Scrambling for an idea for a blog post today I was inspired by my lunch of grilled cheese and ketchup to look up the history of this popular condiment. Here’s what I gleaned from reading three or four articles.
Ketchup began as a sauce made of fermented anchovies which was introduced to southeast China by Vietnamese fishermen over 500 years ago. (In the articles I read this early ketchup was spelled “ge-thcup,” “koe-cheup,” “ke-tsiap,” and “ke-tchup.”)
From China ketchup traveled to Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
In the early 1700s English sailors were introduced to ketchup and took samples home, where cooks promptly began creating their own versions. These often contained anchovies, oysters, mushrooms, and walnuts, and sometimes even lemons, celery, plums, and peaches.
Here’s an interesting anecdote from the time period: “Jane Austen’s family seemed to prefer this new walnut ketchup, and the household book kept by Jane’s friend Martha Lloyd while she lived with Jane’s family in Chawton tells us they made it by pounding green walnuts with salt and then boiling the mash with vinegar, cloves, mace, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, horseradish, and shallots.”
My reading was not conclusive on when and where tomatoes were first used in ketchup, whether in England or America. It seems that a recipe for tomato ketchup appeared in an American cookbook, The Sugar House Book by Sally Addison in 1801. Another article credits James Mease, a Philadelphia scientist, with developing the first tomato ketchup recipe in 1812.
The first person to sell bottled ketchup was a farmer named Jonas Yerkes, who was selling it nationally by 1837. The F. & J. Heinz Company began selling ketchup in 1876. Originally it was made with unripe tomatoes and a preservative called sodium benzoate, but it the early 1900s the recipe was modified to use ripe tomatoes (which have more natural pectin), vinegar, and sugar. The resulting ketchup is less watery.
Today, Heinz is the best-selling brand of ketchup in both Britain and the United States.
I had to idea that ketchup went on such a journey from fish sauce to pounded walnuts to the bright red, sweet vinegary condiment we know and love.
Sources
- “The Surprisingly Ancient History of Ketchup” by Stephanie Butler via History.com
- “The History of Ketchup” by Peggy Trowbridge Filippone via The Spruce Eats
- “The Cosmopolitan Condiment” by Dan Jurafsky via Slate