Title: Everything You Never Knew About Ketchup and Mustard - Chowhound
Headings: The Ultimate Condiment Showdown: Ketchup vs. Mustard
The Ultimate Condiment Showdown: Ketchup vs. Mustard
History
Popularity
Influence
Fanaticism
Taste
Culture
Health
Versatility
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Content: Mixed with brandy, spices, and preservatives like sodium benzoate, ketchup’s popularity spiked in part for its (comparatively) long shelf life and as a means for preserving tomatoes. Pittsburgh ketchup-maker Henry Heinz reinvented the sauce in the early 1900s using pectin-rich ripe tomatoes and vinegar as natural preservatives (instead of increasingly unpopular chemicals) and ketchup began to enjoy a full-on frenzy. As Heinz perfected his sauce, complicated and unnecessary home recipes began to vanish from cookbooks and Heinz would come to dominate the condiment category. These days a bottle can be found in roughly 97 percent of American households and nearly every restaurant the world over. Vintage ad, Heinz Ketchup/Facebook
Mustard’s journey starts long before ketchup’s but ends in a somewhat similar place. Now a multi-billion dollar market, modern mustard first emerged in Europe in the sixth century B.C.E., and mustard seeds have been found even further back in fossils traced to the Mesopotamian empire (Middle East) circa 3000 B.C.E., and in catacombs of Egyptian Pharaohs. Both Greeks and Romans ate a version of prepared mustard mixing the seeds with grape must and spices, and then finally jotted down an official recipe in 42 A.D.
Around the 10th century, mustard had made its way to the English and French countrysides and over the next several centuries several versions would emerge, including an especially popular variety made with white wine in the small French village of Dijon by Maurice Grey and his financier, Auguste Poupon. As big a hit as it was overseas, mustard didn’t find its footing in the U.S. until Robert French (R.T. French Company) introduced a mild yellow version as a hot dog condiment during the St. Louis World’s Fair (1904). Chowhound’s Spicy Yellow Mustard
French’s yellow mustard would enjoy dominance until 1981 when Grey Poupon capitalized on the luxury-obsessed era with their “ Pardon Me ” ad campaign, featuring Gordon Gekko-esque businessmen eating it with steak in the back of Rolls Royces. Though it’s never overtaken yellow mustard, versatile Dijon and spicy English earned adoration both as a condiment and as a base for salad dressings, sauces, and marinades.