All Episodes

July 15, 2025 64 mins
On today’s episode we talk about the incredible popularity and influence of an odd product: Ketchup. What would the world be like without it?
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to The History Guy podcast Counterfactuals. What is a
counterfactual in the context of studying history, It is a
kind of analysis where we examined what might have happened
had historical events gone differently as a thought experiment. The
goal is to learn and understand history as it is
by talking about what it could have been as a

(00:27):
twist on the historical stories that we tell on the
History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts
that dwell on that eternal question what if. I'm Josh,
a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the
History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you
already know Lance the History Guy himself. To liven up
our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited

(00:48):
Brad wagnan history officionado and a longtime friend of The
History Guy to join us. Remember but if you'd like
to support us, you can find us on Patreon, YouTube,
and locals dot com. Join us as we discuss what
deserves to be remembered and what might have been. On
today's episode, we talk about the incredible popularity and influence

(01:09):
of an odd product Ketchup. What would the world be
like without it? Without further, Ado, let me introduce the
history guy.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
There is perhaps no condiment that is more quintessentially American
than Ketchup. Fills up entire aisles at grocery stores, it
adorns the tables of countless restaurants, and while a twenty
nineteen survey by Weber Grill said that Saracha hot sauce
had surpassed ketchup as America's favorite condiment, ketchup would price
still win hands down if you ask the average American
eight year old. Of course, ketchup does have its detractors,

(01:49):
people who think it's bland, or to sugary or displaying
gross and it is considered quite a faux pot but
ketchup on a Chicago style hot dog. But despite its
modern cans, ketchup wasn't invented in the United States, and
for the vast majority of the history of ketchup didn't
have anything to do with tomatoes. The surprising history of

(02:10):
the goopy red condiment deserves to be remembered. Ketchup's earliest
origins take us back to Southeast Asia, and its ingredients
were about as far from the condiment we.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Know today as you can get.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
In the early sixteenth century English traders in the East
Indies came across a sauce called cake chop or kut chap,
a fish sauce. The word likely has its roots in
Southern men A language booken by Chinese traders from the
Fujian and Guandong provinces, meaning preserved fish sauce, which would
become keek chap in Malay or similar words in other
Southeast Asian languages. Local recipes varied, but among the earliest

(02:45):
is recorded in a Chinese text from five point forty four.
Take the intestine, stomach and bladder of the yellow fish,
shark and mullet, and wash them well, mix them with
a moderate amount of salt, and place them in a jar,
sealed tightly and incubate in the sun. It will be
ready in twenty days in summer, fifty days in spring
or fall, and one hundred days in winter. In the

(03:07):
next centuries, soy and bean based sauces became dominant in China,
while fish sauces were popular further south. Fish sauce is
proliferated throughout the region, places like Thailand and Indonesia, and
along the Mekong River, which transfers through modern Laos, Kimbodi
and Vietnam. Many recipes were centered around salted and fermented anchovies.
Local sauces made of fermented fish still exists today, and

(03:28):
in Indonesia kitchip means sauce. Is less clear where British
traders heard of the sauce. A seventeen thirty two recipe
mentions Bengoulu, a city in Sumatra where the British East
India Company established a presence by sixteen eighty five. They
might also have heard the word from southern men's being
traders at any of their settlements. British merchant Charles Locke
here reported in his an Account of the Trade in

(03:51):
India in seventeen eleven, seeing huge numbers of Chinese trading
ships throughout the region, and that the best kitchup comes
from Tonkin in northern Vietnam or China. As with many
of the products England imported home, they very quickly made
the product their own. One of the first things the
English did from a recipe from seventeen thirty six was
to add beer. The recipe calls were boiling down two

(04:13):
gallons of strong stale beer and a half pound of anchovies,
adding that the stronger and staler the beer, the better
the ketchup will be. As lois as Smith seventeen twenty seven,
The Complete Housewife included a ketchup that had a pint
of the best white wine, vinegar and shallots, ginger and
mushrooms in addition to anchovies. A Jonathan Swift poem from

(04:33):
three years later read and for our home bred British
cheer but targo ketchup and cavier. Early ketchups were made
of all manner of things, such as cherries, oysters, blackberries, mushrooms,
and even walnuts. For about a century, mushroom ketchups were
popular in England, made by putting whole mushrooms in jars
with salt. It is traditionally thin and almost black, and

(04:54):
has been described as halfway between Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce,
with of course, undercurrents of mushroom. Kitchups of all kinds
can vary significantly in consistency, from watery to the thick
version more familiar to modern diners. Walnut ketchup was a
favorite of Jane Austen. About the only thing that early
ketchups work made of was tomatoes. Tomatoes are native to

(05:16):
western South America and were consumed by native populations in
Central and South America before contact. The tomato comes from
the Aztec word tomatol. It isn't clear who first brought
the plants to Europe. Cortes may have brought them when
he returned from capturing tenas Tit Lawn in fifteen twenty one,
but Columbus may have brought specimens back as early as
fourteen ninety three. They were described in mid sixteenth century

(05:38):
Italy and Spain, but were often grown for ornamental purposes. Still,
they grew well in the Mediterranean, and over the next
century became staples in Mediterranean cooking. Tomato came later to
northern Europe and to England by the fifteen nineties, but
it gained something of a negative reputation. One reason is
that Europeans recognize the fruit as a relative of night
shade fruit to themselves, similar to night shade berries, which

(05:59):
are extremely toxic. While tomatoes are a part of the
same family, they are of course perfectly safe for consumption.
Other night shade family foods include eggplants, bell peppers, and
chili peppers. The English botanist John Gerard authored the herbal
or General History of Plants in fifteen ninety seven, and
while the work is largely a translation of earlier works,

(06:20):
George's work became the most prevalent English book on botany
in the seventeenth century. While Georde knew that tomatoes were
eaten in Spain and Italy, he still declared them poisonous.
His views were influential enough to steer many people away,
even if they didn't think they were poisonous. Another possibility
lies in a reaction between tomatoes and pewter. Pure plates
often had a relatively high lead content, and when to

(06:41):
contact with it, highly acidic foods like tomatoes can leach
the lead, possibly causing lead poisoning. Other English herbalists who
were skeptical the plant as well. The botanist John Parkinson
in sixteen twenty nine called them love apples and said
that while they were eaten in hotter climates, the English
only grew them for curiosity and the beauty of the fruit.
Another botanist, John Hill, mentioned that the English sometimes ate

(07:04):
them in soups in seventeen fifty four, but also that
there are persons who think them not wholesome. Tomatoes did
appear as Ingredients in the Art of Cookery by Hannah
Glass in seventeen fifty eight. They were growing in the
Carolinas by seventeen ten. One of the earliest appearances of
tomato ketchup was in eighteen o one, which is credited
to Sandy Addison. Another early tomato ketchup recipe appears in

(07:26):
an English book in eighteen seventeen, which still included half
a pound of anchovies and was included alongside walnut mushroom
pudding and oyster ketchups. James Mees invented a tomato ketchup
in eighteen twelve, and Thomas Jefferson's cousin Mary Randolph included
a tomato recipe in her eighteen twenty four cookbook The
Virginia Housewife. In eighteen thirty four, Ohio physician John Cook

(07:47):
Bennett took a different view of tomatoes. He declared that
they were a panacea that could cure diarrhea, indigestion, jaundice, rheumatism,
and could even prevent cholera. Benet was a physician known
also for creating an early metas diploma mill. He sold
medical degrees for ten dollars in the eighteen twenties, Bennett
encouraged everyone to eat tomatoes in any form, including ketchup,
as they were the most healthy material in materia alementary.

(08:12):
Bennett claimed he had visited European hospitals that recommended tomatoes
to healing patients, but even if he was lying, he
wasn't the first to talk about the possible medical applications
for the plant. Thomas Jefferson records that his friend doctor
James Disaqueria, thought if someone ate an abundance of these apples,
they would never die. Other doctors in the early eighteen
hundred said tomatoes could cure headaches and were good against

(08:33):
billious diseases, and later many supported Bennett's conclusions. Bennett published
his beliefs widely in American newspapers. Peppers even began reporting
that the tomato cure was worked. In eighteen thirty six,
Archibald Miles, a seller of patent medicines, met Bennett, and
shortly after began selling doctor Miles's compact extractive tomato pills.
The pills were so popular that imitations proliferated and even

(08:56):
instigated a tomato pill war between Miles and a competitor,
Guy fell Hoops in the newspapers. Eventually readers would learn
that neither pill actually contained any tomato. Ketchup recipes in
the early eighteen hundreds were either made at home or
sold in small batches by local farmers. This changed by
eighteen thirty seven, when Jonas Yerkes became possibly the first
person to sell ketchup in bottles by the Court and Pint.

(09:19):
Other manufacturers followed Sue, but there were some problems with
producing ketchup and large enough quantities to sell commercially. Tomatoes,
especially in the North, had short growing seasons that require
the preservation of tomato pulp that could be used year
round with no regulation, and the carelessness typical.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Of the age.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Bats of stored tomato pulp became infested with mold, ye
spores and bacteria. Cook with author Pierre Blott described ketchups
in eighteen sixty six as filthy, decomposed, and putrid. Some
producers only made ketchup as a byproduct of tomato canning,
using leftover pieces of tomato they sometimes swept off the floor.
The ketchup was also often cooked in copper tubs, which

(09:58):
would cause chemical reactions that made the condiment poisonous. Producers
made up for these failings by filling their ketchups with
preservatives like boric and salicilic acid, and added coal tar
to dye the yellowish stuff red. An eighteen ninety six
study of commercial ketchups determined that over ninety percent of
them contained injurious ingredients.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Enter Henry J. Heines.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Heines formed the Hines and Noble Company with a friend
in eighteen sixty, first producing horse radish in clear bottles
so consumers could see the quality of the product. He
would later patent his now iconic octagonal glass bottle, which
had a narrow neck with an air contact from discoloring
the product. The company grew rapidly, but went bankrupt in
the aftermath of the Panic of eighteen seventy three. In

(10:40):
eighteen seventy six, he formed a new company, the F.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
And J.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Hines Company, with his brother and a cousin. One of
the first products was Heinz Ketchup, first introduced with the
spelling cats up c atsup. At the time, neither spelling
was standard, but as a general rule in the eighteen hundreds,
British imports used the term ketchup with a K, while
domestic American brand preferred catsup with a c it is
parsley thanks to Heinz's decision to favor ketchup k e

(11:06):
t c chup spelling that would help it become the
most prevalent spelling today. His ketchup was different from the
get go. While it did include some of the same
preservatives and coal tar, Heines had a goal of creating
a consistent and quality product, and his use of elm
bark helped to stabilize the product. His was also thicker
than most ketchups of the time, and he took some
inspiration from German ketchups, which combined sugar and vinegar to

(11:29):
emphasize a sweet and sour mix of flavors. Modern ketchup
increases its thickness by the addition of products like xanthem gum.
Heines says the ketchup must flow no faster than point
zero two eight miles per hour. Heines was also remarkably
kind to its workers, offering insurance, dining rooms, gymnasiums, and
even an on site manicurist. He opened his factory to

(11:50):
public tours to tout its cleanliness. He felt that these
aims would help public trust and ultimately benefit the business.
At the turn of the century. Heinsaw opportunity in the
numerous poork aal the ketchups on the market if he
could create a preservative free ketchup, a product he gave
to his chief food scientist, GF.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Mason.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Mason solution not only revolutionized the safety of ketchup, but
the taste as well. His stable combination contained vinegar, sugar,
and salt. They increased vinegar, it helped to protect the
tomato from spoilage, and the recipe gave the product a
new taste. Heines's preservative free ketchup was on the market
by nineteen oh six, when he produced five million bottles
of the stuff. Thirst We had a downside, though, and

(12:29):
made his ketchup ten or twenty cents more expensive than
his competitors. This, coupled with his desire to market Hines
as the leader in safe food manufacturing, led him to
be a leader in support of the Food and Drug Act.
Heinz's son, Howard, argued to President Roosevelt that though the
regulation might cost companies money, it would inspire confidence and
commercially prepared foods. The passage of the Act and success

(12:50):
of the Heinz company seems to have vindicated his strategy.
Heinz Ketchup has a sixty percent market share in the
US and greater in the UK. For Americans, ketchup is
almost institution an integral part of Fourth of July cookouts,
partner to classic American foods, and available freely in little
packets at fast food restaurants. The military spent billions on
ketchup to keep soldiers in the red stuff, which has

(13:12):
come in handy for the sometimes less than appetizing meals
that they have had to eat. Ketchup has even been
to space. Perhaps no place symbolizes the American's relationship with
ketchup better than the world's largest ketchup bottle, a unique
painted water tower built in nineteen forty nine next to
a now defunct Ketchup bottling plant outside of Collinsville, Illinois.
Despite its close relationship with Americans, tomato Ketchup is enjoyed

(13:34):
throughout the world, and the US doesn't even necessarily eat
the most per capita. In twenty thirteen, the US was
tied for fifth behind the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Canada.
In Canada, Hinds Bottles even had a recipe for ketchup
cake on the back, which can only hope tastes better
than it sounds. Of course, modern ketchup has a lot
to owe to its history, but also a lot of
Hines who help establish the standard both for its flavor

(13:57):
and its consistency. Ketchup is acctually a non Newtonian fluid,
which means that its viscosity is variable based on applied force,
and it has a unique sheer thinning property to it.
And that means when you hit the ketchup bottle, you
actually reduced the viscosity of the ketchup, allowing to flow
more freely from the bottle, although that is of course
an imperfect art. There is some disagreement over the best

(14:20):
way to get ketchup out of the bottle, but Hinde
themselves suggested that you hit in the middle of the bottle,
right as the bottle begins to thin on the spot
that said fifty seven. And as to that fifty seven, well,
Heines just made up that number because he thought it
was catchy and lucky. He was inspired by an adhesaw
for a shoe company that said they had twenty one
styles of shoes. But when he came up with the
Heinz fifty seven brand Heines was already producing more than

(14:42):
sixty products. Despite its pedestrian reputation, ketchup has a long
history and still has a worldwide following, and it can
be expected to continue to add flavor to the human
experience well into the future.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Now for the fun part, where I the History himself
and longtime friend of the history guy Brad Wagnan discussed
what might have happened if everything went different. I think
at first glance, ketchup seems like something kind of silly
to talk about in terms of a counterfactual. But I
like it because I think we underestimate perhaps just how

(15:17):
much food has come to come to impact I mean culture,
but also just how much of just an integral part
of history it is.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
I am going to straight upart you no civilization without ketchup.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
That's hang on through that. That's my plan.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
I don't think that we could have developed civilization were
it not for ketchup. People might think I'm crazy, especially
if you're in Chicago, where if you catch up on
a hot dog, right, I think it's literally capital punishment
in Chicago you put ketchup on a hot dog. But
you're right, cuisine. Food has more to do with culture
and civilization than we'd like to admit. And Ketchup is

(15:52):
a really really good example of that, and not just
the tomato ketchup we have today, but I mean the whole,
the whole idea of it, because it it's really developed
from the whole condiment and and how how important those
were to both early civilization and modern civilizations really surprised
and Ketchup in particular.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
I think it's going to be an exciting episode.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
Yeah, a thrill a minute. Yeah, the you know, to
to build on that. You know, let's face it, ever
since you know, probably a Neanderthal or early Homo sapiens
was running around and discovered that his meat did not
taste well because he had been carrying it in the
equivalent of a backpack for a while, and then ground

(16:32):
up some roots or berries or whatever through it on
said meat, and suddenly it was suddenly, condiments are born.
There has been some sort of condiment probably since you know,
easily since since even even prehistoric times.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Absolutely, you know this and continents have changed how we've
been able to use food. I was reading that, you know,
the American government spent spends millions on ketchup because it's
some thing that the military uses to make Mrs palatable
and that that kind of thing, you know, that's that's
what we're talking about, is that all this kinds of foods.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
That space station two. I mean, people will mention because
there was a point the regular administration one they decided
when they were talking about school lunches that ketchup was
a vegetable, and everybody joked about it. But I mean
the bottom line is condiments they make food palatable longer,
They preserve food so that you know, they make food
that has you know, that has spoiled, but it will
not cause a health risk and make it more palatable.
But I mean also, I mean those early condiments, they

(17:31):
were a significant nutritional source and they helped you preserve
I mean, you know, I think the recipes in the
in the episode right where you make fish sauce and
literally just you put fish guts in a jar and.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Put it on your windowsill until it turns in the goop.
It's like gross.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
That is still a huge part of Asian cuisine, but
I mean it was that fish sauce. And then you know,
garam in Rome was so incredibly important to culture was
that it's it's it's likely to say, it's fair to
say they could not have made maintained the food supply
to sustain their civilization were it not for condiments, for
the you know, the precursors to kitchup and and all

(18:08):
of those. I mean, pretty much every condiment here derived
from you know that the word ketchup really means fish sauce,
and pretty much every condiment today derived from that. And
and so I mean, ketchup was at a central piece
of civilization.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
And we only touch on you know, we touch on
it as essentially as it comes to the America or
to the Western world, because there's only so much we
know about the you know, the pre contact, the in
terms of its history within Southeast Asia. But they'd been
I mean, they'd been presumably eating various fish sauces for
I mean, as Brad said, you know, back in the prehistory.

(18:44):
And then and then it slowly gets gets brought back.
It's a really interesting story of how a word that
has essentially nothing to do with tomatoes, I mean, gosh,
was was a word that was invented in a place
that had never seen a tomato becomes yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, we think of it, but I mean, actually there
were a lot of ketchups. I think that's in the
episode two. I mean walnut Ketchup and mushroom ketchup and
oyster ketchup, and you can.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Still get rested.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So that's you know, that's one possible conter factual is
that instead of essentially one kind of ketchup taking over
the world, as this is what ketchup is, you have
ketchup as a genre of condiments that is made up
of all kinds of things. And while I don't particularly
find some of the kinds of ketchups that they they

(19:32):
we mentioned in the episode mushroom Ketchup and walnut Ketchup,
none of that sounds exactly appetizing to me. I might
be surprised.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
I wonder if I wonder if Tasting History has because
he actually makes some of those. I wonder if he's
actually made something like well catch yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
I know he did an episode on ketchup, but I
don't know if he I don't know if he went
and did lots of different kinds. I haven't watched it.
I know he was talking about some of the.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Earlier he's he's but you know, of course, obviously our
episode is going.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
To be better.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
But I mean he's pretty good and he actually makes
this stuff and eats the stuff, and I think they
compliment each other because we'll go into the we've had
a few where we kind of over that. But I
wonder if he's actually made something must room ketchup to
see what it's like. And that's I mean, that's an
interesting you know, I don't know what if we if
we had mushroom ketchup, then would you know, the people
of Chicago be more amenable to catch up on Hot

(20:19):
Dog Go ahead, you know, discuss among yourselves that.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
Yeah, there was I don't know one of the one
of the YouTube channels that I was perusing as I
was doing as a research the presenter made a white
ketchup based off a seventeen seventies recipe and it sounded
interesting to me. It had shallots, it had a lot
of quote warm spices, elderberry or elder wine vinegar, and

(20:49):
quite a bit of white wine and essentially you brew
that all together. And then his theory was that you
probably mixed it in with like a bechamel sauce. So
that's that it was possibly why it was called white ketchup,
or it just may have been that most of the
ingredients were white in color.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
So yeah, yeah, it's it's really interesting the i mean,
the wide range of things that they were doing with it.
But again, I mean, the most of it was essentially
you're taking something that you are not going to be
able to use otherwise and finding a way to preserve it.
I mean, that's why that's why most of these recipes
had a lot of vinegar in them, you know, that's
that's a way to try to to try to keep

(21:30):
it from from spoiling. They although the descriptions of them,
they you know, we think of ketchup as a has
a has a very strict level of consistency, and of
course we owe that essentially the Hines theirs were much
came much more close to like saying, it's a kind
of sauce, and so you know, you had you had
you could have running ketchups and stuff like that. But

(21:50):
it's it's interesting to think that you could have a
much wider variety of condiments if tomato ketchup hadn't caught
on the way it did.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Didn't come along, And there's a reason and actually there's
some important stuff to tomato ketchup in terms of how
that affects both cuisine and food safety and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
But I mean that is.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
The first thing to say is that ketchup, I mean
ketchup really is a ketch all condiment that has a
much broader history than we see it today. It wasn't
just a bottle of hinds and it had a whole
variety of flavors.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
It allowed you to use a large.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Number of different kinds of foods to preserve them, and
figuring out how to preserve those with salt and vinegar
actually was really part of you know, making culture stand.
But I mean the fish sauce, which was a type
of ketchup garum, was a primary source of protein for
the Romans, and there was there was a significant segment

(22:42):
of the Roman population that could not afford any regular
source of protein. They weren't getting beef and pork, and
the fish sauce was was an important piece of the diet.
And so it wasn't it wasn't just a condiment that
made other foods palatable. It actually provided significant and important
nutrition and that's why you find it to be so important.
Through so many ancient cultures, and so really critically, I

(23:06):
mean condiments. You know, you think of those as literally
big aside, it means other than the bread essentially, but
condiments end up being a critical part of You can't
maintain your food supply if you don't have them, both
supplementing the nutritional value as well as making your food
supply it lasts longer by inside the ketchup itself, keeping
that food so that it lasts, and using that to

(23:28):
make sure that you can make other food palatable longer.
So I mean it's incredible. And then if you think
about that for something like sea voyages and et cetera,
then you can see why we send ketchup to the
space station. You see why it's important to the military,
because traveling along it's very difficult to make palatable food
that's going to last for your military, and so condiments

(23:49):
are what can make you and of course morale very
critical to the military. And so I mean, it's a
scary thing to think about what would the world really
be without condiments. How much of our food supply would
then become unpalatable, would not become of any use to
us if we couldn't supplement with condiments. But condiments also
allowed you to individualize your food. That's an important piece

(24:11):
of culture too, and part of the idea that you
could you know that you weren't just a drone in society,
that you were making choices, which is part of what
you know creates a middle class and other class. I mean,
condiments were something that said that you were no longer
stuck with just whatever the government was throwing at your
whatever the harvest was, but you could actually control the
own flavor of your food. So it's also critical to

(24:33):
how we enjoyed society and how we built culture. How
many cultures are really defined by their cuisines, and those
cuisines are often defined by condiments. That was I on
the sapboxer too long.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
On that one?

Speaker 2 (24:44):
That might have been a or I guess the ketchup bottle.
The world's largest catchup bottle is ten miles from where I'm.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Sitting right now.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
It is yeah, yeah, So I think that's another possible
counterfactu the what if Heinz decides that, you know, this
tomato ketchup thing just isn't just isn't the way to go,
so he specializes in something else. There are many countries
in Europe who the typical topping on your French fries

(25:15):
is not ketchup, it's mayonnaise.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, can I say to europe gross, gross.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
I don't get it, but yes, it's true. It's yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
And I was just I just came back from the
UK and French fries are eaten with mayonnaise.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's almost on demo you mentioned in the
episode too. The US is not necessarily the leader in
ketchup consumption per capita, and so there are some places
in Europe that, you know, I use ketchup quite a lot,
but I think they also use ketchup in maybe surprising ways,
like Japan uses it as like a base for a
kind of spaghetti, which is actually which is I can't

(25:52):
even imagine the offense the Italians must take to that,
which is that you're essentially cooking your noodles in ketchup
and calling that spaghetti and ketchup. But it's interesting how
ketchup has been used at other parts of the world.
But it also, I mean, it has very much come
to define American cuisine. It in almost any restaurant, you're

(26:13):
going to be able to find a ketchup probably I
mean on the table, and in a surprising variety of
restaurants you'll find ketchup on the table, and if not,
then you can ask for it. And that's It's not
true universally. Of course, there are some places where you
don't need ketchup, but in many restaurants in this country
that is the standard basic condiment.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
It is.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, I mean, you go to a fancy steakhouse and yes,
for ketchup, the chef might come and ext you. But
barbecue sauce in America almost most of it has a
tomato base, and that tomato bas is going to start
with ketchup. But I mean that's an important point is
as we talk about all these other kinds of ketchup,
is that ketchup is really what made tomatoes stay. And
tomatoes are a very important food source in the world today,

(26:55):
partly because they produce there's some vitamins and tomatoes like
a lycopene and vitamin C that you don't find in
as much quantity, as much concentration in other vegetables. And
so if we didn't have ketchup, when we have tomatoes
in our food in the way that we do, especially
since ketchup preserves tomatoes. So when you look at ketchup,
tomato ketchup, I mean it's important because tomato ketchup is

(27:17):
part of the reason that we are able to have
a matter of fact, a lot of our cultivation of tomatoes,
especially the mechanical cultivation of tomatoes and mechanical harvesting stuff
like that allows a huge quantity of tomatoes. It's different
on the tomatoes you buy in the store, different than
the tomatoes are going to catchup, but there's far more
tomatoes are grown for ketchup and spaghetti sauce and all

(27:38):
that sort of stuff. Then are the tomatoes that you
see in the store, and those are almost all grown
and mechanically harvested, which was a transformation in agriculture, and
that wouldn't have happened if it worked for ketchup. And
then that becomes you know, like the regularministration says ketchup
is a vegetable, but actually ketchup is just like garum
was in the Roman times. It is a nutritional supplement

(27:58):
that is important to American food. So if you ask
Americans today, though ketchup is no longer the number one condiment,
they're more likely to answer either salsa or a saracha sauce,
although you know, both of those have their similarity to
both tomato based, and they both have their similarity to ketchup.
But still you will find an American child that didn't

(28:19):
grow up with ketchup being the primary what do you
get them.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
To eat food? Oh?

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yes, oh yes.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
I remember the commercial back in the eighties. I don't know,
Tommy Brown likes ketchup on Tommy Brown and he was like,
lick ketchup off his finger. So again it also, I
mean tomato ketchup is what keeps tomatoes in the world,
tomatoes or a significant vegetable food source throughout the world.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah, without something like ketchup. You know, So what does
the number one use of tomatoes? Well, prior to modern processing,
it's you had fresh tomatoes when they were in season.
You had not so fresh tomatoes if you lived in
the city and weren't close enough to the tomato places.
And then after that the tomatoes were either thrown out

(29:02):
or sat on purchased, so.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
They were preserved with dangerous preservatives and that's where they
were for a long time, which is another part of
the key to ketchup.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
Is that Ketchup.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Hines when they came up with a way to make
it consistent, to keep a consistent color, to use the
specific vinegar content so that you didn't have to have
all the preservatives that were going to catch up. Ketchup
went from a very dicey and unsafe product to a
very consistent product. And the reason that Hines used clear
bottles was to show the product so that you could
actually see that the product was fir.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
That's how we specifically.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
How it was nat So ketchup would kill you prior
to Hines, but Hines created kind of the first move
towards consumer based food safety, towards consumers being able to
see in the product itself that it was a quality product,
as well as coming up with a way to preserve
tomatoes in a way that they would you could use
them all season, so it wasn't Ketchup was the key,

(29:57):
the catalyst that allows us to figure out how to
have tomatoes and all these other products and to preserve
those so that they don't turn brown without even put
cold tar in them.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
So they use cold tar.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
To make, you know, tomatoes that had gone rotten, to
make them look look red as they put in cold tar.
Now you know, now we can preserve those and that's
because of Ketchup.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Ketchup was the base that allowed us.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
So if you like salsa, if you like so roches sauce,
if you like your spaghetti sauce.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Ketchup was really the key that allowed.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Us to be able to turn tomatoes into something that
we could preserve over time. So again, I mean when
you go to look at it, it's not silly. Ketchup
is incredible all the things that it's impacted in American
culture and American food. But I mean throughout history it's
been this, It's been a key technology to allow us
to make other foods palatable and keep those foods and

(30:48):
then be able to feed you know, a growing human population.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Now without ketchup and in its modern form, we of
course what had been denied the pleasure and the the
studious opportunity to learn about the Canadian ketchup wares.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
So yeah, there's a bit of background rising bits of history.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yes, yeah, background on that for anyone who's not familiar.
Back in the nineteen eighties, Hines was purchased by a
group of investors, and, as usually happens with investors, they
look at various facilities that they feel that they can
shut down. And so in Lymington, Ontario, where Hines had
had a factory for decades and it was the number

(31:34):
one employer in the town, and they also had contracted
with local farmers to grow the specific Hines ketchup tomato, well,
basically they shut down the factory. Well approximately two years later, Frenches,
ironically also an American company, but it wasn't Hines, and

(31:56):
of course they are much more famous for Mustard, decided
that they go to Livington and take advantage of the
fact that there were local farmers who were growing the
correct tomato and they had facilities that had been previous
used by Hines, and ultimately they started producing French. French's ketchup.
A rare moment in Canadian history when a Canadian said

(32:18):
something that actually raised a lot of dand or a
social media post went viral and essentially it really started
a lot of Canadians looked at this and said, Okay,
so what kind of ketchup do I really want to use?
And they decided that Hines not not so much. So anyway,
there's the yes. So anyway, this is the infamous Ketchup

(32:40):
Wars of Canada.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
And but it's interesting how that kind of stuff can
really work its way into into you know, culture, because
you know, that's that that that's impacts the market share
of you know, French's Ketchup in Canada. And that's the
even though I mean, ultimately I'm sure that French's Ketchup
os an awful lot to what Heines did in creating,
you know, creating the flavor profile and the consistency of

(33:06):
of you know, what we expect ketchup to be today.
We talk about in this episode some of the stuff
they did where they were essentially, you know, what they
made the ketchup out of was whatever was left after
they had sold off the rest of it. And so
they're just putting their their ugly tomatoes or their clippings,
and they're just shoving that into a jar. It was

(33:28):
important to this health to this kind of health food movement.
In this I mean, they talk about how Hines supported
the health some of these health laws that were helping us,
you know, start to regulate how how we made some
of this food and to make sure that it was
healthy enough for people to eat. And that he's pushing
that because you know, in order to keep his ketchup stable,

(33:50):
it was more expensive. And so he's part of the
reason he was pushing for these health laws was because
I mean, one, his ketchup was healthier than those other ones,
but also because that meant that those other people were
going to get taken out of the market. And so
that's an interestingly personal and economic reason for us to
have moved forward. You know, laws and regulations that have ultimately,

(34:13):
i mean, they've improved public health and you know how
safe our food is to eat. But that was maybe
that doesn't happen if ketchup doesn't isn't made the way
it is made, you know, if Hines was willing to
cut corners, or if he decides, you know, it's not
worth me trying to make better ketchup if it means
I can't sell it because it's ten cents more expensive,
and decides to go into some other, some other angle

(34:37):
because he thinks, you know, a different condiment or something
like that is what's going to be more profitable for him.
I mean, that could have impacted health legislation and how
we how we've dealt with food regulation in the United
States for a very long time, and that's it's interesting
you think we might owe that, I mean in significant
part to Ketchup.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, and part of and that's that's not just a
coincidence that it happened to be Ketchup, and has to
do with the nature of preservation of tomatoes specifically and
the specific challenges that they offered, as well as the
way that it was being done before. So it's it's
not just Coinci's as ketchup. Ketchup becomes this lynchpin in
food safety in America, this lynchpin in agricultural technology in America,

(35:18):
as well as this lynchpin in a culture and cuisine.
I mean imagine, would Hamburgers, which which also didn't come
from the United States, but it become probably the key
thing associated with American cuisine. Would Hamburgers be as popular
if it worked for Ketchup.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
I don't know that they were.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
It makes you wonder because what does it mean, what
would we have replaced it with? What would a Fourth
of July cookout look like if we didn't have Ketchup?
And I don't know that it's as simple to say
as we just wouldn't have that, it would just be
ketchup missing from the table.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yeah, I do want to. I'd like to actually backtrack
just about just a bit for the entire food safety discussion.
According to one of the biographies that I was listening to,
it sounded as if Hines was actually the only major
food producer who got behind the nineteen oh six Purity
in Food and Drug Act. I believe that's what it called.

(36:11):
What it's called something very similar to that that was
really brought about through a series of occurrences, one of
them being Upton Sinclair's publication of The Jungle, the fact
that he sent an advanced copy to Teddy Roosevelt, who
read it in a strange bit of irony. Up to

(36:32):
Sinclair had actually written the novel to try to point
out the plight of the poor working class in large cities,
and his quote was I aimed for their hearts, but
hit their stomachs. And Hines certainly at that point had
already established that he was going to market his food

(36:55):
very specifically by stressing purity. And so this was the
This was a time where popular sentiment and business that
that had a definite interest in making sure that purity
was maintained were able to create enough political pressure where
at least some reforms were adopted. And in this age,

(37:18):
the fact that anyone was willing to take that on politically,
it shows that something was really horribly, horribly out of
whack and the population. But I mean that was actually
take notice.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
That's capitalism at its best though, because Heines had an
advantage on that. So the more that Heines could focus
on food safety, the more that people.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Were going to buy their product. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
But again that is that is unique to Ketchup because
what was special was in the clear bottle. You could
see that Ketchup was pure because of the color red.
So that whole food safety thing, which is so tied
up with Hines, who was the big manufacturer that helped
him push it through. A part of it had to
do with the nature of Ketchup. Meant that Hines could
sell Ketchup better if we moved the country towards worrying

(38:06):
about food safety. And so again it's because Ketchup special,
which is crazy, so that you have now you know
that you're you know that they regulate the number of
the parts of cockroach per million in your orange juice
came because Ketchup is red and you can see it
through a.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Clear and you have to wonder without the support of
a of a you know, a group like Hines and
a man like Hines. And also the fact that it
was so clear with ketchup, specifically how how dangerous it
was and how you could do it, you could make
it healthily and make it so people could, you know,
put ketchup on their food without expecting, without wondering if
they were going to die in three days because of it,

(38:43):
And that it really came together because you're right, that's
and that really was a movement, not just with ketchup,
because it spreads beyond ketchup too. We expect this in
all all kinds of foods, and we've we did an episode.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Put pun intended there.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Sorry, we know. We did an episode on olives that
that talked about how we were really bad at canning olives.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Oh oh goodness.

Speaker 5 (39:08):
He lived, He lived through the First World War, he
ate it, all of it at the banquet of death
and and it's it's actually a very similar story in
terms of in terms of how how we you know,
dealt with food packaging.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
They were willing to cut corners or they didn't know
what corners, you know, were even there and ultimately we
were serving food that was extremely dangerous and people didn't
even know that. Those at that banquet, they did not
know that those olives were dangerous to eat. And that
was in that was in nineteen twenty nineteen nineteen, after
the First World War. So but it's it's interesting you

(39:40):
know that that too is connected here because of course,
you know, the regulatory powers that changed how we deal
with olives. It really came from what we started to
do with ketchup and so that's that. Part of the
expectation now, of course, is that there's some expectation that
when you opened the open the can of olives.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
That it's that's not going to kill you. Yeah, and
the government is at least going to regulate that, and
that's going to put an onus on the caveat in
tour is the you know, the buyer beware is now
you know, uh, what's the opposite the Latin phrase, do
you think I should know that caveat?

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Someone will tell me I'm a idiot?

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Prodom shifted it shift, it shifted that whole idea of
how we how we buy things as consumers.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
And then that means that when you go to the
grocery store today. I mean, if you get lettuce that
has E coli in it, at least the government is
going to intervene and they're going to protect other people
from getting the E coli. And you can generally say
that if you buy it as a product at the
grocery store, that you have a reason to believe that
it's going to be safe. But the whole idea, like
you know, meat being packaged with a clear curan wreck

(40:47):
cover and all that sort of this whole idea that
the food and met fact, there's a federal law that
says when you get your bacon that has to have
the flap on the back that opens up so you
can see that they haven't stacked the bacon in a
way that hides so much fats in your bacon. I mean,
that's the all derives. I mean, the whole idea of
having a clear view of the food so you can
see the food is good. That all starts with ketchup.

(41:08):
And that's that's that's critical to the.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Safety of food supply today.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, so it's I mean, I don't think we're we
are underestimating it. It's that we're under selling it when
we talk about the fact that the world would be
very different without ketchup.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, I mean, I mean the modern world would be
different without tomato ketchup. But I mean the ancient world
might not have been able to develop as the ancient
world where not for ancent ketch It's funny because ketchup
seen is sort of a kid's staple. It's seen as
something that you know, you kind of mature out of ketchup.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
I mean some of us never do.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
I hate say it, but I still put ketchup on
hot dog. I think ketchup and mustard and really just
go together quite well. But but I mean it's seen,
it seems sort of almost like a silly kid's stuff.
And I think maybe you know, salsa and Sacher beating
him just because it's it's like edgy ketchup. You know,
it's that ketchup is Ketchup sort of bland, and if
you give it edge, then you call it siracha, and.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Then then and then then we like it better.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Now, the idea that you know, it's it's not just
this kid's food. It is something that was important historically
is important currently. You know, how many how many gallons
of ketchup do you suppose McDonald's puts out in a.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Year, right, And I mean, certainly Ketchup is not a
nuanced flavor. And it's interesting how that flavor was ultimately
determined by how how well we could.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Oh that's right, Ketchup tasted different before Hines figured out
how much vinegar you had to put in to keep it,
you know, to keep the tomatoes from going bad without
putting coldar in there. And so it was a different
consistency and it's a different flavor now. A lot of
Ketchup has corn syrup in it, and so the idea
that Ketchup is sweet is because you had to put

(42:43):
so much vinegar in there that then you had to
put a sweetener in to offset the vinegar. So if
Ketchup seems to have a fairly consistent flavor now, and
I don't know, there's probably people here who you know,
who argue over there their brands, because there's different brands
of Ketchup. But that who you know who are sure
that their brand is better than an other brand of Ketchup.
The Ketchup is really still it's pretty consistent, and that

(43:05):
consistency is based on what you really have to do
to preserve tomatoes safely and keep them palatable. And it's
you know, that makes for a consistent ketchup. But I
mean that consistency then it goes to the whole food supply.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Yeah, without tomato ketchup, we also have a host of
things that we would not otherwise not be using in
our food. For instance, classic French dressing is a mixture
of mayonnaise and ketchup. You've mentioned barbecue sauce, which is
it's ketchup based. You know, ketchup glasses, various spices. There's
also something that you would typically associate with a Chinese dish,

(43:43):
but sweetens our sauce. One of the elements of that
flavor is tomato ketchup. That's why it has its pink color.
So ketchup is a little more ubiquitous than just what
you put on the fries at McDonald's or Wendy's or
your low Burger place. It often gets put into foods
in different ways, and that also's a reflection of just

(44:07):
how well balanced it actually is for flavor. I am
not a gourmand, nor do I play one on TV. However,
ketchup adds brightness and sweetness to a lot of dishes
that you would not normally associate those that flavor profile
with one of you know, one of my friends thinks

(44:29):
I'm crazy, but I like ketchup onscrambled eggs because it
adds a whole different flavor profile to the.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
X on kind of the same front. As far as
Gormond goes, this is maybe more of a music music
tastes thing. But I think one thing that we would
not have for sure is the classic Jimmy Buffett song
Cheeseburger and Paradise with the wonderful line Heinz fifty seven
and French fried potatoes which without without tomato, ketchup this

(44:58):
this this absolute pinnacle American mind.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Fifty seven is we can all agree Hints fifty seven
is mustard and ketchupst together.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Right, I mean pretty much.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
I mean, I don't think anybody is really denying that.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
It's become such an integral part of American culture. On
the front of how we eat our I mean, Hamburger's
hot dogs, many of the things that we talk about
as being like, you know, American.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Certainly it's a chunk of American food. Well certainly, I mean,
like you said, you know, salsas and stuff like that.
Are many of those are at least derivatives originally of ketchup.
But I mean, like meat meat loaf is a typical,
you know, American cuisine sort of food, and meat loaf
almost always includes ketchup. I think Smithsonian magazine did an
issue about ur did an article about ketchup, and that

(45:48):
they suggest that ketchup is in ninety seven percent of
American households have ketchup, bottle, ketchup, and the refrigerator. So
I mean, you see how that's it's a piece of
so much of our culture. But I mean, you know,
hot dogs and hamburgers. If you ask what is American food,
that's what you're going to say. Hot dogs and hamburgers. Right,
Both of those tend to again Chicago, I understand, but

(46:12):
both of.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
Those tend to be foods that are eaten with ketchup.
French fries too, which is funny that.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
You would call something called French fries and say that
that's American cuisine and our.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
French fries are different.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I mean, you know, European French fries or pome pret
are different really than American French fries. We did kind
of much thinner. But again, you know, in America, those
are almost.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Entirely eaten with ketchup.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Very few people in America, I would say, eat you know,
the French fries with mayonnaise or mustard.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, I think it's a lot less common. I think
we have definitely expanded in terms of what condiments are available.
I feel like even in you know, even in my lifetime,
it's gone from from where you would you know, there
would essentially be like ketchup and maybe mustard packets at McDonald's.
There's now they've got like, you know, four or five
different kinds of sauces you can get. That's been that's
kind of been a move in the fast food restaurant

(46:58):
thing is to give more more option. But you know,
even as far back as eighteen ninety six there was
an issue of New York Tribune that said ketschup. It
declared tomato ketchup America's national condiment and said it was
on every table in the land. And that's I mean,
that's how that's how far back we're going with them
talking about how important this is as kind of an

(47:20):
American national symbol. And I think that you know, some
people might say Oh, well, that's just that's America for you.
It's not not nuanced or I think that we've talked
about how ketchup is a lot more than just you know,
this this one taste that people want to imagine it
to be, and it's it's something that has been a
part of many different parts of our history. And without it,

(47:42):
I mean, whether you like ketchup or not, I think
without an America would be a different place.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
What do you think, I mean, in ninety seven percent
of US kitchens there's ketchup and the refrigerator.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
What other product is it?

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Ninety seven percent of the refrigerators for any particular country.
I mean you have to say it is central to
American culture when you say that virtually everybody has a
bottle of ketchup sitting in the refrigerator, and I mean
that's that is an absolutely extraordinary number.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
So I mean it literally goes.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Down to what it defines to be an American. Even though,
as we mentioned in the episode, that there are countries
that eat more ketchup per capita than that.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
I wouldn't think that, you know, some of those places
think of ketchup in the same way as Americans. Do
you know, if you try to make take like a
picture of oh, this is American cuisine, there's a good
chance that there's going to be a ketchup bottle in
there somewhere. And I don't think that's going to happen
in some of these places, Like I think it was
Sweden was one of the ones that ate more per capita.

(48:43):
I don't think that if you did like an image
of national Swedish cuisine, they're going to have a picture
of ketchup there.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Ketchup?

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah, yeah, is ketchup involved in Swedish meatballs at all?
Someone go down ask do you ketchup int these?

Speaker 3 (49:01):
I don't think.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
I'm pretty sure that that is a totally different That
is a totally different critter. And to follow up on
that thought, you know, ninety seven percent of German kitchens
probably have some form of mustard.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, well, you know, we did an episode on mustard too,
and I love mustard, I really do. But I think
mustard and ketchup and the ketchup is sweet. Mustard is
you know, tangy is a very complimentary taste profile, But
it's true. I mean, you would think that mustard defines
German culture. Americans eat mustard yellow. I mean, the rest
of the world things are yellow, mustard is junk, right,

(49:35):
but Americans like mustard. But I mean you would say
that American culture is ketchup. Yeah, definitely, that was that
would probably be if you were European, that would probably
be a way to insult America, say that American.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
Culture is ketchup? Yeah, or is this mustard?

Speaker 1 (49:48):
I mean, I think that there's a there's a lot
of a ketchup gets derided a lot, which I've kind
of mentioned in here a few times now. What we
talked about it being is something that's associated with kids.
I also think that that's you know, I don't necessarily
think that we should overlook something like that. And it's historic,
you know, it's historic place in the world. One of
the ways it gets to be like, ah, ketchup is

(50:08):
is you know, it's it's the the white breads, the
basic choice or the kind of you're not interesting if
you like ketchup kind of thing. I mean, it got
to that place because of how ubiquitous it was in culture,
and there was a reason why it got to be
you know, ubiquitous like that in the first place.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, absolutely, that's being the white bread that everybody eats.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
That, I mean, that means a lot. I'm sure that.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I'm sure the Hinesys are Hines or Hunts or whoever
was making ketschup, but they probably don't mind that.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Yeah, yeah, right, And I mean, I think yours is
a good point that the ketchup and I mean extremely similar.
A lot of people talk about the Roman garra, how
similar it was to what they were making in Southeast Asia,
and those are actually in some ways some similar climates.
How important that was to these early these early civilizations,
and it does make you wonder, you know, today ketchup

(50:57):
is not something that we're just I think today we
think about it more of a as an on top
of an extra, but that's really because of the way that,
you know, the way production has changed. But it's it's
amazing how important that kind of stuff was to the
overall this kind of we have to use everything idea,
which was how you made enough food, Especially before I

(51:18):
mean before some very modern ways that we have increased
food production, there was there was little like that. I
mean until recently. You know, now we've seen really dramatic
increases in terms of production per acre and stuff like that,
and maybe that means in some ways we have more
waste simply because we haven't had to, you know, make
sure to use everything because otherwise, you know, you don't

(51:40):
have enough food. It's interesting that this that's something that
we would talk about as being this like on top
of this extra was literally these integral pieces of how
we essentially stretched the food supply in times where we
might not be growing enough food to keep the whole
population alive.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think you would
probably find that garum was in ninety seven percent of
Roman kitchens. I mean, it works that same way ketchup
on a hamburger can add vitamins that are simply not
there in meat. Right, although you know, modern ketchup is
probably mostly adding sugar and calories to it. I mean,
I mean, modern kitchup is more sugary now than it.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Used to be.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
But still there's no vitamin C in a hamburger. Now,
you know, what you cook meat, you take you take
the vitamin C out of it, and so it's still
it's still very much like garam It is a supplement
to foods that adds a nutritional component to foods that
are you know, you don't have vitamin C, you get scurvy, right,
you know, your teeth fall out and your limbs go
black and then you die a horrible death. So I'm

(52:42):
not saying that ketchup is what stands between us in scurvy.
But I'm saying that, like as in the past, these
condiments are actually adding nutritional value that's important to these meals.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
Yeah, the closest similarity I can think of that as
lime juice for the for the British Navy to prevent scurvy,
and then they dumped a ton of sugar in it,
and they now call it roses lime juice and you
use it to make drinks like snake bite.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
And in ancient Roman times they didn't have you couldn't
take a multi vitamin. There's I mean, right, there's there's
some argument for that, but that's that's part partially just
the plenty that we have in Yeah, in the modern world.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Well, we have fresh we have access to fresh fruits
and vegetables that would have been difficult in ancient times
because you didn't you weren't importing them from different climates
and stuff like that, and you could import them so
quickly and so yeah, we can have fresh oranges in
the store in January, and I mean that wasn't necessarily
true in the ancient world, but there's certainly a point
to be made that we never get tomato ketchup and

(53:46):
the the condiment ale in Walmart without without them being
able to use the you know, these precursor ketchups to
keep civilization alive. I don't know if I have an
argument to say that Gara was why Rome was so
successful because they were I you know, I don't. I
don't necessarily have the information necessary to say if if

(54:08):
the if the Gaulls had only had Garam, then they
would they would have.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
Well, I mean it's true.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
I mean there's there was a lot more to Rome
than Garam, But I mean to say the population of
Rome might not have been sustainable were it not for Garam.
I mean it allowed them to take fish, which was
a common food, and and and make that last for
a long time. And again it was a primary source
of protein for a vast swath of the Roman population.
So yeah, I mean, Garam was probably not the difference

(54:34):
between you know, it's probably not why the Romans eventually
beat Carthage, but it is to say that, you know,
could these ancient civilizations without these this ability to preserve
food and in the in the ways that that condiments do,
could they have had the populations that they did.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
And there's a good there's a good reason to.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Say, you know, maybe not that that the Roman population
would have, you know, died in mass starvation if it
weren't for garum, which you know, which which became a
very important part of the food supply and a very
important part of maintaining the food supply even out of season.
So I you know, like I said from the start,
I think that there's a good chance to say if
you look at ketchup as you know, all the you know,

(55:12):
the stuff that stood out being called kitschup, and that
all the stuff that came from that, which is very
very ancient up to modern ketchup. I mean, there's so
much quite so many places the lynchpin that I don't
know that we could have in Asia and Southeast Asia,
in Europe, I don't know that we could have built
the civilizations that we built if we didn't have this
method of extending the food supply. Yeah, and I think

(55:35):
they're a very reasonable argument there. It's funny now because
nutritionist might argue that you don't put ketchup on your
hamburger because all it's going to do his head calories.
I mean to see, that's that's where it's kind of
come to.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
Yeah, and my you know, my question is, I mean,
are we in kind of the chicken and egg arena?
Because can you have do you have the luxury of
condiments when literally your number one priority is, you know,
is find food wherever you can eat whatever you find,

(56:05):
and there is no time for enjoyment of your food,
which is what a condiment would add. At the same time,
when you've got the leftover tomatoes that you know are
just about ready to go bad, you know, do you
make your own homemade proto ketchup because at least that's
going to last for a few more weeks, and you know,
when you're on the brink of starvation, as at various

(56:28):
times mankind really has been. Again, is this the chicken
or the egg? Is is a condoment? Is a condoment
a symbol of civilization? Or is it a symbol that
or is it a precursor to civilization?

Speaker 2 (56:44):
I mean, what you're saying from the start, though the
catchup probably goes back into prehistory. You know, that's probably
where we begin to try to but I mean it's
it's a good point, but I mean, you know, whether
you know, whether civilization makes condiments or condiments make civilization,
one probably can't exist without the other.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
And so it's still I mean still means that. I mean,
how how.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Different would the world be if if they if in
Southeast Asia they hadn't come up with kitchup. You know,
it might be that we're still hunter gatherers wandering the earth,
you know, killing things with sticks. I think that in
that counterfactual that what we get, of course, is is
the the bigfoots rising up, because of course they would

(57:25):
be wise enough to make ketchup. Of course, you know,
I honestly tried to research does Bigfoot like ketchup? Because
we that you know, and of course it's hard to
find because you know, bigfoot it's really been proven to.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Be a critter.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
But I mean that the bigfoot societies will tend to
be able to say, they'll argue, this is what the
Bigfoot steals out of coolers, or this is what bigfoot steals.
And I can't I can't find I can't find anything
that denies it that I can't find. If you ask
what Bigfoot eats, they say they'll say eat squirrels, and
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
So we can't find any evidence that that.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
I want to say, I said he eats wolverines. I'd love
to see a Bigfoot taken out a wolverine, and to.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
Eat stuff is very It would be much better if
they added some ketchup.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
If they had a ketchup, you know, is Bigfoot civilization
and if that would tell you if Bigfoot is really
an early human or Bigfoot is truly just a wild
primate by whether they're making condiments of any sort. Does
Bigfoot have you know, pine tree ketchup? But what I
would love to know if there's a bigfootologist out there,
a Cliff. I used to chat with Cliff Barackman cud right.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
So, Cliff, if you're around and you remember who I am.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Does Bigfoot particularly steal ketchup from camp sites?

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Does he this bigfoot like ketch I'd love to know.
I'd love to know.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
But of course if ketchup, if condiments were necessary for
growing civilization, well, then in the competition between Bigfoot culture
and human culture, then maybe Bigfoot would have been more successful,
and this might be a will where Bigfoots are wondering
if humans are real.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
So the difference was that we were the ones that
started making condiments, and so.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
We out populated Bigfoot by by quite a lot.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
And there and therefore Bigfoot is the one that has
now pushed to the fringes of wilderness civilization and humans
are the ones at wrule the world, which could have
been quite the opposite, except that someone came up with
this idea of letting fish get set until they until
they turned into juice.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Somebody came up with that and decided let's eat that.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
That's yeah, that's sometimes you like that.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Like that the future of Bigfoot's change Sasquatch.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
Lost his space.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
This this reminds me of the mean as I saw.
You kind of have to wonder about that guy who
first tried milk. Have him explained what he and the
entire you know is kind of with that. I think
that falls to that same kind of Okay, Bob, what
were you thinking.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
Well, this fish is rotten? What if I let it rot?

Speaker 2 (59:51):
More?

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Great?

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
There was a program that I saw. Its tangentially related,
but apparently there's an entire gastro science movement. And one
of the shows I was watching, there's a restaurant in
Belgium where the chef has a variety of different decomposing foods,
and he and his students regularly go through and they

(01:00:23):
try very small amounts of said decomposing food to try
to figure out if there's a new flavor profile that
they're missing somehow.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
So these are the people that push society and civilization forward.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
I guess it's we can chuckle about it, but it
is I think a reflection of you know, what happens
when you give highly intelligent creatures with opposable thumbs a
lot of free time, and said creatures happen to enjoy
flavors as part of the evolutionary development, so that they

(01:00:57):
could detect that, well, this taste bad, perhaps I shouldn't
eat it. And have you know, turned that into an
entire almost religion of food and taste. And it certainly
reflects culture in ways. And if you don't believe me,
I will simply point to friends, because seldom has a

(01:01:18):
culture been so focused.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
On someone's you know, I guess someone's gonna do that
kind of stuff, and it is amazing that someone might
discover well throughout history, they clearly have discovered some incredible
things by eating something that no one else in the
right mind would eat. So oh good.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Yeah, well, I mean at some point when you're just
trying to survive as a hunter gatherer, I mean, you
just you've got to try everything right. And you know
how many people ate something that killed them?

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
You know, I don't know, but I mean someone I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Stn't know how people today eat raw oysters. But someone
had to say, oh, let slurp this up.

Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
Well, Hagis, there's a culinary delight.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Look look at this left over sheep offul How about
we just shove it in its stomach and boil it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Yeah, well, we'll put some oatmeal in it to cut
the edge.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
You know. And and now and now it's it's a
consistency of its lungs and hearts.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
It's just not good enough. This some oats there we go.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
That's that is Yeah. Well, I mean someone was just
trial and error to make something. Although I think some
people might argue about whether that's palatable or not.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
But you know, actually I've had Hagis.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
I mean, we're going and by the way, we're going
to Scotland next year.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Take a trip with the History Guy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
There's still ten slots available.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
Sign up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
We're going to have a great time and you'll get
to try haggis. We have ten slots to fill there
and it's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, it's
important that we sell.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
That as a surviving I mean a traveler on one
of the History Guy tours. I can, I can, I
can vouch that indeed it is a wonderful time. There
are a lot of very wonderful people who are repeat travelers,
and the places that you go and the fun that
you have, it really is a wonderful vacation. So totally

(01:03:10):
totally unpaid, an unsponsored plug for the History Guy travels
because it's fun.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
Do it. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
So troba trip a t R o V A t
R I P look for the History Guy Scottish Soul
from the Lowlands to the Highlands. It goes next June,
where I suspect we won't eat a lot of ketchup,
that we might eat some hagis, and I don't think
we're likely to see Bigfoot, but hey, we're going to
be at Locknes, so obviously difference cryptid that we can

(01:03:41):
we can let we can test whether NeSSI likes ketchup.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
We'll just offer on the shore.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
There at see what important science that needs to be done.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The History
Guy podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode of counterfactual history,
and if you did, you can find lots more history
if you follow The History Guy on YouTube. You can
also find us at theistoryguid dot com, Facebook, Patreon, and locals.

(01:04:05):
If you want to hear more counterfactuals, stay tuned. We
release podcasts every two weeks
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.