The Aussie Sauce Bottle

you've read here about the fuss being made of the good old Aussie tradition of sauce bottles being poked into pies and pasties then squeezed to squirt some delicious tomato sauce into the food item.
Here is a googled image of the bottles that used to be seen in every café across the country, although most had a white cap if I remember correctly.

Most cafes had the red and yellow bottles, but in the same size, red for tomato sauce, yellow for mustard. Some also had the brown bottles for barbecue sauce. You can see the tiny cap on top of the spout, this was uncapped and the spout poked through the pastry of a meat pie or pasty, even sausage rolls, then the bottle squeezed to allow sauce to squirt into the pie etc. The entire cap can be screwed off for refilling and cleaning purposes.These spouts were then cleaned before being recapped after the bottles were refilled.

These days, the bottles you see here are more commonly used. Bought in the supermarkets already filled and then thrown away (landfill!) or recycled once emptied and rinsed clean.

the coloured part of the cap turns to open

here you see it is raised a little, that's the open position and sauce can now be squeezed from the bottle, of course you have to tip it upside down for the sauce to flow unless you want the erupting volcano effect. In cafes and maybe even in some homes, this spout is still poked into the pie or pasty to squeeze sauce into the food, rather than on top. It's much less messy to eat when the sauce is inside. Pies and pasties, sausage rolls too are usually hand held foods, sold hot and placed in paper bags for a quick lunch or snack at the footy games. 

the entire cap can be screwed off as you see here,

and held upside down under running water to clean it out so sauce doesn't coagulate in the spout and cause a blockage. 






Comments

  1. Replies
    1. Sandi; now you know what Aussies do and like.

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  2. Sauce never appeared on our tables when I was growing up. It is a habit I have never acquired. I don't eat at cafes often (or go to football games) so I have never seen them in action either. As I said before, I knew about them, but...

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    1. Elephant's Child, we never knew about tomato sauce until we went to school, then we quickly learned what it was, but we rarely had any at home until we were teenagers, after my siblings came back home, even then it was mostly had in pies or pasties bought from the beach café.

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  3. Eating with our hands puts us at far more risk than poking a sauce bottle into a pie. I tried to hold out by buying sauce in glass bottles for home use (it was cheaper) but eventually Household Management decided plastic squeeze bottles were the way to go.

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    Replies
    1. Andrew; I tried the glass bottle thing for a while, but it got to be annoying slicing the top off the pie or pasty to get sauce inside where it belonged, so a squeeze bottle was purchased.

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  4. This is exactly as i pictured it, especially the first bottles. We also have both types here, but since mostly such condiments are used on sandwiches here, they do not get poked into the food.

    Anyway, i think that, as long as it's a fresh pie/pasty/roll, it's not going to hurt anything. You will get more germs on your hands touching the bottle itself that everyone else has handled than you will poking the tip into pies, since no one touches the tip and the pie itself is hot and i would think germ free.

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    Replies
    1. messymimi; exactly right, more germs from touching the bottle and if your pie or pasty is in a paper bag you don't touch it with your fingers at all. We also squirt sauce and mustard onto hot dogs, but mustard in sandwiches is often the spreadable kind, although some people do use the squirty kind there too.

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  5. I remember those 1st 3 bottle being in a few cafes way back, the bottle were always sticky.
    The newer ones, we use here at home, clean the top when we fill them and in between if necessary plus wash the outside of the containers as they too get sticky with finger marks.

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    Replies
    1. Margaret D; I remember a few sticky bottles, usually in summer at the beach cafes, at home I always washed mine along with jam jars after every meal because kids get careless and jam drips etc can bring ants into the cupboards.

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  6. My entire experience is with one of the first three, bought at the dollar store, and used to hold a manageable amount of my shampoo from a large bottle.

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  7. Couldnt resist stopping by to comment on this River.... those sauce bottles are recycled in my house and you'll find them used from everywhere from the kitchen to the garden shed to the laundry! I've just washed one out to fill with bulk laundry liquid. Another has had bulk honey and in the garden one has some fertiliser. And PS I'll have tomato sauce with a sausage roll, but never with a pie! Each to their own eh? Have a great day!

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    1. Rose ~ from Oz; welcome back!!! It's great to hear your bottles are reused, I would too, but don't use the sauce/mustard all that much, so it takes a while to empty the bottle. Same with many other condiments, now that it's just me, I buy things in smaller squeeze bottles or jars. I'd never put sauce in a pie either, but then I don't normally eat pies, I prefer the pasties and always with sauce. You have a great day yourself :)

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  8. The only thing I'd worry about with the newer model is whether the top is screwed closed after each use, and then opened again for the next person. A lot of fingers would be touching the part that is inserted into the food. If they're left open on the counter, not a big deal if washed every day.

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    1. Val; I don't know about the tops being screwed closed in a bakery/café/sandwich shop situation, I'd imagine it would stay open until the close of business, then removed completely and washed. I think most cafes etc might still have the original type, the newer models are the ones bought for home use. I could check, but it seems like a lot of trouble for this lazy person.

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  9. I must be blind!!! Help!
    Or don´t see what I don´t need (no fan of sauces in general).

    LOL!!! "the erupting volcano effect"!!! Oh, I want that (when I visit someone else, I would even take sauce!!).

    Oh, you make me so "home-sick"!
    No pies. No sausage rolls (just hot dogs), pasties, yes, boring ones (I tried and was disappointed).
    At the footy (as in American Football) you get pizza, Bratwurst, burger.... No pies or such.

    We have some ketchup in the fridge, I think it looks different (only Hubby uses it). Mustard comes in a tube, or glass.
    We have, since a couple of years, "your" table/bank-combination with those lille bottles, though! As in... small, to put on a German table... I thought about buying, but then... I don´t like sauce, would be kinda pointless...

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    1. Iris Flavia; it would be pointless having those tiny bottles if you don't use sauce very much. Ketchup is American, very similar to tomato sauce, but sweeter I think, it is available in supermarkets here now and sometimes my kids buy it, but I prefer the Aussie tomato sauce. I've seen mustard in tubes, but I buy mustard in a glass jar that I can use after as a drinking glass. I buy the Thomy brand, made in Germany, it is mild but has a nice flavour. I also buy Thomy mayonnaise, made in Germany, because I think it has the best flavour.
      Next time you visit our Perth, maybe you can take home some pies and pasties? Is that allowed or will Customs officials confiscate them?

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    2. Now I really don´t know. I somehow might bet Ingo/Hubby bought ketchup in Perth? It´s full of sugar, yikes.
      "Thomy, hier kommt der Genuss" :-) We had some cute ads on that brand, now that you mention, that´s gone! But you are right, I saw some German products in Australia.
      I never buy them. I can have them here, right?
      We were in Jamaica: A German man yelling he wants "Leberwurst" - stay home, right?

      YES. We have such glasses, too for mustard. I sometimes bought it just because of the glass! (I fall for that).

      Hmmm. You´re not allowed to bring Jerky to Europe (we sneaked it in anyways and were lucky. BECAUSE it was OK. Reason: Great Britain had BSE, right, and the Queen is still a symbol for Australia, hence... no Jerky, what nonesense, Australia never had a case of BSE!
      Oh, great. Have you ever tried the Northern Territory one? YUM! We were allowed to visit the factory (back in 1999), good work they do!
      We have a pie maker and I can even handle that thing, so, all good :-)
      AND. I look forward to coming back to Perth, right?

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  10. Hi River,

    Those old bottles look very familiar. We had them in the UK too.

    :o)

    Cheers

    PM

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    Replies
    1. Plasman; and here I thought they were unique to Australia :)

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  11. I'm a meat pie and Worcestershire Sauce gal meself!

    I always do have a bottle of tom sauce in the fridge, though...(That is a white fib....because I've run out...and earlier this evening did write on my shopping list to buy a bottle when I next visit the supermarket). It lasts me forever. Mostly, I use tomato sauce to add to the making of a ragu...added along with canned toms, tomato paste etc...for an extra boost of flavour.

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  12. I love those cafe' sauce bottles. We've got them in restaurants and cafes everywhere around here and we have several sets of them in our home. One set is for sauces for summer time when we're grilling and eating outside. My other sets are for my craft room. :) I put paints in them.

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  13. With all this discussion of pastries, my mouth is watering! We don't generally use tomato sauce (or ketchup, as we have here) on meat pastries. Actually, we don't generally have meat pastries. Sauce is used for French fried potatoes and on hamburgers and hot dogs. Some folks like it on eggs.

    I really want a meat pastry right now. I've never had one but it just sounds so good.

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  14. When I was a kiddo I put tomato ketchup on EVERYTHING. Literally every single thing I ate. One year for Christmas my grandpa got me the biggest bottle ever. So funny.

    As for the landfill. I hate that so much. Hate that. When I worked in the kitchen, they bought big huge bottles and we refilled, but the big huge bottles still landed up as waste. Ugh.

    How are you digging your new site layout? Took me a long time to make the jump on mine and now I'm so glad that I did.

    That's all from me. Have a yummy day and boogie boogie.

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