Results 1 to 15 of 27

Thread: Ketchup

Hybrid View

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Ketchup

    This is an old Nat Geo article referenced by a current one that crossed my newsfeed over the weekend. I have mentioned that Ketchup was a Chinese invention, and been taken to task on it more than a few times. So I'm starting this here thread.


    PHOTOGRAPH BY JASMINE WIGGINS
    APRIL 21, 2014

    How Was Ketchup Invented?
    by Jasmine Wiggins

    It is a dynamic red concoction. At once savory and sweet, with just the right amount of puckering twang, it is slathered and squirted onto our favorite foods.

    Even the most barren of refrigerators has a lingering bottle that clatters with the whoosh of an opened door. It is the hero of American condiments: ketchup.

    In the U.S., 97 percent of households report having a bottle at the table. How did a simple sauce come to be so loved by America? It turns out ketchup’s origins are anything but American. Ketchup comes from the Hokkien Chinese word, kê-tsiap, the name of a sauce derived from fermented fish. It is believed that traders brought fish sauce from Vietnam to southeastern China.

    The British likely encountered ketchup in Southeast Asia, returned home, and tried to replicate the fermented dark sauce. This probably happened in the late 17th and early 18th centuries as evidenced by a recipe published in 1732 for “Ketchup in Paste,” by Richard Bradley, which referenced “Bencoulin in the East-Indies” as its origin. (See “How a Food Becomes Famous.”)

    But this was certainly not the ketchup we would recognize today. Most British recipes called for ingredients like mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, or anchovies in an effort to reproduce the savory tastes first encountered in Asia. Mushroom ketchup was even a purported favorite of Jane Austen. These early ketchups were mostly thin and dark, and were often added to soups, sauces, meat and fish. At this point, ketchup lacked one important ingredient.

    Enter the tomato. The first known published tomato ketchup recipe appeared in 1812, written by scientist and horticulturalist, James Mease, who referred to tomatoes as “love apples.” His recipe contained tomato pulp, spices, and brandy but lacked vinegar and sugar.

    Ketchup’s success was due in part because it could be kept for up to a year. Still, preservation of tomato ketchups proved challenging. Since tomato-growing season was short, makers of ketchup had to solve the problem of preserving tomato pulp year round. Some producers handled and stored the product so poorly that the resulting sauce contained contaminants like bacteria, spores, yeast, and mold—leading French cookbook author Pierre Blot to call commercial ketchup “filthy, decomposed and putrid” in 1866.

    Early investigations into commercial ketchup found that it contained potentially unsafe levels of preservatives, namely coal tar, which was sometimes added to achieve the a red color, and sodium benzoate, an additive that retarded spoilage. By the end of the 19th Century, benzoates were seen as particularly harmful to health. At the forefront of the war against them was one Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who maintained that the use of these harmful preservatives was unnecessary if high quality ingredients were used and handled properly. (See “Chemicals Within Us.”)

    Wiley partnered with a Pittsburgh man named Henry J. Heinz who had started producing ketchup in 1876. Heinz was also convinced American consumers did not want chemicals in their ketchup. In answer to the benzoate controversy, Heinz developed a recipe that used ripe, red tomatoes—which have more of the natural preservative called pectin than the scraps other manufacturers used—and dramatically increased the amount of vinegar and to reduce risk of spoilage. Heinz began producing preservative-free ketchup, and soon dominated the market. In 1905, the company had sold five million bottles of ketchup.

    With the rise of commercial ketchup, recipes for the condiment slowly vanished from cookbooks. Home cooks found that homemade ketchup just didn’t taste “right.” This is not surprising. Americans now purchase 10 billion ounces of ketchup annually, which translates to roughly three bottles per person per year. If you can buy something delicious off the shelf, why on Earth would you attempt to make it?


    Photograph by Jasmine Wiggins

    Why not?

    Last year, during the final few, trailing days of summer, I was not quite done relishing tomatoes. I had twenty pounds of red fruit gleaming on my kitchen table. I canned most of them to use in sauces and soups for the winter, but I had an inkling to try something different. I started to think about ketchup as method of preservation just as Americans had considered the sauce in the 19th century.

    My friends thought I was crazy when I told them I was making ketchup. “You can’t do that!” one said. The flavors, he went on, were impossible to reproduce. There was a reason everyone bought commercial ketchup, he insisted, because any attempt to prepare a homemade version was futile. Fortunately, I love a challenge.

    One of the first recipes Henry Heinz used back in the day contained allspice, cloves, cayenne pepper, mace, and cinnamon. A second included pepper, ginger, mustard seed, celery salt, horseradish, and brown sugar. The recipe I tested includes similar ingredients. While I admit my end result tastes nothing like Heinz (that rich texture is hard to achieve), it is still quite delicious. More savory than sweet, it packs a bit of heat that mellows with time after canning.

    Today, the world of condiments is metamorphosing with the rise of alternative and artisanal ketchups and the ever-increasing popularity of my personal favorite condiment, Sriracha. Despite ketchup’s nearness to our hearts and all-American reputation, it is not even number one-selling condiment in America. What is? Mayonnaise.


    Photograph by Jasmine Wiggins

    Ketchup

    From: The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You can Stop Buying & Start Making by Alana Chernila.

    Clarkson Potter/Publishers. Link

    Makes 4 cups

    2 tablespoons olive oil
    1 cup diced onion (large)
    5 garlic cloves, minced
    6 pounds ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cored, or three 28-ounce cans tomatoes, drained
    3 teaspoons kosher salt, plus additional to taste
    1 tablespoon paprika
    1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
    1 tablespoon celery salt
    1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
    1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
    1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder, plus additional to taste
    1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
    1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
    1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
    1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
    1 tablespoon honey

    1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, while stirring.

    2. Add the tomatoes, salt, paprika, cinnamon, cloves, celery salt, cumin, dry mustard, chili powder, and ground pepper and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.

    3. Blend until smooth with an immersion blender or transfer the mixture to an upright blender in two batches and puree until smooth. If transferred, return the mixture to the pot.

    4. Add vinegars, brown sugar, and honey. Cook over medium heat, uncovered, stirring often, until the ketchup thickens, about 30 minutes. Adjust salt, pepper, and chili powder to taste.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    This is so random

    The deadline blur has taken over my posting here.

    Inventor Loses Ketchup-Packet Patent in Battle With Heinz
    In fighting a patent infringement suit, Heinz requested review of Scott White’s claims


    A patent-infringement suit claimed that the removable cover on Heinz’s Dip & Squeeze ketchup packets was a rip-off of the ‘CondiCup.’ PHOTO: GENE J. PUSKAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS
    By JULIE JARGON Updated Feb. 19, 2016 8:36 p.m. ET

    A Chicago inventor Friday lost his patent on a ketchup packet following a years-long battle with ketchup maker Kraft Heinz Co.

    Scott White, a risk manager for the Chicago Housing Authority, claimed Heinz stole his patented idea for a flexible condiment package he called the “CondiCup” that would fit in a car’s drink holder and allow people to dip French fries and other finger foods. He said the product could help avoid the mess that traditional ketchup packets can make when fast-food customers try to open them while driving.

    Mr. White said he had pitched his idea to a Heinz executive who passed on the invention but that the company later came out with a package that contained similar elements. In 2012 he filed a patent-infringement suit against Heinz, claiming the removable cover on the company’s Dip & Squeeze ketchup packets was a rip-off of his.

    In fighting the infringement suit, Heinz requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office re-examine certain claims in Mr. White’s patent. In June 2013, the examiner at the patent office declared that many of Mr. White’s claims were too obvious to be patentable. Mr. White appealed, and Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to cancel Mr. White’s patent.

    Mr. White referred a request for comment to his attorney, Keith Grady, in the St. Louis, Mo., office of the law firm Polsinelli. “We’re disappointed in the outcome,” Mr. Grady said, adding that Mr. White is in the process of determining whether to fight the finding by either requesting a rehearing with the federal circuit court or by petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the case.

    The patent-infringement case is stayed pending a final decision.

    “We are pleased with the decision as we have always maintained this case was groundless and without merit,” said a spokesman for Kraft Heinz.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  3. #3
    Ketchup has always been a favorite in our household, my eldest child would put ketchup in almost anything they eat (weird). But now they like Sriracha more than Heinz ketchup. I think i would try the ketchup recipe one of these days.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Ok, I know we have some Canadians on this here board...

    ...is this really a thing up in the Great White North?

    The ketchup saga
    Imperfect information fuelled this social media uprising
    By Sylvain Charlebois
    Published: March 28, 2016


    French’s Ketchup has been a viral sensation, but how Canadian is it really? Photo: French's

    The politics of food distribution is alive and well, or so it would seem.

    Without notice, Loblaws decided to dump French’s Ketchup, causing a two-day viral backlash by the public. The pressure was so great that Loblaws actually reversed its decision, just a few days after making it.

    Many are speculating how unfair competitive practices amongst vendors could have had something to do with it. Finding any evidence of this is always challenging. But the ketchup story speaks to how the intricacies of food retailing are becoming more intertwined with unexpected social uprisings.

    The Leamington story is certainly at the epicentre of this recent unorganized rebellion against the food establishment. Heinz, a competitor to French’s, closed its Leamington, Ont. plant in June 2014. This put many employees out of work and caused several tomato farmers to wonder what to do next, as they were left without a customer.

    Highbury Canco, supported by local investors, eventually bought the plant and continued to pack some products under the Heinz label — but ketchup was not one of them.

    The American company French’s, mostly known for its mustard manufactured in the U.S., buys most of its mustard grains from Saskatchewan. French’s has not only expanded into the ketchup industry but it recently began using tomatoes from Leamington and processing them at the Leamington plant. Interesting strategy, but market access is key in processing.

    In Canada, given its market clout, Loblaws can make or break processing companies. Highbury Canco relied on a partnership with Loblaws to increase sales of French’s Ketchup and entice more tomato farmers to supply the plant, as it grew its market share. Loblaws’ decision to pull the product took the wind out of Highbury Canco’s sails.

    Most of the general public were unaware of this — until the news spread on social media. What was perceived as a rational and strategic corporate decision at the time by Loblaws caused Canadian consumers to support a company that champions local foods and jobs. By the time #FrenchsKetchup was the No. 1 Twitter handle on Tuesday, the battle suddenly ended with Loblaws’ decision to relist the product.

    Increasingly, the consumer is becoming the true CEO of the food supply chain. Empowered by social media, consumers are now prompting how food is produced, manufactured and distributed. In just a few hours, with absolute imperfect information, consumers reversed a well-considered decision made by the largest private employer in the country. It is not just about distribution, but rather about how any output is perceived by the marketplace. However, every now and then the “CEO” often shows signs of confusion which can cause concern for the future.

    In Loblaws’ defence, the grocery business is no easy affair. Consumers angered by Loblaws’ decision accused the grocery giant on social media of discriminating against Canadian farmers and processors. Yet this is not an entirely accurate picture.

    Loblaws’ strategic focus is certainly on its own private label, namely President’s Choice, one of Canada’s most trusted and valued brands. Unlike French’s, President’s Choice is Canadian. But most importantly, many of these products, including President’s Choice Ketchup, are made with Canadian-grown tomatoes and the condiment is processed here in Canada. The accusations against Loblaws of not supporting local farmers and processors are unfounded, as far as ketchup is concerned.

    In essence, it was David fighting Goliath with a bottle of homemade ketchup. David was clearly Leamington and the wonderful “rise from the ashes” project happening in the community. However, to pinpoint who played the role of Goliath in this case is unclear. It may have been Loblaws, or Kraft Heinz which may have played a role behind the scenes. Protecting real estate in the grocery business is key, and partnerships with important vendors can be critical to any grocer’s bottom line. For Loblaws, nurturing its relationship with Kraft Heinz makes perfect business sense. Conversely, in response to the market’s reaction, it also makes as much business sense for Loblaws to reverse its decision on French’s Ketchup.

    What needs to be underscored by the ketchup tale is the collectively recognized currency of locally processed food products. Safeguarding our food systems is not only about farming. It is also about how we add value to our own locally grown commodities.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Canada!
    Posts
    23,110
    Yeah..well.
    Heinz closed a plant in Leamington Ontario.
    There were a lot of Tomato farmers in the area that had no where to sell their tomatoes.
    Then French's stepped in and bought the tomatoes for their ketchup plant in Ohio.

    Some guy then went on a rail about Heinz being jerks and how all of Canada should support French's because they bought the tomatoes.
    You'd think that would be the end of it, but no. For some reason, Canadian's got on board that Ketchup train especially after one of the major food stores here started to remove French's from it's stock in order to sell it's own in house brand. The protest saw that store (Loblaws) restock it's shelves and French's is now going to start making it's Ketchup in Canada. I don't know what will happen to the Ohio plant.

    It's on of those weird things that has you wonder what is up with what people fin important. there are hundreds of brands of ketchup after all.
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    CA, USA
    Posts
    4,900
    I've always felt a bit grossed out by ketchup, particularly by the dregs of it that people leave on their plates, or what's left in and around the ketchup bottle as it starts becoming empty.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •