The Simple Sauce That's A Utah Treasure

As a tried-and-true, born-in-the-Beehive-State Utahn, I can scarcely recall any memories of french fries or tater tots that don't also feature one particular condiment: fry sauce. This simple amalgamation of ketchup and mayonnaise (sometimes incorporating extra elements like mustard and pickle juice) is a quintessential staple of Utah cuisine, and simply put, residents of the state revere the stuff.

Utah has plenty of signature culinary creations, from the advent of dirty sodas to a beloved side dish with the morbid name of funeral potatoes. However, fry sauce rules over them all. It bears a hue ranging between orange and pink, depending on the ratio of ketchup to mayo. The taste is a little sweet, a little tangy, and complements salty fried potatoes to absolute perfection. But diehard fans don't just stop at french fries. True Utahns also dip in chicken nuggets, corn dogs, onion rings, fried cheese curds — if it can be dipped in ketchup, it should be dipped in fry sauce! Some even put the sauce right on their burgers, too.

To say that fry sauce is a symbol of Utah pride is not an overstatement. When Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, as is customary, official commemorative pins were created to feature images representative of the host state and its culture. One of the most sought-after pieces that year was — you guessed it — a fry sauce pin.

How exactly did such a simple sauce become such a big deal? Like so many culinary sensations, it's hard to say exactly why fry sauce took off the way it did. But once burger joint customers in the Beehive State got a taste, they clamored for more. Eventually, fast food restaurants throughout Utah were serving up their own slightly different (but rather alike) versions of the condiment, and the trend even spread into neighboring states like Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona.

One party that lays claim to fry sauce is Arctic Circle. The regional fast food chain, with locations throughout Utah as well as Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Montana, is often credited with inventing the dipping creation, and some of the company's food packaging even says "The original fry sauce, America's first." However, it's a contested history, as two former employees say they invented the sauce, not the company at large.

At a Provo, Utah franchise location in the 1950s, teen workers Max Peay and Ron Taylor were allegedly experimenting with condiments, came up with the mayo/ketchup combination, and started serving it to their friends. Eventually, customers began requesting it. The Taylor family states that an Arctic Circle rep asked permission to take their fry sauce to company headquarters, and soon every location was serving it. Arctic Circle's founder Don Carlos Edwards went on claim that he and his sons invented fry sauce,  but the Taylors maintain that it all started at their Provo location. Whichever origin story is true, the creamy condiment's place in Utah's history remains everlastingly uncontested.