Food For Thought |
Fish Gutsby Joe George |
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Spicy and Smoky Tomato Ketchup Yield: 2 cups 2 pounds ripe tomatoes 1 small onion, peeled and diced 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced 1/2 cup white wine vinegar 6 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons chipotle chili powder 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 1/4 teaspoon allspice 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon Bring a pot of water to a boil. Remove the cores of the tomatoes, and make a small X-shaped incision on the opposite ends. Drop the tomatoes in the water a few at a time and blanch them for only about 45 seconds, just to loosen their skins. Transfer the tomatoes to a bowl of iced water. Peel away their skins, cut them in half, squeeze out their seeds, and dice them. Transfer the tomatoes to a small pot with the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower to a low simmer. Cook for about an hour, until it becomes quite thick. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth. Myra’s Onion Ketchup Yield: 2 cups 5 small onions, peeled and diced 1 red bell pepper, diced 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced 1/4 inch piece ginger, peeled and minced 1/2 cup white wine vinegar 6 tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon crushed hot pepper 1/4 teaspoon cloves 1/4 teaspoon allspice 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon Combine all of the ingredients in a small pot. Bring to a boil, then lower to a slow simmer. Cook for about 1/2 hour. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth. Szechuan-Style Shrimp with Ketchup Yield: 4 servings 2 teaspoons flour 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 pound shrimp, peeled and split lengthwise 3 tablespoons ketchup 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon sherry 1 tablespoon water 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar 1 teaspoon sesame oil 4 thin slices ginger 2 cloves garlic, sliced thin 3 dried chilies, coarse chopped vegetable oil for pan frying sesame seeds for garnish In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt and egg. Mix until smooth. Add the shrimp and mix it until combined. In a separate bowl combine the ketchup, soy sauce, sherry, water sugar, vinegar, and sesame oil, then set aside. In a third bowl, combine the ginger, garlic, and chilies. Set aside. Heat about an inch of vegetable oil in a wok or large skillet until it reaches approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Gently add half of the battered shrimp to the oil. Fry until crispy. Remove from the oil to an absorbent towel and repeat with the remaining shrimp. Discard all but two tablespoons of the oil. Add the ginger-garlic-chili mixture to the remaining oil. Stir-fry for a few minutes. Add the shrimp back to the pan and stir-fry briefly. Add the ketchup mixture. Cook for a minute or two, until the sauce has thickened. Transfer to a serving platter and with sesame seeds. |
“Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup…”
—Henry Miller
So this is how it sometimes starts with me. There I was at my nephew’s birthday party eating a hotdog. I had it slathered with ketchup and the hotdog was just off the grill. It was still hot enough that when you bit into it the skin sort of “popped,” releasing salty goodness that only something stuffed into a synthetic casing can. It was my first backyard meal of the season and I was thoroughly enjoying it. And as I was eating I began to unconsciously analyze it; I can’t help myself.
What a combination, I thought: hotdogs and ketchup. There were other condiments, of course, but for some reason I chose only ketchup. It’s how I used to eat hotdogs as a child. It reminded me of those idyllic times.
Being interested in food origins, I began to wonder about ketchup. I already have my theories on the disputed history of the hotdog, but what about ketchup? It’s so ubiquitous, it’s probably in every refrigerator in America. It’s certainly a mainstay in fast food restaurants. Surely ketchup was not always as it is today, laden with super-sweet corn syrup. I did a little research, and it was easy to prove this true. I knew of one food historian, Andrew Smith, who went so far as to write an entire book on the subject: Pure Ketchup, A History of America’s National Condiment. I shan’t bore the reader with that much information.
An internet search for the phrase “ketchup recipe” yielded more than 11,000 hits. This doesn’t surprise me, but what does interest me is that after skimming through my cookbooks I learned that almost all of them penned before 1950 had at least one recipe for ketchup (or catsup), and many had nothing to do with tomatoes.
This included a thin hand-written volume I inherited from my late grandmother, who probably learned the recipes at the apron strings of her mother. My grandmother was born in 1906 (which she often referred to as “aught-six”) and I have no way of knowing when she actually wrote down the recipe. What intrigued me was that the recipe, which is simply titled “catsup,” contained no tomatoes. It’s mainly comprised of spiced sweet-and-sour onions and peppers—sort of a relish, really.
Scanning other cookbooks my initial thoughts were confirmed. As is the case of many condiments, ketchup is a form of preservation dating to times before modern refrigeration.
The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, originally published in 1918, lists four catsup recipes: apple, gooseberry, grape, and tomato. The classic 1859 British tome, Beeton’s Book of Household Management, lists three types of ketchup: mushroom, walnut, and oyster. Closer to home, a cookbook published in 1917 by the Women of the First Congregational Church in Malone, New York lists two: cucumber and tomato. And in the Buffalo Evening News Cooking School Cookbook, circa 1925, there are two recipes for ketchup, currant and tomato. What is really interesting is that while most are found in chapters for pickles or relishes, the Buffalo Evening News Cooking School Cookbook lists them in a chapter called “Preservation of Food.”
Our winters have always been frigid, summers humid, and growing seasons short, but I can only image what it was like to deal with food preservation then. Because of the laborious task of food preparation, and the basic chore of acquiring ingredients to do the job, the thought of food waste must have been unimaginable.
What is truly difficult to swallow (pun intended) is the unique origin of ketchup. English sailors are said to have came across Chinese cooks using a pungent sauce they referred to as ke-tsiap, the Chinese word for pickled fish sauce, and it was originally made from fermented fish entrails.
I can only surmise this was a more pungent version of the modern day fish sauces that are prevalent in Far East cuisines today. How it went from fermented fish guts to mushrooms, fruit, walnuts, and finally the glorious tomato one can only speculate. But one thing is for sure, I dasn’t (another of my grandmothers common words) take ketchup for granted again.
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