Ketchup

Homemade mushroom ketchup in a plastic tub

In the United Kingdom, ketchup was historically prepared with mushrooms as a primary ingredient, rather than tomatoes.[7][8][9] Ketchup recipes began to appear in British and then American cookbooks in the 18th century. The term ketchup first appeared in 1682.[10] In the United States, mushroom ketchup dates back to at least 1770, and was prepared by British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies.[11]

Tomato ketchup and other condiments

Tomato ketchup next to raw tomatoes

Many variations of ketchup were created, but the tomato-based version did not appear until around a century after other types. An early recipe for "Tomato Catsup" from 1817 includes anchovies:[12]

1. Gather a gallon of fine, red, and full ripe tomatas; mash them with one pound of salt.
2. Let them rest for three days, press off the juice, and to each quart add a quarter of a pound of anchovies, two ounces of shallots, and an ounce of ground black pepper.
3. Boil up together for half an hour, strain through a sieve, and put to it the following spices; a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same of allspice and ginger, half an ounce of nutmeg, a drachm of coriander seed, and half a drachm of cochineal.
4. Pound all together; let them simmer gently for twenty minutes, and strain through a bag: when cold, bottle it, adding to each bottle a wineglass of brandy. It will keep for seven years.

By the mid-1850s, the anchovies had been dropped.[12]

James Mease published another recipe in 1812. In 1824, a ketchup recipe using tomatoes appeared in The Virginia Housewife (an influential 19th-century cookbook written by Mary Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's cousin). American cooks also began to sweeten ketchup in the 19th century.[13]

As the century progressed, tomato ketchup began its ascent in popularity in the United States. Ketchup was popular long before fresh tomatoes were. People were less hesitant to eat tomatoes as part of a highly processed product that had been cooked and infused with vinegar and spices.[14]

Tomato ketchup was sold locally by farmers. Jonas Yerkes is credited as the first American to sell it in a bottle.[15] By 1837, he had produced and distributed the condiment nationally.[16] Shortly thereafter, other companies followed suit. F. & J. Heinz launched their tomato ketchup in 1876.[17] Heinz Tomato Ketchup was advertised: "Blessed relief for Mother and the other women in the household!", a slogan which alluded to the lengthy process required to produce tomato ketchup in the home.[18] With industrial ketchup production and a need for better preservation there was a great increase of sugar in ketchup, leading to the typically sweet and sour formula of today.[12] In Australia, it was not until the late 19th century that sugar was added to tomato sauce, initially in small quantities, but today it contains just as much as American ketchup and only differed in the proportions of tomatoes, salt and vinegar in early recipes.[19]

The Webster's Dictionary of 1913 defined "catsup" as: "table sauce made from mushrooms, tomatoes, walnuts, etc. [Also written as ketchup]."

Modern ketchup emerged in the early years of the 20th century, out of a debate over the use of sodium benzoate as a preservative in condiments. Harvey W. Wiley, the "father" of the Food and Drug Administration in the US, challenged the safety of benzoate which was banned in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. In response, entrepreneurs including Henry J. Heinz, pursued an alternative recipe that eliminated the need for that preservative. Katherine Bitting, a bacteriologist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, carried out research in 1909 that proved increasing the sugar and vinegar content of the product would prevent spoilage without use of artificial preservatives. She was assisted by her husband, Arvil Bitting, an official at that agency.[20]

Prior to Heinz (and his fellow innovators), commercial tomato ketchups of that time were watery and thin, in part because they used unripe tomatoes, which were low in pectin.[21] They had less vinegar than modern ketchups; by pickling ripe tomatoes, the need for benzoate was eliminated without spoilage or degradation in flavor. But the changes driven by the desire to eliminate benzoate also produced changes that some experts (such as Andrew F. Smith[22]) believe were key to the establishment of tomato ketchup as the dominant American condiment.

In fast-food outlets, ketchup is often dispensed in small sachets or tubs. Diners tear the side or top and squeeze the ketchup out of the ketchup packets, or peel the foil lid off the tub for dipping. In 2011, Heinz began offering a new measured-portion package, called the "Dip and Squeeze" packet, which can be opened in either way, giving both options.[23]

Some fast food outlets previously dispensed ketchup from hand-operated pumps into paper cups. This method has made a comeback in the first decades of the 21st century, as cost and environmental concerns over the increasing use of individual plastic ketchup tubs were taken into account.

In October 2000, Heinz introduced colored ketchup products called EZ Squirt, which eventually included green (2000), purple (2001), mystery (pink, orange, or teal, 2002), and blue (2003).[24] These products were made by adding food coloring to the traditional ketchup. By January 2006, these products were discontinued.[25]

A popular folk etymology is that the word came to English from the Cantonese keh jup (茄汁 ke² zap¹, literally meaning 'tomato sauce' in Cantonese).[29] The word keh (茄) means 'eggplant'; tomato in Cantonese is 番茄, which literally translates to 'foreign eggplant'.

Another theory among academics is that the word derives from one of two words from Hokkien of the Fujian region of coastal southern China: kôe-chiap (in Xiamen and Quanzhou) or kê-chiap[30][31] (in Zhangzhou). Both of these words (膎汁, kôe-chiap and kêchiap) come from either the Quanzhou dialect, Amoy dialect, or Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien, where it meant the brine of pickled fish (膎, 'meat'; 汁, 'juice') or shellfish.[32] There are citations of koe-chiap in the Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of the Amoy (London; Trudner) from 1873, defined as "brine of pickled fish or shell-fish".

Ketchup may have entered the English language from the Malay word kicap (pronounced [kitʃap], sometimes spelled kecap or ketjap). Originally meaning 'soy sauce', the word itself derives from the Chinese terms.[33]

In Indonesian cuisine, which is similar to Malay, the term kecap refers to fermented savory sauces. Two main types are well known in their cuisine: kecap asin which translates to 'salty kecap' in Indonesian (a salty soy sauce) and kecap manis or 'sweet kecap' in Indonesian. Kecap manis is a sweet soy sauce that is a mixture of soy sauce with brown sugar, molasses, garlic, ginger, anise, coriander and a bay leaf reduced over medium heat until rather syrupy. A third type, kecap ikan, meaning 'fish kecap' is fish sauce similar to the Thai nam pla or the Philippine patis. It is not, however, soy-based.

American anthropologist E. N. Anderson relies on Elizabeth David to claim that ketchup is a cognate of the French escaveche, meaning 'food in sauce'.[34] The word also exists in Spanish and Portuguese forms as escabeche, 'a sauce for pickling', which culinary historian Karen Hess traced back to Arabic kabees, or 'pickling with vinegar'. The term was anglicized to caveach, a word first attested in the late 17th century, at the same time as ketchup.[28]

Blue Label Tomato Ketchup advertisement, Curtice Brothers, 1898

The word entered the English language in Britain during the late 17th century, appearing in print as catchup (1690) and later as ketchup (1711). The following is a list of early quotations collected by the Oxford English Dictionary.

• 1690, B. E., A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
  • "Catchup: a high East-India Sauce."
• 1711, Charles Lockyer, An Account of the Trade in India 128
  • "Soy comes in Tubbs from Japan, and the best Ketchup from Tonquin; yet good of both sorts are made and sold very cheap in China."
• 1727, Eliza Smith, The Compleat Housewife, or, Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion[35]
  • "The first published recipe: it included mushrooms, anchovies and horseradish."
• 1730, Jonathan Swift, A Panegyrick on the Dean Wks. 1755 IV. I. 142
  • "And, for our home-bred British cheer, Botargo, catsup, and caveer."
• 1748, Sarah Harrison, The Housekeeper's Pocket-Book and Compleat Family Cook. i. (ed. 4) 2,
  • "I therefore advise you to lay in a Store of Spices, ... neither ought you to be without ... Kitchup, or Mushroom Juice."
• 1751, Mrs. Hannah Glasse, Cookery Bk. 309
  • "It will taste like foreign Catchup."
• 1817, Lord Byron, Beppo viii,
  • "Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross ... Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey ..."
• 1832, Vegetable Substances Used for the Food of Man 333
  • "One ... application of mushrooms is ... converting them into the sauce called Catsup."
• 1840, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1849) 91/1
  • "Some lamb chops (breaded, with plenty of ketchup)."
• 1845, Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery v. (1850) 136 (L.)
  • "Walnut catsup."
• 1862, Macmillan's Magazine. Oct. 466
  • "He found in mothery catsup a number of yellowish globular bodies."
• 1874, Mordecai C. Cooke, Fungi; Their Nature, Influence and Uses 89
  • "One important use to which several ... fungi can be applied, is the manufacture of ketchup."

Some ketchup in the U.S. is labeled "Fancy". This is a USDA grade, relating to specific gravity. Fancy ketchup has a higher tomato solid concentration than other USDA grades.[37]