I totally agree, and I'm not sure I know why. Mustard can be great in many different styles - English, French, even classic-American on the occasional hotdog.

I totally agree, and I'm not sure I know why. Mustard can be great in many different styles - English, French, even classic-American on the occasional hotdog. Reasonable people can disagree on what should in salsa, or how spicy it should be. Lots of different types of oil can be used in different types of mayonnaise without complaint. There's a world of different hot sauces and I wouldn't presume to call one style objectively better than another. But ketchup - to me, anything other than Heinz is never welcome, and some of the "fancier" ketchups that are offered in some restaurants barely qualify as ketchup at all - at least, not in the modern sense of the word. I wonder if it's because the taste profile of Heinz ketchup mostly consists of the balance between sweetness and acidity, and only incidentally conveys tomato, whereas almost all artisanal or aspirational ketchups de-emphasise the sweetness and instead concentrate on the tomato and other vegetable flavors. If the sugar / acid balance is the essence of Heinz, as I suspect, then building a ketchup around a strong tomato flavor is like building a mustard variant around a turmeric flavor, or a vinegar flavor, and ignoring the mustard-seed that should be at the heart. But as I said, I don't really know. I do know that any other brand or - heaven forbid - home-made version of ketchup will be a disappointment, and I can't think of any other food I could say the same for.