Tomato Paste

Posted by Frankie on October 20, 2000

In Reply to: Tomato Paste posted by Bob on October 19, 2000

: : Most all global translation of the red condiment to burgers and hotdogs will translate to "Tomato Paste" or "Spiced tomato sauce" so who first uttered the sound "Ketchup" and why? What does ketchup mean?

: It's one of the few words in English derived from the Malay language. Kechap is a fish sauce, and our ketchup does (if you stretch it a bit) resemble it, at least in how it's used as an add-on condiment rather than a cooking ingredient.

: And, by the way, where I come from (Chicago) we frown upon putting ketchup on hotdogs... a culinary category we take Very Seriously. I's something that only uncivilized people (e.g., everybody else) would do.

Looking back to the eighteenth century, ketchup started out as a sauce made of anchovies, walnuts, mushrooms and kidney beans. Doesn't sound very tomato like, does it? One popular theory is that the word ketchup is derived from the koechiap or ke-tsiap which is from the Amoy dialect of China. Roughly translated means the brime of pickled fish or shellfish. Around the late seventeenth century the name and samples arrived in England where it appeared in print as catchup and then finally as ketchup. It seems the name has stuck and has been made popular throughout the world! The British took in the idea and were soon using ketchup for pickling anchovies and oysters.