A bit of light history about ketchup. Not surprisingly (looking around at most other sauce of the sort) it was originally made with fish paste, and became popular as a general category because the vinegar and salt gave it a great (pre-refrigerator) shelf life.
Equally amusing are the comments, where the stuff is attributed originally to the Chinese, the Vietnamese, and the Indonesians.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
Interesting.
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Ketchup Used to Be Made of Fish: The Crazy History of The World's Greatest Condiment [Drawing Board]
Here's something that might just blow your mind: ketchup—the national condiment of 1896, according to the New York Tribune—wasn't always tomato based. In fact, if it had remained in its early form, we might be spreading fish paste on our burgers (gulp) instead of the tangy tomato-y goodness we presently rely on.
Somewhere along the line ketchup went through a grand transformation, which made it synonymous with the tomato. And today Heinz alone sells 650 million bottles of the special sauce an…
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Ketchup. I recall reading many years ago that it was from an Arabic word, but it looked funny to the British, who changed the spelling to something that looked better to them. Bah.
A host of possibilities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup#Terminology
As ofteen happens, I wandered off through links on the page and learned more about pens, ink, and a very well-designed and effective $50 nail trimmer.