Is there a difference? If so, what? Is ther something about the way the tomatoes are processed? Or is it the company’s preference as to what it is called? It looks and tastes exactly the same, and from what I can tell from reading the labels, they are made form the exact same ingredients, so why is it sometimes ketchup and sometimes catsup?
-Syko
You say “ketchup” and I say “catsup”. There’s a song there somewhere.
Alternative spellings for a Malay word (kechap) meaning “fish sauce”.
(confirms yourdictionary.com]
Somehow it got its way into English, and dropped its aquatic flavor.
If you want to try the original stuff, it is available in ethnic food stores, imported from Thailand or Vietnam. A very nice alternative to vinegar or lemon juice.
Bingo! And I don’t own shares in them…
I say “Ketchup” and I like the green and purple kind.
There may or may not be a song, but there is a Straight Dope column: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_102a.html
Kicap (the spelling used in Malaysia nowadays) is what the Malays call soy sauce. Just the same old brown soy sauce we’re familiar with here, using neither fish nor tomato.
The two different Chinese spellings that Cecil cited, ke-tsiap and koe-chiap (for which he had no explanation) probably reflect two different Chinese dialects. One is Amoy-Hokkien and I’m guessing the other would be Cantonese. Either that, or they’re both Amoy-Hokkien, and just got spelled differently because two different people spelled it and there’s no standardized spelling for Amoy-Hokkien.
Since Amoy-Hokkien is the main form of Chinese spoken in Malaysia, it influenced the Chinese words that reached us through Malay. For example tea, from Malay teh, from Amoy-Hokkien te (corresponding to Mandarin cha). The Ancient Chinese word these different forms originated from was d‘a.
The American Heritage Dictionary derives it from
The latter word corresponds to Mandarin zhi. I haven’t found a Mandarin equivalent for ‘minced seafood’.
The spelling ketchup is based on the Malay form of the word, while it looks like catsup was an attempt to recover the original Chinese word.
“I’m in way over my head.”
“Kicap (the spelling used in Malaysia nowadays) is what the Malays call soy sauce. Just the same old brown soy sauce we’re familiar with here, using neither fish nor tomato.”
In Indonesia it’s “kecap” (pronounced “ketchap”) and is plain brown soy sauce unless it is “kecap manis” (sweet “kecap”) in which case it is like heavily sugared soy sauce. Very good.
There is quite a difference between catsup and ketchup. While it may not be apparent to the untrained palate, the spice components and especially the acidity varies dramatically from brand to brand. The greatest difference that I have seen is in the sweetness. I find Hunt’s catsup to be almost cloying compared to my favorite, which is Heinz. You will notice that Heinz ketchup has less sweetness and more of a vinegar topnote to it. As with Best Food’s Mayonnaise, I refuse to have any other brand in my house except Heinz 57 ketchup. The historical etymologies of the word as listed above are all quite precise.
From the OED:
Catchup: 1690 B.E. Dictionary Cant. Crew
Ketchup: 1711 Lockyer Acc. Trade India
Catsup: 1730 Swift Paneg. on Dean
Given that English, itself, had not dinitively settled on its own spelling by that time, it is not hard to understand that the transliteration of a foreign word showed up in multiple variants. I would guess that its immediate popularity would have aided in causing each of the spellings to have established a following hat was never surrendered.
(I also note that the ts spelling showed up in Ireland (where those letters could represent the phoneme now represented by ch) and that Jonathan Swift’s endorsement might have kept that spelling alive longer than it might otherwise have lasted).
are you here to help me with my ketchup problem?
FWIW, the Thai word for fish sauce is nam bpla (literally “sauce fish”, in Thai the adjective follows the noun). This is used in cooking and left on the table as a condiment as well. It smells like fermented fish, which is appropriate since that is what it is. It would be more the Thai equivalent of table salt than ketchup/catsup (in the western sense). Chili/tamarind paste would be a closer equivalent to ketchup, IMO.
Nuoc mam, that’s the Vietnamese word for it I was trying to think of. I have never attempted fermented fish, and likely never will, thank you. I have read that the garum sauce of the ancient Romans was similarly based on fermented fish (perhaps anchovies).