Europeans and Catsup

So I used to think that Europeans has a refined sense of food but I am re-thinking that as I watch their use of catsup.

A quick background is that I am the only American in Botswana right now, the rest of the volunteers are from Germany or France and the supervisors are from Germany, Switzerland and France as well.

Now I tend to think of catsup as rather a lowly condiment that you reserve for things like hamburgers, hotdog's and french fries. Note I do not put catsup on my hotdogs in the true Chicago tradition but a lot of people do. What I find is Europeans, or at least the ones here, put catsup on everything. Chicken, rice, pasta salad, stew, I saw one put into vegetable soup, green beans, and so on.

I'll add that most of the volunteers here are around 19/20-years-old so perhaps this can be chalked up to just undeveloped taste. I saw one guy eating boiled shrimp with a chocolate and coconut muffin too. But everybody seems to think this use of catsup is normal including the volunteer supervisors and guides who are older.

So the next time somebody says that Americans have bad taste in food I am going to tell them to take their catsup and go eat some soup and rice.