At this point, ketchup lacked one important ingredient.Įnter the tomato.
These early ketchups were mostly thin and dark, and were often added to soups, sauces, meat and fish. Mushroom ketchup was even a purported favorite of Jane Austen. Most British recipes called for ingredients like mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, or anchovies in an effort to reproduce the savory tastes first encountered in Asia. (See “ How a Food Becomes Famous.”)īut this was certainly not the ketchup we would recognize today. This probably happened in the late 17th and early 18th centuries as evidenced by a recipe published in 1732 for “Ketchup in Paste,” by Richard Bradley, which referenced “Bencoulin in the East-Indies” as its origin. The British likely encountered ketchup in Southeast Asia, returned home, and tried to replicate the fermented dark sauce. It is believed that traders brought fish sauce from Vietnam to southeastern China. Ketchup comes from the Hokkien Chinese word, kê-tsiap, the name of a sauce derived from fermented fish. How did a simple sauce come to be so loved by America? It turns out ketchup’s origins are anything but American. In the U.S., 97 percent of households report having a bottle at the table. It is the hero of American condiments: ketchup. At once savory and sweet, with just the right amount of puckering twang, it is slathered and squirted onto our favorite foods.Įven the most barren of refrigerators has a lingering bottle that clatters with the whoosh of an opened door.
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