Andrew F. Smith

A zestful blend of culinary history, savory anecdotes, and surprising recipes

6 x 9, 255 pages
8 color illustrations
cloth, ISBN 1-57003-139-8, $24.95t

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Andrew F. Smith began researching the heritage of America's favorite condiment, he uncovered the makings of a great story: exotic and mysterious beginnings, unusual and colorful characters, evil contaminators, strong-willed commercial competitors, high-minded government regulators, and, finally, the relentless quest for a global market. He also found that most accounts of ketchup's history were littered with oft-repeated errors and nicely told myths. In this entertaining, authoritative look at the ubiquitous sauce, Smith debunks widely espoused fables and provides a carefully researched, scrupulously documented basis for future work on ketchup's history and cookery.

Popular stereotypes to the contrary, Smith demonstrates that ketchup was not an American creation. Nor in the beginning was it thick, sweet, or tomato-based. Tracing its introduction to the United States, he recalls eighteenth-century British recipes that fashion ketchup from kidney beans, mushrooms, anchovies, and walnuts, and he documents the adoption and adaptation of these early recipes by American colonists. Smith chronicles milestones in the condiment's history, including the rise of tomato-based ketchup consumption, the proliferation of commercial ketchup, the recent renaissance in homemade ketchup, and the current challenge posed by salsa.

From his large store of historical ketchup recipes, Smith offers a representative sampling of the appetizing, the intriguing, and the outlandish. The volume includes recipes for more than 110 ketchup varieties made from such unexpected ingredients as apricots, beer, celery, cucumbers, lemons, liver, raspberries, and rum.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew F. Smith a writer and lecturer on education and international affairs, is author of The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and in Jackson, New Jersey.

REVIEWS

"Andrew F. Smith has done an impressive job of uncovering the history of the condiment which by the 1890s was being called the 'sauce of sauces,' and even more remarkably has made of that history fascinating reading. . . .So if you are a scholar, a cook, someone curious about the history of food, or just someone who likes a good read, you will find something in Pure Ketchup that will interest you."—Tecumseh Review, Vincennes University

"The book starts out as a sweeping history—ketchup in the ancient Mediterranean, ketchup evolving with the help of the British Empire—but finds its stride in an amazing variety of fun historical nuggets that Smith uncovered about ketchup's evolution. . . . He goes on to deal with the Heinz juggernaut and, of course, the 1980s ketchup debacle, when the condiment was declared a vegetable by the Reagan administration to save money on the federal school lunch program. . . .These days, he said, homemade ketchup is making a comeback."—The Associated Press

ALSO FROM THE AUTHOR

Popped Culture

The Tomato in America