cedar City, Utah, Nov. 27, 2021. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Barton traces her experience with fry sauce to the childhood treat of eating at Arctic Circle, a popular Utah fast-food chain.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kasey Christensen, an executive with Arctic Circle, outlined the history of fry sauce in a 2016 interview with Eater.
"It’s always there. It’s just what I always ate. And I love it."
A Utah chef named Don Carlos Edwards began mixing ketchup and mayonnaise and serving it with hamburgers and French fries from his Salt Lake City food cart in the 1940s, while making the rounds at rodeos and state fairs.
He opened a restaurant called Don Carlos Barbecue — and then in the 1950s, converted it into the first Arctic Circle location.
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"Fry sauce really came to be after Edwards showed it to nearly anyone who would listen," Christensen told Eater.
Fry sauce solves a lot of problems faced by the American French fry fashionista.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fry sauce is the signature table-top condiment of Utah, typically made in-house by eateries and poured from squeeze bottles.
Ketchup is way too sweet. A children’s condiment, it’s often called.
Adults shouldn’t eat it.
Pouring ketchup over crunchy, deep-fat-bathed French fries is like pouring white table sugar over Delmonico potatoes. Ghastly.
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Mayonnaise is the preferred French fry condiment in Belgium and among a rare sect of American condiment fundamentalists.
"Fry sauce really came to be after Don Carlos Edwards showed it to nearly anyone who would listen."
The combination of crunchy fat on creamy fat is angelic in its beauty.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But it, too, has its imperfections.
Fat on fat lacks a certain bright spark of flavor, a contrast of sensations, essential to the perfect condiment.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fry sauce offers harmony so perfect it should sing with the Tabernacle Choir each Sunday morning.
A little fat. A little sweet. A little spicy. The perfect partner for the French fry.
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