Ketchup started out as a fish sauce
Before it was red and sweet, ketchup was a salty, fermented fish brine from southern China, and later a British sauce made from mushrooms or walnuts.
In the coastal regions of southern China, fishermen made a pungent sauce from salted, fermented fish. In the Hokkien language it was called something like kê-tsiap: the brine of pickled fish or shellfish.
British traders in Southeast Asia met sauces like it in the 17th and 18th centuries and took the idea, and probably the name, home.
The British ketchups
Back in Britain, “ketchup” came to mean almost any dark, salty, spiced sauce used to season food. Recipes from the period use:
- mushrooms (mushroom ketchup is still sold in Britain)
- oysters and mussels
- walnuts
- grapes and egg whites
None of them were sweet, and none were red.
Enter the tomato
In 1812, the American scientist and horticulturist James Mease published the first known tomato ketchup recipe. Over the 19th century, American manufacturers added more sugar and vinegar, and tomato ketchup became the default.
The linguist Dan Jurafsky uses ketchup as his favourite example of how food words travel: the name survived a journey across half the world while the sauce changed almost completely.
Bring it up
“Ketchup was originally a fermented fish sauce, and the British made it from mushrooms and walnuts before anyone used tomatoes.”
Follow the thread
- Same patternTempura was brought to Japan by the Portuguese Food words that travelled along trade routes and changed meaning on the way.
- RelatedUmami: the taste discovered in a bowl of soup Fermented fish sauce is a classic umami ingredient, like Roman garum.
- Same patternTea if by sea, chai if by land Another word from the Fujian coast that travelled the world on European ships.
