why tomato ketchup...?

[joko]

why is it so widely popular?

what made them decide to make a thick smooth, quite sweet sauce out of tomatoes to put on anything?

why tomatoes, why not onion, mushroom, or some other veg? why not a mixed veg sauce?

jusy curious really

cheers

[gingejbee]

...and why Heinz, when it came 12th out of 13 in a recent blind-taste test in Which?

[bednobs]

good q joko and i'm not sure. You can get mushroom ketchup tho

[askyourgran]

Tom sauce on chips is a nice change, but I'm not a sauce lover really. But.... I do make my own barbecue sauce for spare ribs, and tomato sauce is the basic ingredient along with soy sauce, honey, mustard, garlic fresh ginger etc.

[Maydup]

Product of a glut maybe?

[237SJ]

I can`t stand the stuff. For some reason foreign hotels think all Brits love ketchup and have to put it on everything. I`ve never understood why.

[emmie]

not sure if any help, but i thought this quite interesting
Word History: The word ketchup exemplifies the types of modifications that can take place in borrowingboth of words and substances. The source of our word ketchup may be the Malay word kchap, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Kchap, like ketchup, was a sauce, but one without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. Sailors seem to have brought the sauce to Europe, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some unknown point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born. But it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690 in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the form catsup. All three spelling variants of this foreign borrowing remain current.

[scotman]

Possibly it is to do with the relative ease of growing them leading to a surfeit. The sauce may be a consequence of preserving them.

[joko]

yeh but the mushroom is ketchup in name only...its really just brown water with a mushroomy flavour...its not for dipping or pouring or bacon butties, or chips. its not on cafe tables or in most cupboards...

the only rival really is brown sauce which isnt a particular flavour

[emmie]

i was in cafe once where someone was shaking a bottle of heinz ketchup and the top came off, it looked a scene from the sopranos. Sorry to say we did laugh

[pastafreak]

Here's some more history-and a very old recipe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup

[joko]

cheers all,

em, yes ive heard of the word catsup, and that ketchup isnt solely for tomatoes..but fish brine...bleurgh haha


i reckon onion ketchup would be nice

[Maydup]

Out of loyalty to my old Dad, I'd chose brown over tomato sauce. But I don't have it often and tomato even less.

[emmie]

only with chips, never anything else, and not eating many these days anyway, and still go for Heinz, have tried a couple of other but didn't like them

[bednobs]

it's like the sausage sandwich game in here!

[looobylooo]

i prefer daddies tomato sauce to heinz..
had some tonight on homemade hotdogs with fried onions for tea.. hmmm.... 'twas niiice ;o)

[DaisyNonna]

HP Fruit Sauce yummy

[mike11111]

I don't care about Which? - for me Heinz is the only one. In a similar vein, when it comes to brown sauce it's either HP or nothing, and the Worcestershire sauce has to be Lea and Perrin's.

[Prudie]

Daughter's BF asked for tomato ketchup when he came to Sunday lunch of roast beef. That's him crossed off my list LOL

[craft1948]

The best brown sauce, which is a vital ingredient of a bacon sandwich is Branstons..................