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| Cooking up some Catsup? |
If you’re an American, you probably think you know a thing or two about ketchup. After all, 97% of American households report having a bottle at the table. (
1) The average American consumes a staggering 71 pounds of ketchup annually. (
2) Yet, most of us would not recognize the many historical varieties of ketchup. Fewer would be brave enough to taste them. Their ingredients vary as widely as their spelling. Most of these recipes call for out-dated fermenting and preserving techniques, so remember folks, don’t try this at home. Or, if you do, follow modern food safety precautions.
Ketchup. It’s as American as… well, it’s not American. The original version hails from Southeast Asia and was likely brought back to Britain in the late 17th or early 18th century. It seems that sailors took a liking to the condiment which was called in Hokkein Chinese kê-tsiap. (
3) It held little resemblance to the modern variety. Instead, it was a dark, fermented fish sauce. The first recipe on record dates back to 544AD. It instructs one to:
“Take the intestine, stomach, and bladder of the yellow fish, shark and mullet, and wash them well. Mix them with a moderate amount of salt and place them in a jar. Seal tightly and incubate in the sun. It will be ready in twenty days in summer, fifty days in spring or fall and a hundred days in winter.” (
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9. Oyster Catsup
British optician, inventor, musician, and cook William Kitchiner published The Cook’s Oracle in 1817. His best-selling recipe book contained eleven different catsup recipes, demonstrating that by this time, the condiment was a culinary staple. (
5) Much like the original Chinese version, Kitchiner’s Oyster Catsup was a fermented fish sauce. Instead of yellow fish, shark, and mullet, he called for an ingredient which would have been more readily available in Britain and the Americas. If oysters were not available, he said that a fine catsup could be made by replacing them with an equal amount of cockles and muscles (sic.)
“Take fine, fresh Milton oysters; wash them in their own liquor, skim it, pound them in a marble mortar, to a pint of Oysters add a pint of Sherry, boil them up, and add an ounce of salt, two drachms of pounded mace, and one of Cayenne, — let it just boil up again, skim it, and rub through a sieve, and when cold, bottle it, and cork it well, and seal it down.” (
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8. Anchovy Catchup
Hannah Glasse penned the 18th century’s best-selling book of any genre over a period of just four months. How she did this whilst mothering eleven children is anybody’s guess. (
7) In any case, her recipe for “Catchup to Keep Twenty Years” draws on ale and anchovies for its primary flavors. Unlike in the preceding recipes, Ms. Glasse does not call for any fermentation. This would produce a sauce similar to modern Worcestershire sauce, which utilizes anchovies and barley malt vinegar. However, Mrs. Glasses’s Catchup does not call for any sweetening, while the vast majority of Worcestershire sauce produced today includes molasses and sugar.
“Take a gallon of strong stale beer, one pound of anchovies washed from the pickle, a pound of shalots peeled, half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of cloves, a quarter of an ounce of whole pepper, three or four large races of ginger, two quarts of the large mushroom-flaps rubbed to pieces; cover all this close, and let it simmer till it is half wasted, then strain it through a flannel bag; let it stand till it is quite cold, then bottle it. You may carry it to the Indies. A spoonful of this to a pound of fresh butter melted makes a fine fish-sauce, or in the room of gravy sauce. The stronger and staler the beer is, the better the catchup will be.” (
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7. Mushroom Catsup
This was a popular ketchup in the 18th and 19th centuries. Used for seasoning meat and savory pies, it left behind the fish and turned to the humble mushroom for its savory qualities. This was done for reasons of practicality, cost, and taste, depending on the cook. Mushrooms could be scavenged and were available inland. Many people simply preferred the flavor. This is the only catsup to still be manufactured today and may be poised for a come-back. Celebrity chefs Heston Blumenthal and
Nigel Slater have both recently published recipes for it. (
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The Cook’s Oracle actually includes two separate recipes for mushroom catsup. In both recipes, Mr. Kitchiner advices against the over-use of spices, stating that they can over-power and confuse the meaty flavor of the mushrooms. The basic recipe is as follows:
“Put a layer of these (mushrooms)at the bottom of deep earthen pan, and sprinkle them with Salt, then another layer of Mushrooms, and some more salt on them, and so on alternately, salt and mushrooms; — let them remain two or three hours, by which time the salt will have penetrated the mushrooms, and rendered them easy to break; — then pound them in a mortar or mash them well with your hands, and let them remain for a couple of days, not longer, stirring them up, and mashing them well each day; — then pour them into a stone jar, and to each quart add an ounce of whole Black Pepper, stop the jar very close, and set it in a stewpan of boiling water, and keep it boiling for two hours at least. Take out the jar, and pour the juice clear from the settlings through a hair sieve (without squeezing the mushrooms) into a clean stew pan ; let it boil very gently for half an hour…” (
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6. Walnut Ketchup
If one could not get a hold of any fish, bivalves, or fungi, one could always turn to nuts. This sauce was a great favorite of English novelist Jane Austen. It would seem that unlike Kitchiner, she did not shy away from the use of spices. The following recipe was recorded in the household book of her best friend Martha Lloyd, who lived with the Austen family at the time. Here you see the inclusion of vinegar, cloves, and aliums, all ingredients in the most popular tomato ketchups sold today.
“Take green walnuts and pound them to a paste. Then put to every hundred two quarts of vinegar with a handful of salt. Put it altogether in an earthen pan keeping it stirring for eight days. Then squeeze through a coarse cloth and put it into a well lined saucepan, when it begins to boil skim it as long as any scum, rinse, and add to it some cloves, mace, sliced ginger, sliced nutmeg, Jamaica peppercorns, little horse radish with a few shallots. Let this have one boil up, then pour it into an earthen pan, and after it is cold bottle it up dividing the ingredients equal into each bottle.” (
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5. White Ketchup
It seems we have covered ketchup for every need, but what if we need to flavor a white sauce without darkening it? All of the previous recipes produce a brown liquid which would unpleasantly color your sauce. Charlotte Mason’s 1787 book The Lady’s Assistant: for Regulating and Supplying the Table contains the answer. This is just one of seven ketchup recipes in the manual.
“Take one quart of white wine, one pint of elder vinegar, and one quart of water; half a pound of anchovies with their pickle, half a pound of horseradish scraped, one ounce of shallots bruised, one ounce of white pepper bruised, one ounce of mace, a quarter of an ounce of nutmegs cut in quarters; boil all together till half is consumed, then drain it off : when it is cold, bottle it for use. It is proper for any white sauce or to put into melted butter.” (
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4. Cucumber Catsup
Now we come to a vegetable ketchup, though when you think of ketchup, cucumbers probably do not spring to mind. Scottish journalist Christian Isobel Johnstone was known to have a sharp mind and a prolific pen. An early feminist and champion of liberal causes, she wrote under the pseudonym Margaret Dod in order to protect her personal life. Of all the things she wrote, her 1826 recipe for Cucumber Catsup was probably the least likely to get her into trouble.
“Pare large cucumbers; cut them in slices and break them to a mash, which must be sprinkled with salt and covered with a cloth. Keep in all the seeds. Next day, set the vessel aslant to drain off the juice, and boil it up with a high seasoning of white peppercorns, and sliced ginger, black pepper, sliced shallot and horseradish, and bottle the catsup which is an excellent preparation for flavouring sauces for boiled fowls, veal, rabbits, or the more insipid meats.” (
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3. Browning or Sugar Catsup
Thus far we have covered savory recipes that include vinegar, cloves, alliums, salt, pepper, and cayenne. One thing we have yet to find is any sweeteners. Most modern ketchup is sweetened with sugar. Mrs. Johnstone advised the use of a “sugar catsup” as a browning sauce for sauces, soups, etc. This was a simple concoction which could be spiced at the cooks discretion.
“Pound very finely six ounces of the best refined sugar, and put the powder into a small and very clean frying pan, with a glass of water. As it dissolves, mix well with a wooden spoon, and withdraw the pan from the fire when the fluid begins to boil violently ; stir, and keep it thus till it has acquired the rich, dark brown color wanted. It may either be seasoned with pepper, salt, cloves, catsup, etc., or not, but is generally more useful plain.” (
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2. Pudding Catsup
It’s not as scary as it sounds. This has nothing to do with a custard type of pudding. In this context, “pudding” is synonymous with dessert. This 1817 recipe is simply a sauce to be added to various sweets.
“Half a pint of brandy, ‘Essence of Punch’ (a brandy-lemonade mixture)… an ounce of thin pared Lemon peel, half an ounce of mace. Steep them fourteen days, then strain it, and add a quarter pint of Capillaire (an orange flower syrup).” (
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1. Tomato Ketchup
At last we come to our missing ingredient. Tomatoes were once looked on with trepidation. Many Americans and Europeans believed them to be poisonous. Yet, they also had their champions including Thomas Jefferson who cultivated them at Monticello as early as 1809 and ate them regularly. (
16) The first recorded recipe for a tomato-based ketchup comes from Philadelphia physician James Mease’s 1812 book, The Archives of Useful Knowledge. Mease refers to the tomatoes as “love apples”, a common moniker at the time.
“Slice the apples thin, and over every layer sprinkle a little salt; cover them, and let them lie twenty-four hours; then beat them well, and simmer them half an hour in a bell-metal kettle; then add mace & allspice. When cold, add two cloves of raw shallots cut small, and half a gill of brandy to each bottle, which must be corked tight, and kept in a cool place.” (
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The idea seems to have taken root quickly. Mrs. Johnstone published her own recipe for “tomata catsup” fourteen years later. Mrs. Hardy of the American hotel published her recipe in 1865. Finally, Henry J. Heinz started producing tomato ketchup in 1876. (
18) The rest is history.
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