The other day my grandson was complaining that someone had left the ketchup sitting on the counter. Not only was it warm, but it had probably gone bad, sitting out like that.
I didn’t bother pointing out that since he is the only one around that pours ketchup on pretty much everything he eats that he was probably the one responsible for leaving the ketchup out. Responsibility is not a strong suit with him just yet. But I did point out that ketchup takes a long time to go bad, so it’s unlikely that sitting on the counter for a few hours would poison him. He didn’t seem to accept my argument. Instead, he tasted the ketchup, declared it tasted wrong and refused to use it.
Of course, I then had to look it up and check. The taste may change a bit, but because of the high acid content, ketchup is pretty stable. It will go bad. Eventually.
Something like mayonnaise, that needs to be refrigerated. Things like ketchup and mustard, maybe not so much. The acid does keep them from immediately going bad if you leave them out for a little while. If that wasn’t the case, chances are humans would have died out during the 50s and 60s when pretty much every diner and small restaurant in the world would leave their condiments on the table. They would sit there until the level got low and then be filled again. Many were rarely refrigerated.
But maybe they should have been.
This is a subject that has popped up numerous times online. Enough that the people at Heinz, one of the largest producers of ketchup, have even jumped into the conversation and said that ketchup should be refrigerated. It doesn’t really go bad, but the taste can change a bit.
Ketchup was invented before the refrigerator, so it was made to be somewhat stable at room temperatures. But it will taste a bit different when it is warm as opposed to when it is warm. So where you keep it is up to you, depending on what you prefer.
At my place, I guess that would be in the refrigerator.