Why is it “tomato ketchup?”
The thought occurred to me as I ate lunch today and, thankfully, didn’t spooge my shirt with said condiment. Why is the word tomato necessary on the label? Is there zucchini ketchup? How about eggplant ketchup?
Or is it left over from a time when we (rightfully) didn’t trust companies to put good ingredients in their products and before they were required to tell us just exactly what was in there?
Either way, the thought fits the blog.
Actually, yes. Wikipedia says, “Ketchup started out as a general term for sauce, typically made of mushrooms or fish brine with herbs and spices. Some popular early main ingredients included blueberry, anchovy, oyster, lobster, walnut, kidney bean, cucumber, cranberry, lemon, celery and grape. Mushroom ketchup is still available in some countries, such as the UK, and banana ketchup is popular in the Philippines.”
See also http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/379502 for more discussion on this.