Title: 11 Ketchup Facts That Go Well With Everything | Mental Floss
Headings: 11 Ketchup Facts That Go Well With Everything
11 Ketchup Facts That Go Well With Everything
1. Tomatoes haven’t always been a key player.
2. European explorers took it home.
3. Americans may have added the tomatoes.
4. Ketchup was a miracle drug.
5. The early going was rough.
6. Heinz made way more than 57 varieties.
7. “Ketchup” was another branding coup from Heinz.
8. Heinz’s 57 has another non-marketing use.
9. Ketchup isn’t going to win any races.
10. Illinois is a hotbed of ketchup world records.
11. Americans really, really love ketchup.

Content: Ketchup was a miracle drug. In 1834, Ohio physician Dr. John Cook Bennett took to the newspapers to herald tomatoes as a cure-all for " just about everything from dyspepsia to cholera ." As part of this campaign, the good doctor published recipes for tomato-based ketchup. 5. The early going was rough. Ketchup earned a nasty reputation in the 1860s when unscrupulous makers used excessive preservatives and coal tar to give the condiment its iconic red coloring. In 1866, French cookbook author Pierre Blot penned a warning against ketchup, calling it " filthy, decomposed, and putrid ," and stating his convictions that "many cases of debility and consumption" come from "eating such stuff." You can’t keep a good condiment down, though. The Oxford Companion points out that by the close of the 19th century, tomato ketchup had become an American staple. A 1901 study found that Connecticut shoppers had access to a whopping 94 brands of ketchup.