Title: How Was Ketchup Invented?
Headings: How Was Ketchup Invented?
How Was Ketchup Invented?
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.
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Content: 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.