Catsup vs. Ketchup

As we prepare to celebrate our nation’s birthday tomorrow with hot dogs and fireworks – there is something that is gnawing at me.  And that something is ketchup. I mean, am I the only one who is bothered by it sometimes being presented as ketchup and other times as catsup?  Is there a difference between ketchup and catsup?  Does one have an ingredient the other lacks?  Do waiters secretly snigger in the back with the other waiters when I betray my social status by asking for ketchup rather than catsup?  Like with TikTok, are the Chinese behind this?

Turns out, they are!  Ketchup is a sauce dating back to ancient China where it was made from fish entrails (yummy!), meat byproducts, and soybeans.  According to the History Channel:

As far back as 300 B.C., texts began documenting the use of fermented pastes made from fish entrails, meat byproducts and soybeans. The fish sauce, called “ge-thcup” or “koe-cheup” by speakers of the Southern Min dialect, was easy to store on long ocean voyages.

The pastes spread along trade routes to Indonesia and the Philippines, where British traders developed a taste for the salty condiment by the early 1700s. They took samples home and promptly corrupted the original recipe.

Corrupted the original recipe?  I think not.  How about improved?  Imagine going in to McDonald’s today, ordering a large fries, and telling the person behind the counter, “…and two packets of fish entrails sauce for dipping, please.”  No.  Just no.

Instead of wholesome bread and cheese,
To dress their soups and fricassees;
And, for our home-bred British cheer,
Botargo, catsup, and caviare.

We think of ketchup (oh dear, I think I just tipped my hand as to which spelling I favor) as a red, tomato-ey condiment, but that wasn’t always the case.  The History Channel references “ketchups made of oysters, mussels, mushrooms, walnuts, lemons, celery and even fruits like plums and peaches.”  Food writer Cassie Marshall at TheKitchenCommunity.com, suggests that the ketchups made with mushrooms, walnuts, and other ingredients are referred to as catsup because of their thinner consistency; she also suggests that “catsup” was a regional identity for ketchup in areas such as the South and Midwest of the US, making the different names/spellings akin to “pop” and “soda” to describe a carbonated beverage.

But it wasn’t until 1812 that James Mease of Philadelphia came up with the first recipe for tomato-based ketchup and another 64 years until a company called Heinz introduced its famous formulation in 1876, which contained tomatoes, distilled vinegar, brown sugar, salt, and an assortment of spices, called Heinz Tomato Ketchup.  Eventually, the spelling chosen by Heinz came to dominate, probably because Heinz itself dominated the market.

I came of age during the Reagan administration.  Who can forget when they declared “ketchup” a vegetable for the purposes of school lunches?  Well, hopefully, everybody, because it never actually happened.  In fact, the proposed regulation in question did not mention ketchup specifically at all, it mentioned “pickle relish” as a possible vegetable, hence the condiment-related uproar.  As it was, the proposal never came to pass, it was scrapped after being thoroughly lampooned in the news media, which touted the more relatable ketchup storyline.

Besides, everyone knows the tomato is a fruit.  I studied philosophy in college. Now people say philosophy is not a practical or useful course of study in our post-modern world, to which I reply with the rejoinder:  “If knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad, isn’t philosophy the contemporary and highly relevant study of whether salsa should accurately be described as a fruit salad?”