It’s very rare that debates are settled. We can go on for decades arguing whether Mary Ann or Ginger is hotter, or Batman or Superman is cooler, or if Donald Trump or Ted Cruz is a bigger idiot. And don’t even get me started on the Less Filling vs. Tastes Great debate.Our penchant for everlasting arguments makes it all the more surprising to me that one issue appears to have been settled at some point in the last twenty-five years, at least in the United States. Everyone seems to have agreed that the red sauce on the table is ketchup, not catsup.When did this happen?As a little kid I remember being baffled by the two spellings. How can we pronounce two words the same that are spelled so differently? Tough. Though. Through. Thorough. Those words differ by just one letter each, yet we pronounce them with vastly different sounds. How the hell did we agree to this ketchup with a K or a C business?I might be misremembering this, but when I was a kid I think catsup was the working man’s condiment and ketchup belonged to the elites. Ketchup came in fancy glass bottles with attractive labels, and catsup came in cheap plastic and often just had the word catsup on it. No brand, no slogan, no picture. Just catsup.Now even ketchup comes in plastic bottles, although those bottles that are stored with the lid at the bottom are rather ingenious. And squeezing ketchup out of plastic bottles is much better than having to pound the shit out of a glass bottle to get it to flow.Has anyone done a study of just how many man hours the world has saved itself with the invention of the plastic ketchup bottle? If not, someone should. It’s like a whole new world. Such increased productivity. No way Mark Zuckerberg creates Facebook if he had to waste time trying to get ketchup for his fries.But when was the ketchup v catsup debate settled, and who settled it? A quick Google search suggests that Heinz was the decider. Hunts and Del Monte both used to spell it catsup, but now use ketchup. I couldn’t find a picture of Heinz using catsup. They appear to have always been ketchup. What a bunch of followers those other brands are. But I can’t blame them for wanting to catch up to Heinz. (Good Lord, I’m funny.)Perhaps it has something to do with the word cat being right there in the word. Cat sup. Cat soup. Who the hell wants to eat cat soup? Not me. Although I suspect cat stew is a more likely concoction than cat soup. Felines are a chunky meat.
Heinz may have lead the way on the chosen terminology, but they really tried to screw with us by changing ketchup’s color. Remember purple ketchup and green ketchup? What’s wrong with those people? Luckily they came to their senses and stopped making that crap.They still make fancy ketchup though. I always sort of snickered when I’d see “Fancy Ketchup” on those packets at McDonald’s. How fancy can ketchup in a packet be? Turns out that fancy actually refers to the thickness of the ketchup. Fancy ketchup is thicker than regular ketchup. So it actually is a bit fancier. I regret rolling my eyes when ketchup decided to get fancy. Sorry, ketchup.One other thing about ketchup. Since the ketchup v catsup debate is settled, can we all just agree that the word ketchup refers to a sauce made from tomatoes? If it’s made from anything else it’s not ketchup, okay?I’ve seen banana ketchup mentioned a few times the past month or so on cooking shows I’ve watched. Banana ketchup? That sounds like something my four-year-old daughter invented. “I like bananas. I love ketchup. Let’s make banana ketchup!” There may well be some condiment made from bananas that’s sort of like ketchup, but it should have a different name.And mushroom ketchup? I love mushrooms, but I get the dry heaves just thinking about that level of nastiness.Ketchup’s a simple condiment, so let’s keep it simple. We’ve settled on a spelling, let’s settle on ingredients. It must have tomato.There. That’s done.Oh, and despite what any yahoo in the Department of Agriculture tries to tell us, ketchup is not a vegetable. Nothing that’s 25% sugar can be classified as a vegetable.PREVIOUS POST: My Summer of Ice Cream Cones IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Forget French Toast Crunch, Bring Back Subway's U-Gouge+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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