Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and sour flavor. Ketchup now typically refers to tomato ketchup, although early recipes for different varieties contained mushrooms, oysters, mussels, egg whites, grapes, or walnuts, among other ingredients. Tomato ketchup is made from tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar, with seasonings and spices. The spices and flavors vary but commonly include onions, allspice, coriander, cloves, cumin, garlic, mustard and sometimes include celery, cinnamon, or ginger. Tomato ketchup is sometimes used as a condiment for dishes that are usually served hot, and are fried or greasy. Tomato ketchup is sometimes used in other sauces and dressings, such as Thousand Island dressing and Marie Rose sauce, or as a general cooking ingredient. Its flavor may be replicated as an additive flavoring for snacks, such as potato chips.
Nomenclature
Terminology The term used for the sauce varies. Ketchup is the dominant term in North America and the UK, though catsup is commonly used in some southern US states and Mexico. The term "tomato sauce" is also used in the UK for something similar.
Etymology
The etymology of the word ketchup is unclear; there are multiple competing theories:
Amoy theory A folk etymology is that the word came from the Amoy (Xiamen) region of China into English, as a borrowed word 茄汁 (ke2 zap1, Cantonese, meaning "tomato sauce"; the character 茄 means 'eggplant'; tomato in Chinese is 番茄, so the phrase translates to foreign eggplant sauce). Another theory is that the word derives from one of two words from Hokkien of the Fujian region of coastal southern China: kôe-chiap (in the Amoy / Xiamen dialect and Quanzhou dialect) or kê-chiap (in the Zhangzhou dialect). Both pronunciations of the same word (膎汁, kôe-chiap / kê-chiap) come from the Quanzhou dialect, Amoy dialect, and Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien, respectively, where it meant the brine of pickled fish or shellfish (膎, 'pickled food' (usually seafood) + 汁, 'juice'). There are citations of koe-chiap in the Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy (1873) by Carstairs Douglas, defined as "brine of pickled fish or shell-fish".
Malay theory Ketchup may have entered the English language from the Malay word kicap (pronounced [kitʃap], sometimes spelled kecap or ketjap). Originally meaning "soy sauce", the word itself derives from Chinese. In Indonesian cuisine, which is similar to Malay, the term kecap refers to fermented savory sauces. Two main types are well known in their cuisine: kecap asin, which translates to "salty kecap" in Indonesian (a salty soy sauce) and kecap manis or "sweet kecap" in Indonesian. Kecap manis is a sweet soy sauce that is a mixture of soy sauce with brown sugar, molasses, garlic, ginger, anise, coriander and a bay leaf reduced over medium heat until rather syrupy. A third type, kecap ikan, meaning "fish kecap" is fish sauce similar to the Thai nam pla or the Philippine patis. It is not, however, soy-based.
European-Arabic theory American anthropologist E. N. Anderson relies on Elizabeth David to claim that ketchup is a cognate of the French escavèche, meaning "food in sauce". The word also exists in Spanish and Portuguese forms as escabeche, "a sauce for pickling", which culinary historian Karen Hess traced back to Arabic kabees, or "pickling with vinegar". The term was anglicized to caveach, a word first attested in the late 17th century, at the same time as ketchup.
History The term ketchup first appeared in 1682. The word entered the English language in Britain during the late 17th century, appearing in print as ketchup (1682), catchup (1690), and later as catsup (1730). Recipes for many types of ketchup began to appear in British and then American cookbooks in the 18th century.
Mushroom ketchup
In the United Kingdom, from the 1600s ketchup was prepared with mushrooms as a primary ingredient, rather than tomatoes. In the United States, mushroom ketchup dates back to at least 1770, and was prepared by British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies.
Tomato ketchup
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