Opinions on the optimal mixing of condiments.
Ham Sandwich
When making a ham and Swiss and tomato sandwich with mayonnaise and mustard, it’s nice to arrange the ingredients in such a way as to maximize tasting pleasure when they mingle in the mouth.
Clearly the ham should be in one layer, the tomato in another, and the cheese in between separating the two. The mayonnaise and mustard should be separated as well, with the mayonnaise on the slice of bread touching the tomato.
The mustard, however, should not be spread on the other slice of bread. Instead it should be spread directly on the ham, preferably in between two ham slices so that it does not touch the bread.
Why? If the mustard is spread on the bread, its taste gets absorbed in the bread and when the sandwich is bitten into, the mouth experiences mustardy flavored bread in the vicinity of the other ingredients.
But if the mustard is shielded from the bread, then the mouth gets to experience the bite of the mustard directly with the ham in some very exciting mouthfuls.
The same is true of a hotdog. Spread the mustard directly on the hotdog and it’s exciting to eat. Put the mustard on the bun first and it becomes a boring mush.
Oatmeal
You’ve got a steaming hot bowl of oatmeal. It’s ready for the butter, brown sugar, raisins and milk. How best to add them to maximize the enjoyment of each bite?
If you mix the brown sugar and butter thoroughly in the oatmeal, and then add the milk, all the excitement of those ingredients is lost, as they just offer a blended sort of taste, and you might find yourself wanting to add more and more sugar.
There are other options. One is to very slightly mix the ingredients. Then each bite will be different. Some will have just oatmeal, and others a blast of sugar. Sort of like when eating a layer cake, some bites are pure cake and others have a ton of icing. Fun!
The other option is to pour the milk on top of the sugar and butter before it’s mixed in and let it sit. Now when you mix it the oatmeal tastes like it’s in flavored milk, also a fun sensation.
I’m not sure which I prefer.
As to the raisins, well they keep pretty much to themselves but I like to have enough so that I can get one in every bite.
The last ingredient is salt. You need some salt in the oatmeal, but unlike the sugar, you don’t want to get a bite with a spike of salt in it. So the salt should go in before it’s cooked so it gets totally blended in and is barely noticeable.
Salt and Eggs
Unlike in the oatmeal, it’s fun to get a nice taste of salt on scrambled eggs. For this reason it’s better to hold back on the salt while cooking, leaving some room for the tastebuds to encounter fresh salt sprinkled on the eggs while eating.
Somebody was famous for saying he would make hiring decisions based on whether someone tasted their food before salting it. I’d say I wouldn’t want to work for someone who didn’t understand different people’s preferences, and that some like to encounter a fresh salt taste in their bites rather than a boring blended saltiness throughout the food.
