You say catsup, I say it’s ketchup, gosh darn it, get with the standards! No matter how you spell it though, one thing’s for certain: ketchup is everyone’s favorite tomato-based condiment, perfect for topping hot dogs, hamburgers, and pasta.
But wait! That bit about being tomato-based hasn’t always been true. Believe it or not, ketchup used to be made of fermented, salted fish guts. Yum.
As Great Big Story explains in a video on the origin of ketchup, the Chinese made the condiment out of fish intestines, bladder, and stomach for more than a thousand years, before it got picked up by British and Dutch settlers in the 1600s and taken back to Europe.
From there, the modifications began — everything from beer to walnuts to strawberries. The resulting condiment, though still lacking its telltale tomatoey tang, became “a mainstay on British dinner tables” by the middle of the 18th century.
And of course they had to take it with them when they traveled to the New World. Cue the entrance of tomatoes. The Europeans, believe it or not, thought tomatoes were poisonous, but the plant was native to the Americas, and colonists soon figured out that they were a-okay to eat.
The final bridge to the ketchup we know and love came in 1812, when horticulturalist James Mease published his recipe for tomato ketchup. Variations followed, but by the end of the century, The New York Times had labeled it “America’s National Condiment.”
Although Malcolm Gladwell claims we’ve reached the pinnacle of ketchup with Heinz, that doesn’t stop ketchup connoisseurs from continually trying to improve on it. If you’re daring enough to attempt homemade ketchup yourself, you can find hundreds of recipes online, including this well-rated one from Epicurious.
Check out the full video on ketchup below:
