FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Love & Condiments

I keep my condiments in the fridge. Knowing they are there allows me to be spontaneous.

Take a recent Thursday night. I got home from the commute with a serious hunger.

Staring at the rows of my beloved condiments gives me ideas, ways to quickly upgrade the sliced chicken thighs sizzling in toasted sesame oil in my wok-like frying pan.

I never plan meals days ahead. Like a culinary Peyton Manning, I audible at the stove using a stockpile of ingredients and seasonings.

My fridge is home to mayo, ketchup, tamari sauce, A-1 and honey mustard, along with jars of chopped roasted garlic, mango chutney and extra strong horseradish sauce. There’s a jug of Grade B maple syrup for sweetening, or just taking a swig, and jellied cranberry sauce won’t get used until next Thanksgiving.

For heat I’ve got sriracha red chile sauce and Tibetan hot sauce. The out-of-date blackberry jalapeno marinade? I keep that for sentimental reasons.

Then there’s the bottle of saba my son brought home during the holidays. Saba is cooked-down grape juice syrup that’s great on grilled proteins.

What is the difference between a condiment and a spice, an herb, a dressing and a garnish? How you use it.

Looking back at restaurants I frequent, I realize I’ve frequented some of them because I craved their condiments.

I love eating pho at Pho 75 in Aurora because the iconic Vietnamese noodle soup is designed to be personalized, mouthful by mouthful. Pho is always served with a plate of additions: Thai basil, saw leaves, cilantro, bean sprouts, sliced chiles and lime wedges. I use the bottles of vinegar, hot chile and sweet hoisin to make a dipping sauce for each bite.

My tastebuds get all tingly at Tacos Y Salsas because my tacos get to visit six types of salsa, pico de gallo, limes, sliced radishes and chopped cilantro at the salsa bar.

Not all condiments are exotic. I love eating at Denver’s Annie’s Cafe because a jar of Jif Creamy Peanut Butter sits on every table. The honey squeeze bottles at Beau Jo’s Pizza mean I can turn leftover crust into dessert, and Dot’s Diner in Boulder gives me squeezeable red raspberry jam to sweeten my biscuits instead of those loathsome mixed fruit jelly units.

Some of my greatest condiment moments have been at Korean BBQ places where diners season their grilled meat with 16 to 20 banchan. The taste bud-waking cast of small plates stars fermented radish, chive-onion pancake, kimchi, seaweed salad and chile-infused eggplant.

I love playing with the fermented fish sauce and vinegar with onions at Aurora’s Filipino cafe, the Sunburst Grill, and making potsticker dip from red chile paste, black vinegar, sesame oil and soy sauce at Denver’s Lao Wang Noodle House.

This makes my inner mad scientist very happy. Tableside condiment rituals like pepper-grinding and cheese-grating only aggravate me. I’d rather put on my own condiments.

There are some condiments I may never appreciate — see “Marmite” — but many more I need taste again, like Ethiopian awaze, Brazilian farofa, Indonesian sambal, Japanese shichimi, garlicky Lebanese toum and Latin mojo sauce.

There is one golden rule: Taste the food before you put on a condiment. I feel the pain of chefs who serve perfectly seasoned food only to grimace as diners coat it in salt before even tasting it, or pull a Tabasco bottle out of their pocket. Ultimately, condiments are supposed to enhance, not overwhelm, the flavor of food, or blowtorch your palate.

(The exception is the Chicago-style hot dog because it’s just a delivery vehicle for mustard, onions, pickle relish, pickle spear, tomato, sport peppers and celery salt.)

Remember that Thursday night dinner? I added chopped onions and broccoli to the sauteeing chicken thighs, finished them with apple cider, sriracha sauce, soy sauce a few random herbs and ate it over microwaved leftover steamed rice, and it was good.

I know my lifetime search for seasoning puts me in good company. After all, Christopher Columbus was looking for condiments, not the Caribbean.

John Lehndorff is the Colorado Table editor and the former dining critic for the Rocky Mountain News.