The "fermentation" aspect of these sauces is kinda scary now. This isn't just making beer or bread level; this is (can be) next level fermentation where evil ktulu looking things come out of the jar and eat the rest of the shelf sometimes. "Goodie Weston's breads are fine but watch out for the fish sauce, it'll make you talk to God."

On the other hand I'm super happy fermented foods are en vogue right now and lots of chefs are playing around with it. It means that I don't have to make everything myself if I want it. Hard kombucha, fermented pizza dough, pickled veggies, so much sourdough, kimchi, tempeh, doubanjiang are just on the shelves at the "Western" grocery stores. It's amazing.

? Lactofermentation has been around for eons- everything from sauerkraut to kimchi, to yoghurt to soy to any number of other things.

True and I'm thinking of the fancier and harder things like the Worcestershire sauce or such that would've been around but still the realm of specialists. you can make likker with rats and water, but you can also make incredibly nasty things you'll wish you hadn't :)

See also curing meats and some of the uglier cheeses. We've tamed many microbes in service of foods.

Jame's Townsend's YouTube channel fantastic if you are interested in colonial history or just the time period in general.

Dan Jurafsky's take on the topic: http://languageoffood.blogspot.com/2009/09/ketchup.html

Offtopic, but it's interesting to me that "Ketchup" is a very different thing depending on where you live. There are wide variations of how sweet it is, or how much vinegar, etc.

I'm aware that's also true for things like mustard, but the taste differences with ketchup were more abrubt to me.

My wife has this thin black vinegar thing made from mushrooms that she calls 'ketchup' so yeah. Where I live people say 'tomato ketchup' or 'tomato sauce' when they mean the thick stuff made from tomatoes.

Scroll down to the bottom of the article, there’s an 18th-century recipe for “mushroom ketchup.” (Along with a video on how to make it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29u_FejNuks)

Be interesting to see how close it is to your wife’s modern version!

The word originates from eastern China (Xiamen or previously know as Amoy), the Minnan-hua language uses kôe-chiap or kê-chiap. Originally a sauce of pickled fish with spices.

It's one several theories, apparently - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup#Etymology

Yes, interesting. I think there was an active spice trading route from Japan through Xiamen hundreds of years ago. Perhaps a true international product.

According to this post...

But who came up with the word “Ketchup”?

Who knows? There’s much debate over the origin of this word. Some say it’s a variant of a Chinese word for fish sauce. Others say it is a Malay word for the same.

In India (I first encountered it in Kenya), there's kachumbari, a kinda simple chutney of diced tomatoes and onion. I always wondered if that was the origin...

That's interesting, but I was talking about variations of tomato ketchup. The ketchup in Germany, the UK, and the US are all very different. I didn't like the ketchup in Germany at all (and I don't mean the curry ketchup...).

Probably less sugar than American ketchup... I vaguely recall the ketchup in Germany (non curry) having more vinegar too.

I'm sure I'll draw a bunch of anger from mostly the same people who think anything made by Anheuser-Busch isn't a real beer but last I checked normal Heinz ketchup was pretty universal across the americas and europe.

Perhaps, but when I went to restaurants and street vendors, they did not have Heinz.

And there are differences even with Heinz: https://scontent-dfw5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65...

The only difference that pops out at me is corn syrup vs. sugar. However, heat plus the acid in the tomatoes and vinegar is going to cleave sucrose into fructose and glucose anyway, so you are getting the same thing, ± a few percent fructose.

Tomato vs. tomato concentrate could be a real difference or a differences in labelling regulations. Ketchup is cooked, so I'm not sure how much it matters that some water was removed before or after things were mixed together.

The rest are just differences in terminology. Spirit vs. distilled vinegar are US/UK terms for the same thing. "Natural Flavoring" is probably equivalent to "Spice and Herb Extracts." I'm not sure if there's onion powder in the UK version, but it might count as a "spice" (it's in the spice section at the store, after all).

Those ingredients do not prove any difference in amounts of sweetness or vinegar. In both cases it's Tomato, vinegar, sugar, salt, spice.

Do the math to normalize the serving sizes and you'll see there are differences. The UK version, for example, has significantly more salt. You can see that without doing math. 300mg of salt in a 15 gram serving vs 160mg of salt in a 17g serving.

I'm perplexed why you think it would be odd for a company to make a version of their product that's suited to local tastes.

US: https://dam.kraftheinzcompany.com/adaptivemedia/rendition/00...

UK: https://d36rz30b5p7lsd.cloudfront.net/kraftbrands/heinzcouk/...

HFCS and sugar do have taste and mouth feel differences as well.

I do not think it's odd, and I never disputed that they were different. The picture posted was a non-sequitur though.

If you think HFCS and sugar are the same, and that tomato concentrate and tomatoes are also the same...I guess.

In this particular situation, HFCS is going to be 42-55% fructose (with the rest as glucose) while the hydrolyzed sugar will be a 50:50 mix. Not entirely the same, but pretty close!

Actually it is HFCS + (a smaller amount of) CS. CS is pure glucose, so it could be as little as 21% fructose. In any event, it would be legal for products with the US label and the UK label to have chemically identical sugars.

For the past N generations of my family, we've made a prune ketchup. Excellent on beef, pork, chicken as a marinade or sauce. I have an Italian plum tree in my backyard so that's become the source.

Catsup