Ketchup: It wasn't always just tomatoes

Pat Ernst Dugan
August 4, 2005

Ask anyone what kind of ketchup they prefer and they might roll their eyes and politely ask you to repeat the question.

We Americans take tomato ketchup for granted. And yet, it's simply a thick sweet-and-sour tomato sauce. Historically, however, ketchup started its culinary life as something very different.

Researchers give credit to the Chinese "koechiap" and the Malay "kichap" for the actual word's ancestor. The Chinese sauce was a spicy, salty fish sauce-made from anchovies, mushrooms, perhaps even walnuts and kidney beans. Remember, there was no refrigeration, so these sauces were made with enough salt to "stand alone."

It appears that British seamen transported the fish sauce back to England calling it catsup, even catchup. Because anchovies were not readily available in England, vinegar was substituted. Sugar was then added to counter the acidity. Spices like cloves, cinnamon and allspice were added for flavor enhancement.

Victorian England experimented with every type of fruit, vegetable and nuts for their catsups. Again, these ketchups did not require refrigeration. With so much vinegar and sugar, they were perfectly preserved.

It was not Henry John Heinz who invented ketchup, although it was his business acumen, courage and steadfast determination for quality that led to the appearance of tomato ketchup on most restaurant tables and home condiment shelves around the world.

In 1869, Henry Heinz was 25 and a family man living near Pittsburgh when he realized the hazards of horseradish. Many producers were mixing homegrown horseradish with leaves, wood fiber, even turnips, and selling it in green bottles, so that the contents were not visible.

Heinz, an entrepreneur from age 9, had been successfully growing and selling garden vegetables, including horseradish. He determined that grated horseradish, using his mother's recipe, could spell profit by bottling it in clear glass bottles so consumers could see the quality difference.

He and a partner started producing and delivering bottles of horseradish by horse-drawn wagons to grocers around Pittsburgh. Their success led them to expand to bottled pickles, vinegars and sauerkraut.

Where is the ketchup you ask? Well, Heinz and his partner, L.C. Noble, overextended their operations and declared bankruptcy in 1875. The next year, however, Henry Heinz went into partnership with his brother, John, and cousin Frederick and started to make ketchup and the rest of the "Heinz 57" varieties.

Ketchup at that time was a thin tomato sauce with sodium benzoate as a preservative. Since Henry Heinz had great experience with his vinegars and pickling, he set about to pickle ripe tomatoes. Et voila! His ketchup sauce was thick, tasty and successful.

A visionary who also believed that the world could be his marketplace, Henry Heinz began his company's trek to the $3 billion dollar global icon it is today, selling in 50 countries.

Today, American cooks and chefs are going back to ketchup's roots for inspiration and creating thick sweet and savory sauce condiments with plums, mushrooms, cranberries, concord grapes, peaches, papaya, mango, prunes, yellow tomatoes, and sweet peppers. Unlike salsas, these ketchups are cooked and unlike chutneys, these ketchups are smooth and pureed.

Dinner the other night at the Beach House Restaurant in Gig Harbor, Wash., was a reminder of how much adventure waits on the other side of comfort food. Scratch onion rings were so today, served with rhubarb ketchup. The ketchup was somewhat thin for my taste but deliciously different spiced with cinnamon, cloves, garlic and Dijon mustard. The recipe is available on line at www.beachhouserestaurant.com as well as others developed by Gordon Naccarato, chef and co-owner with brother Steve.

The restaurant logo says, "Life is good at the beach" and it was for us that night on peaceful Puget Sound.

Pat Ernst Dugan, a culinary consultant, teacher and personal chef, is the owner of Chez Pat in Corning. E-mail her at foodlyyours@aol.com or send comments and questions to be forwarded to: Foodly Yours, Star-Gazette, Attn: Features Department, 201 Baldwin St., P.O. Box 285, Elmira, NY 14902.

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