Ketchup

First Mention: 1690

Use: A food critics worst enemy

Whether you call it ketchup, catsup, katsup, catchup, or whatever else you come up with the fact of the matter is that this magical combination of tomatoes, vinegar, sugars, and heaven, has become the defacto companion to the true blooded American standard in fine dining – hamburgers and French fries.

During the 1600s the Dutch and British seamen brought back  a salty fish sauce called “katsiap” from China. This was more similar to tartar sauce rather than what we consider as ketchup today, but nonetheless it went well the British peoples’ diet of fish n’ chips so it was quickly adopted and refined in Britain. In 1690 the word ‘catsup’ appeared in print for the first time and later the word ‘ketchup; appeared in 1711.

The first ketchup recipes were printed in 1727 and included anchovies, shallots, vinegar, white wine, sweet spices, pepper, and lemon peel. It took 85 years more for the first tomato based ketchup recipe to be adopted in Nova Scotia by American James Mease who called his concoction the “Love Apple.”

Eventually the recipe was adopted in the United States where it was heavily based on tomatoes as opposed to its British counterpart which focused on mushrooms as the stick ingredient. It was not until HJ Heinz added ketchup to his line of pickled products in 1872 that the tomato based sauce entered its love triangle with French fries and American hamburgers.

Up until this day, ketchup has been based on the Heinz version in the United States. In 1981, the naming crisis mentioned earlier was resolved as the Reagan administration briefly decided to count ketchup as a vegetable. Since the government used ‘ketchup’ all other producers decided to change their spelling to avoid confusion.