Where Did Ketchup Come From?

Most people like to use ketchup on their foods such as hamburgers, fries, or onion rings.  When you go shopping, you’ll see it as ketchup or catsup depending on the brand and the part of the country but it’s the same thing.  

I began to wonder about ketchup when someone at the Farmer's Market was selling rhubarb ketchup.  I'd never heard of ketchup made from anything other than tomatoes so I decided to do a bit of research.

The condiment comes from China where it was known as ke-chiap or kicap.  Most people today would never recognize the original version because it was made out of fish parts, meat parts, spices, and soybeans and had no tomato in it. It was used to season foods rather than being used as a condiment.  The original Chinese version resembled Worcestershire sauce Europeans discovered it when they went to China in the late 17th century.

It arrived in Europe around 1690 under the name of Catchup. The British like it and tried to reproduce the taste and made it out of anchovies, shallots, white wine, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and lemon peel. At this time, ketchup was usually made by boiling down all the ingredients into a syrupy consistency or they were salted to pull the liquids from them.  

Throughout the 18th century, ketchups became quite popular and often were made with ingredients like oysters, mushrooms, mussels, celery, lemon, plums, and other fruits. One recipe, “The Prince of Wales” ketchup called for anchovies and elderberries while an oyster ketchup recipe involved oysters, white wine, lemon peels, mace, and cloves cooked together.  Jane Austin was known to prefer mushroom ketchup.  At one point, when talking about ketchup, people were talking about mushroom ketchup as that was produced the most often.

Although tomatoes could be found in Europe at this time, they were not used in cooking because people believed they were poisonous. It wasn’t until around 1800 that the first recipe calling for tomatoes was published in America.  The recipe required a person to squeeze and salt the tomatoes before boiling them and pressing them through a sieve.  The resulting mixture   was spiced, boiled some more thill thick and then bottled for later uses.  Unfortunately, early ketchups made with tomatoes did not use vinegar in the mixture so it didn’t last well before going bad.  

Heinz marketed the first commercial ketchup made with unripe tomatoes in 1857.  They bottled the condiment in see through glass bottles so people could see what they were buying. Heinz used sodium benzoate to keep the product from spoiling.  In addition, the descriptor tomato in tomato ketchup was dropped because that was the main type of ketchup made and sold.  Around 1900, the FDA outlawed the use of sodium benzoate so Heinz switched to using ripe tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar in its recipe.

When they switched to ripe tomatoes which have a good pectin, the mixture went from being runny and thin to a much thicker one.   The use of vinegar helped preserve the mixture so it didn’t go bad as quickly.  Over the following years, the use of tomato based ketchup spread and became the accepted variety of the condiment. Currently Heinz sells over 650 million bottles each year.  

In the Philippines, they began making ketchup out of bananas when tomatoes ran short during World War II.  It is quite popular over there now.  In Germany, they prefer their ketchup with curry powder added and they top sausages with it.  In Canada, they love making a ketchup cake that is sweet and red.  In Japan, they add ketchup to pasta dishes while people in other countries such as Thailand, or Poland add ketchup to their pizza.

I tend to only use ketchup on fries, onion rings, or occasionally a Japanese style spaghetti. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.