This Wednesday’s Achewood is yet another showing of Onstad’s recent spate of diminishing returns. Yes! More skewering of the pomposity of food culture! My, I have not seen that… more than a dozen times in the past couple months. Joy! These previously finely crafted characters have not been liberated from their well worn ruts in quite some time and the pointlessness grows with each strip.
Now, this slump could be some manifestation of his bizarrely sudden move across the country while dismantling his business. Whatever prompted that large step I really do not care. I will continue to read his output because he has been entertaining in the past and I hold out hope that he will soon return to form. I certainly do wish Mr. Onstad well.
But this is not my reason for writing. The alt text of this comic was simply one of the most boneheaded statements I’ve heard him make and he must be called out on it. It read:
“Actually, the Tabasco destroys all the other flavors, just like with every food item it touches.”
What a stupid comment. One might as well have said that putting salt on carrots make them taste as if they washed up on the Pacific shore. One need not use condiments and spices like a cheese eating high-school boy out to prove his manhood. Moderation and balance is the key just like with all culinary topics but, I put forth, none more so than the use of Tabasco.
Yes, Tabasco is a powerful concoction. The pepper, vinegar and salt can easily be overpowering. But its use is like the best of spices in it can add flavors to a dish that enhance and add, bringing out a whole new dimension. While other pepper sauces that try to have a more rounded flavor, Tabasco’s usefulness is in that powerful flavor’s singleness of purpose. It does not muddy or compete with existing flavors. It is simply the most useful of cooking pepper sauces and to say otherwise is to have completely missed the boat.
Mr. Onstad, try again.
Yeah, I’ll say he missed it on that one. I find Tabasco to be a great flavor enhancer, since the predominant characteristic to me is salt. It’s like using soy sauce. Tabasco & Soy Sauce each add a flavor element, but the high salt content is what makes the food pop.
Of the 1000s of hot sauces out there (each of which are pretty much just pepper, vinegar and salt), and considering how garish most of them are, I just have to wonder: why pick on Tabasco? Maybe he’s just being reactionary to the Brand popularity. Tabasco does have a mild, public-domain-accessible flavor that’s just hot enough to scare off some prudes. I’m sure he needs us to know he’s above that.
I wonder if he bags on Kikkoman’s soy because it’s not Eden Foods, or whatever. I’m sure he can’t even buy Balsamic at a grocery store his palette is so refined now.
Yeah, he’s a phenomenal writer with the best fleshed-out characters on the net. The beauty in his writing is that you can identify yourself so well with each of his characters which are so different from each other, thus seeing the many sides of yourself in his work. Good Job, Chris.
Now that this has been accomplished, here comes the hard part: Preventing the characters from becoming caricatures of themselves. He’s got so many ruts right now, it looks like he left town with Conestoga wagons during monsoon season.
And his claim that he’s not producing work because he doesn’t want to work in haste and “compromise the integrity of the archives”. HOLY CRAP! What a pretentious twit. It’s an internet comic! Doesn’t “subscriber content” include twitter feeds and personal text messages to you from Roast Beef or Philippe? Talk about compromising your archives. Chris, why don’t you sit down for a few minutes and crank out a comic instead of being pulled around by the nose by your merchandising and franchise commitments.
I’ll give him time. I’ll still buy his stuff.
~Jimm