Ketchup authorities here in the U.S. recently decided that “catsup” is not an acceptable spelling. Hunt’s, Heinz’s biggest ketchup competitor, used to spell it Hunt’s Catsup, but they have now changed. Of course, that puts an end to the delighful childhood game at dinner:“Look! The catsup on the table!”
An earlier thread on this board revealed that at the turn of the last century ketchup could refer to almost any kind of condiment.
The source of our word ketchup may be Malay, possibly taken into Malay from the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. It referred to a kind of sauce, but a sauce without tomatoes; rather, it contained fish brine, herbs, and spices. The sauce seems to have emigrated to Europe by way of sailors, where it was made with locally available ingredients such as the juice of mushrooms or walnuts. At some point, when the juice of tomatoes was first used, ketchup as we know it was born. However, it is important to realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries ketchup was a generic term for sauces whose only common ingredient was vinegar. The word is first recorded in English in 1690 in the form catchup, in 1711 in the form ketchup, and in 1730 in the form catsup. These three spelling variants of a foreign borrowing remain current.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992, 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The use of the tomato in a ketchup appears to be of American origin. We may be able to thank H. J. Heinz for building a consensus of what the stuff is supposed to be.
Ketchup has more vinegar and spicing. Catsup is fundamentally a combination of tomato sauce and tomato paste and is far more sweet.
My personal guess is that since Heinz in a major producer of vinegar, they were free to use more of it in their product. All you need to do is to taste to two side by side and you will sense the difference immediately. It’s similar to the difference between mayonnaise and Miracle Sh!t… er Whip.
A fluent speaker of Chinese once told me that ketchup derives from the word ketsop or something like it. In Chinese it refers to a minced vegetable relish. One can easily imagine the English sailors bringing this term back with them from Hong Kong.
This has little to do with the OP, but in view of the preceding I think it’s ironic that here in Panama ketchup (salsa de tomate, but it’s ketchup all the same) is a standard condiment for chow mein. :eek: In fact, if you get take-out chow mein or chop suey in a fast food restaurant, they will invariably put little packets of ketchup in the bag, along with the soy sauce.
Panama is the only place I have seen that is more ketchup-crazy than the U.S.
Aline Kominsky-Crumb (cartoonist and spouse of R. Crumb) once did a marvelous story about the differences between East and West Coast foodways (specifically Long Island and Davis, California)…one of the criticisms was that barbecue in New York was too Jewish, and the frankfurters in northern California were too goyish. Another was that, while Californians had access to fine produce, they weren’t quite sure of what to do with it in the kitchen.
Anyway, she pointed out that the Chinese takeout joints near her California home provided ketchup and (French’s style) mustard with the food.
Miracle WHIP,on a burger???!! Oh the HUMANITY!What IS that stuff? It ain’t mayo and it ain’t salad dressing.
>>> A hamburger wants mayonnaise, or Miracle Whip, and a little mustard.<<<<
See above post…oops.
I blame the French. Back in the '20s, when all good New Yawkers went to Paris, they had it drummed into them: “Red wine for red meat, white wine for poultry and fish.”
Now several generations have passed and this knowledge has come down to their descendents as “Red liquidy stuff goes with red meat, and white liquidy stuff goes with anything that falls outside the red meat category.” It is generally agreed that hot dogs fall outside the meat category by virtue of their not usually having any actual identifiable meat in them.
Order your extra condiments on the side and dip your burger. Tell your critics, “That’s how it’s done in France!”
Hamburgers? Why ketchup and mustard both of course! Hell, I’ll be even more blasphemous: I’ve been known to put ketchup on steak!
You wanna talk gross? I’ve heard that in some European coutries they put mayo on their fries ! Or they dip them in vinegar! Bleech!
I resemble that remark <smirk>. Okay, a serious stab? I just did a search for “History of Foods” and got over 17,000 hits. So, no cites here ! I’ll do a serious WAG, however.
It’s about steel, and food. Andrew Carnegie, and the Heinz Family of Pittsburgh. They had an inexorable hold on old NYC. Andrew built his musical hall on West 57th. Street, and the Heinz’s insured that Heinz Catsup was the preferred condiment in NYC. Is it a co-inkydink that Carnegie Hall is on 57th Street, and the famous Heinz Catsup has…57 varieties of tomato? I think not! I smell the Illuminati at work here.
Cartooniverse
Miracle Whip is the one true condiment for any item between two pieces of bread.
[ul][li]hamburger[]hot dog[]peanut butter[]egg[]anything else[/ul][/li]“A sandwich just ain’t a sandwich without Miracle Whip.”
Ajax? You use miracle whip on peanut butter? Holy cow…I think I’m gonna ::retch::…yack!
Well, now. Don’t I feel like a :wally. I actually wrote something below that quote, and it was this:
" A sandwich WITH Miracle Whip is an Abomination, and an insult to Sh’ai Hulud. It affronts the entire House Harkonnen"— Dune. 
Cartooniverse
p.s. I’m not sure it was worth actually posting, but after my little humiliation up there, I thought I owed the person I quoted a corrected Posting. Sorry !
I’ve lived in NYC for almost ten years, but I’ve also lived in DC, Seattle and Minnesota and spent lots of time in California, North Dakota and Texas. Some thoughts:
Miracle Whip v. Mayo: I remember seeing a marketing atlas that showed where Hellman’s Mayo outsold Miracle Whip and vice versa (we’ll assume they controlled for the fact that it’s Best Foods Mayo out west): the line was just west of Chicago, going due south. Miracle Whip’s just a Western thing. I loved it when I was a kid in Seattle, but god I can’t touch the stuff now.
Now for the speculation: why only ketchup on New York burgers? Because 1) lots of New York burgers were sold out of very un-air-conditioned street vendors, and 2) burgers are too bland for spicy mustard. The former means mayonnaise wasn’t in the bargain - it’d spoil too quickly. Mustard was possible, but spicy New York mustard? That’s all you’d taste if you put it on a burger. Ah, but sweet’n’sour ketchup - that works. Won’t curdle and won’t overwhelm the plain, fried meat.
Of course, if New Yorkers had been able to grill their meat they wouldn’t have this problem because the meat would taste like something. But grilling’s tough here - real grilling is almost impossible to find due to the fire code.
So I’m very much a non-New Yorker when it comes to burgers: ketchup, mustard, mayo, relish, fried onion, and lettuce, on a nicely charred, medium rare burger, with a toasted bun.
xtnjohnson said
'Scuse me! Is that “opposed to the air-conditioned burgers sold in the rest of the US in the pre-WWII era?”
Again, don’t forget. We are talking about condiment origins in antiquity(or at least the early 20th century) and nobody grilled their burgers pre-WWII. You fried them in a pan at home, or had them in a restaurant, which cooked them on a flat grill. None of that flame-broiled crap. Cooked on the same flat grill that cooked your eggs that morning.
Put your mind into a world that existed 75-100 years ago.
Okay, samclem, you got me thinking. It was right after W.W.II that the McDonald brothers realized they were selling more hamburgers at their barbecue restaurant than they were selling barbecue. So they made a switch.
Ever looked at the very, very basic McDonald’s to this day?
It’s ketchup and a couple of pickles.
Okay, we may be on to something.
Of course, the last time I had a hamburger at Cracker Barrel (which I assume represents Southern cuisine), it had ketchup AND mayonnaise on it…which certainly wasn’t bad 
I don’t like mayonaisse on anything, I’ll only eat it if it’s mixed into something else, like tuna salad.
Burgers - cheese, mustard, lettuce, pickles, onions, tomato. If I am feeling self-indulgent I’ll get bacon, jalapenos, or even chili (and Sonic will serve you one with all that). I don’t like ketchup on them, but I can tolerate it - if some is on my burger and I’ve already driven off, I’ll eat it. If there’s mayo on it, I’ll give it away or throw it out.
ONE exception - I like barbecue sauce on broiled burgers.
Hot Dogs - well, I’m not a big hot dog fan, but I eat 'em with mustard, chili, and onions. Don’t really care for relish.
I only use ketchup for french fries, and not often.
I spent the first 11 years of my life in the Tulsa, OK area, and have lived 17 years in the Dallas area since. People down here like to put mayo on their burgers, I don’t get it. My parents eat mayo on sandwiches, but not on burgers.
Whatever modest GQ value this thread might have had has long since diappeared. Off to IMHO.
Oh, and ketchup on anything, including BBQ sauce, is an abomination.