How do you react when the sauce in your sandwich turns out to be different from the one listed on the menu? Do you complain? Do you you pretend not to notice? Do you notice it, in the first place? If your sandwiches have always contained the expected sauce, chances are you just don’t notice sauces in sandwiches. This is ok. It’s just a sandwich, and it’s just a sauce, probably an industrial one, the taste concocted by artificial flavoring.

But please consider the chef. The one who has deliberately decided to fool you, because that day he has run out of shrimp cocktail sauce and the rule of the place is “don’t tell the customer we have run out of an ingredient”. It’s embarrassing.

To avoid such an uncomfortable situation, the pub where I used to work during university had a devilish solution. A single sauce was made every night, 50% mayo 50% ketchup, add a squirt of Cointreau. According to the menu, some sandwiches had mayo, some ketchup, some cocktail sauce, some tartare sauce. It seems no one has ever noticed. At least, no one had ever complained. After all, no one could prove the sauce wrong.