Facts about ketchup

Ketchup Facts

 

Did you know that ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine?

1. In 1834, a physician in Ohio named John Cook sold ketchup as a cure for an unsettled stomach and many other ailments. It was even sold in pill form. It would be fantastic if ketchup were a magic cure, but we know it's not! 

2. From the 1700s to the 1850s, the word ketchup stood for any number of dark sauces, and the main ingredients were not tomatoes but mushrooms and sometimes walnuts. Imagine flipping through the pages of a 1742 London cookbook and stumbling upon a fish sauce recipe that would eventually evolve into what we now know as ketchup. History truly has its flavorful surprises!

3. The first recorded recipe for ketchup dates back to 544 A.D. in China. This early version used ingredients like the intestine, stomach, and bladder of yellow fish, shark, and mullet. It required 20 days of incubation under summer sunlight before consumption.

4. European explorers tried to replicate ketchup but faced challenges due to the absence of soybeans (a crucial ingredient in Asian ketchup). They experimented with bases like oysters, walnuts, and mushrooms.

5. Tomatoes eventually made their way into ketchup recipes. The first written recipe for tomato ketchup came from Philadelphia horticulturist James Mease in 1812.

6. In the 1860s, ketchup earned a bad reputation due to unscrupulous makers using excessive preservatives and coal tar for its iconic red color.

7. French cookbook author Pierre Blot called ketchup “filthy, decomposed, and putrid.” Despite this, tomato ketchup became an American staple by the late 19th century, with consumers having access to a whopping 94 brands of ketchup in Connecticut by 1901.

8. Heinz’s 57 Varieties:

Henry J. Heinz, inspired by an advertisement for 21 styles of shoes, branded his company with “57 Varieties.” Interestingly, Heinz produced more than 60 products, but the iconic number stuck.

9. The term “catsup” was coined by Jonathan Swift in 1730.

10. Jane Austen was a fan of mushroom ketchup.

Be mindful of the hidden sugar in ketchup! It can sneak up on you and sweeten your meals more than you realize.