Ketchup Facts
Did you know that ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine?
1. In 1834 ketchup was sold as a cure for an unsettled stomach and lots of other aliments by a physician in Ohio named John Cook. It was even sold in pill form. That would be amazing if ketchup was a magic cure, but we know it's not!
2. From the 1700's to 1850's the word ketchup stood for any number of dark sauces and the main ingredients was not tomatoes instead it was mushrooms and sometimes walnuts. There is a recipe in a cookbook in London dated 1742 with a fish sauce recipe which was ketchup back in those times.
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 known 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 even 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.
Watch out for the sugar that is in ketchup.
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