Proof that Simon is a Hess

Hesses (my dad’s side of the family) love their condiments, especially ketchup, jam, and peanut butter. 


As an example of our excess, but also to explain that my dad would take exception to that wording, I will quote him: "On the first day, God created ketchup. It's not a condiment. On the second day came peanut butter. Everything else is a condiment."


My dad and I once ate the entire contents of a Heinz ketchup bottle – and made significant headway on a second one – while enjoying our sides of fried potatoes at breakfast at The Cup in Tucson. Sam always makes fun of me about how much ketchup I consume when we eat burgers or papas. Whatever! Whenever we are at a cookout, I secretly eye everyone else's burgers – topped with a tiny smear of ketchup - and pity them for missing out by not having half of the bottle on their burgers. Ah well, more for me!

Jam isn’t meant to be a tiny, barely visible layer on your toast; it should have some height to it. Ditto when one eats peanut butter. PB&J’s are thick, substantial, wondrous-to-behold delicacies. This obviously means we go through jars of jam and peanut butter frequently too.

To be fair to the Hesses, I’m generalizing about Hess behavior based on my dad, his four siblings, two of our nephews, and my brother and me. I'm not entirely sure where my cousins stand on this all-important issue. I missed the last family reunion and therefore couldn't track the quantity of jam/PB/ketchup consumed over the 3-day weekend.

Before we came to Peru, Simon didn’t really take notice of delicious items like ketchup or jam. That changed in October, when we spent a week at the beach in northern Peru, recovering from the señora and getting ready to start volunteering with Manos Amigas. He liked the toast Sam prepared for him each morning and started asking for more – more butter, more jam. 

Butter + jam + beach = happiness

Simon is now making up for lost time with his toppings. He likes peanut butter so much that we hide it and save it for special occasions, like travel treats. He has the toddler manner of throwing himself into whatever he’s eating, so he’s kind of funny with butter faces especially.

Butter + dinner roll - bib = potential disaster

Simon has been known to call his Grandma Schumacher via the ketchup bag. It's cheaper than Skype but very one-sided.

Simon knew we were going to make papas for dinner and so he immediately got out the ketchup from the fridge, climbed up into his chair, and commenced being protective of the bottle.

Butter + breakfast roll + jungle vacation = content child

Then again, maybe Sam is a closet Hess, too. The other morning we were making a list of things to get at the store. Sam told me to add ketchup to the list. “Are you serious?” I asked. “We have tons of ketchup!” “No, we’re all out,” he said. “We need more.”

I gathered up all of the as-of-yet unopened ketchup, all purchased by my lovely husband at one time or another, loaded up Simon’s arms with it, and told him to go show Daddy how much we had.

A slightly ridiculous quantity of salsa de tomate in our household. This makes me think that while other people stock up on water for natural disasters, we must stock up on ketchup.

We did not end up buying ketchup.