Since it was easy to store on long ocean voyages, the pastes spread along trade routes to Indonesia and the Philippines....
BITS ‘N’ PIECES
Ketchup is probably the most popular sauce in the world. It has a storied past that dates back to imperial China where it was made with fish entrails, meat by-products and soybeans. The ancestor of modern ketchup was completely tomato-free and was called ‘ge-thcup’ or ‘koe-cheup’ by speakers of the Southern Min dialect. Since it was easy to store on long ocean voyages, the pastes spread along trade routes to Indonesia and the Philippines. The British traders developed a taste for the salty condiment by the early 1700s. They took samples home and promptly corrupted the original recipe.
In 1812, the first recipe for tomato-based ketchup debuted. James Mease, a Philadelphia scientist, is credited with developing the recipe. He wrote that the choicest ketchup came from ‘love apples,’ as tomatoes were then called.
The 18th century was a golden age for ketchup. Cookbooks featured recipes for ketchups made of oysters, mussels, mushrooms, walnuts, lemons, celery and even fruits like plums and peaches. Usually, components were either boiled down into a syrup-like consistency or left to sit with salt for extended periods of time. Both these processes led to a highly concentrated end product: a salty, spicy flavour bomb that could last for a long time without going bad.
One oyster ketchup recipe from the 1700s called for 100 oysters, three pints of white wine and lemon peels spiked with mace and cloves. The commemorative ‘Prince of Wales’ ketchup, meanwhile, was made from elderberries and anchovies. Mushroom ketchup was apparently Jane Austen’s favourite.
Before vinegar became a standard ingredient, preservation of tomato-based sauces was an issue, as they would quickly decompose. A relatively new company called Heinz introduced its famous formulation in 1876, which contained tomatoes, distilled vinegar, brown sugar, salt and various spices. They also pioneered the use of glass bottles, so customers could see what they were buying.
Tomato-based ketchup slowly became the ubiquitous form of the condiment in the U.S. and Europe and later on in the whole world.
