The History of Ketchup

> Ketchup was not invented in the United States. It began as a fermented fish sauce — sans tomatoes — in early China. British sailors bought the sauce, called ke-tsiap or ke-tchup by 17th-century Chinese and Indonesian traders, to provide relief from the dry and mundane hardtack and salt pork they ate aboard ship. Over the next couple of centuries, ketchup spread throughout the British Empire, traveling around the world with the navy.

Supposedly Asian fish sauces are similar to both Worcestershire sauce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcestershire_sauce and the ancient Roman garum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum . Some say that Colatura di alici https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colatura_di_Alici from Cetara in Italy is the best of them all.

I've been eating ketchup for 40 years. I've never kept it in the fridge. I hate putting a thick cold sauce on hot food. I've always assumed that the vinegar and preservatives were enough to make it last for the short time a bottle of ketchup lasts in my house.

The history of ketchup is covered in the first 15 minutes or so of this talk:

https://youtu.be/R7RP9rMDnBE

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an excellent piece in the New Yorker 15 years ago on this topic. Worth a read.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-co...

This guy does a pretty good version, I tried it, not bad at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29u_FejNuks&t=311s

So what's the difference between ketchup and catsup?

I once made my own ketchup. After nearly 2 hours of work the result tasted pretty much like a really cheap and not very good commercial ketchup. Before you add sugar and vinegar, it tastes like a delicious Indian tomato sauce, though.

Mushroom version: https://youtu.be/29u_FejNuks