We got our ketchup from the British in the nineteenth century, and they got theirs from the Far East long before. The word is derived from the Malay word kechap, a fish sauce. No other food so familiar to Americans seems to have so many spellings. In England, it is both pronounced and written ΓÇ£ketchup,ΓÇ¥ while both ΓÇ£catsupΓÇ¥ and ΓÇ£ketchupΓÇ¥ are used in the United States. In the beginning, ketchups resembled todayΓÇÖs unsweetened Asian seasoning saucesΓÇöthin, sharp, and dark. Some were concocted from tomato juice, but many were based on mushrooms, walnuts, anchovies, or oysters. The Mushroom Ketchup in this section, an English sauce, gives a sense of the early ketchups. Sugar was not added until the end of the last century. TodayΓÇÖs ketchups are a wonderful balance of tangy and sweet.
