Editor's note: Let's Eat That explores why we began to eat certain foods.Want to know about a certain meat, veggie, seafood or dessert?Let us know at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Ketchup is the red that paints every child's cheeks rosy at family barbecues. Found in 97 percent of households in the United States, the bottle is practically patriotic.
Surprisingly, this all-American tomato condiment started as an Asian fish sauce. The earliest known ketchup recipe, dating back to 544 A.D., called for the "intestine, stomach and bladder of the yellow fish, shark and mullet." In Fujianese, this concoction was known as ge-thcup, with ge meaning fish and tsup meaning syrup.
The British first picked up a bottle of the chunky yellow sauce in the 1700s from traders in Indonesia and the Philippines. Despite its rancid aroma, the condiment had a surprisingly long shelf life. It held through many months on ship voyages back to England.
However, it did not last nearly as long in English kitchens. Soon after the British adopted the recipe, they modified both its ingredients and its name. Oyster, plum and mushroom "catsups" became English staples. Jane Austen's favorite type was walnut. These varieties, though rare, can still be found.
Colonists carried the recipes with them to the New World, where they found new crops. One such plant was the "love apple," or the modern tomato. The first tomato catsup was made in 1812 by James Mease, a scientist from Philadelphia.
America had a new indigenous condiment, and factories were quick to start producing it year round. They added toxic preservatives such as boric acid, formalin, salicylic acid and benzoic acid to their tomatoes. Still, the out-of-season fruits often became moldy and pest infected.
Henry J. Heinz revolutionized the industry when he started making bottles of tomato "ketchup" in 1876. Heinz claimed his product was made of only the purest ingredients, a difference consumers were welcome to see through his transparent bottles. He even changed the name to set his product apart.
Heinz remains the largest ketchup company in the country today, selling more than 650 million bottles yearly.