Pass the Mushroom Paste?

Pass the mushroom paste?

Ketchup is the condiment king. Thing is, you might not necessarily know some interesting facts about ketchup. Despite what you might think, tomatoes weren’t always an ingredient in ketchup. In the 1800’s ketchup was the given name to any sauce made with vinegar. Even up until 1913 Webster’s dictionary defined ketchup as a table sauce made from mushrooms, tomatoes, walnuts, etc. I don’t think I’d have the heart to dip my fries into a fine mushroom sauce. I think this form of ketchup would loose the appeal.
Fortunately however tomatoes were soon adopted as the key ingredient over mushrooms. Henry J. Heinz fascination with condiments started at an early age. By age 9 he was selling his own brand of horseradish sauce, at age ten he was given a _ acre garden where grew and sold vegetables. By age 17 Heintz was grossing $2,400 a year. This is a pretty good amount of money for a seventeen year old in this time period. After several failed business partnerships, the H J Heintz Company was founded as was its still famous slogan “57 varieties” Thanks to the pursuits of Henry J Heintz a ketchup bottle became a popular resident in the America kitchen.
Along with progress comes problems, such is the case with the current distribution method of ketchup, the glass bottle. Even today you can still find glass bottles of ketchup; however the same problem still exists. Trying to get the ketchup out in a smooth un globbulated pattern. There are several approaches to this conundrum that I am aware of. The first method is to beat the hell out of the upside down ketchup bottle hoping that pure physical abuse will persuade the ketchup bottle to expel itself on your burger or fries. Typically the beating the ketchup bottle is the first step. After becoming horribly frustrated you decide that if the ketchup won’t come to you, you must in turn go to the ketchup. Typically a knife is the primary tool to jab violently inside the bottle and the condensed paste until it surrenders to gravity and tops your meal. I’ve always been thoroughly frightened by the look on people’s faces while jabbing the knife rapidly inside the bottle. I think there’s definitely a wild animal desperation present in the twinkle of their eyes. Thankfully the plastic squeeze bottle soon emerged making the task of getting ketchup a much easier task, also allowing us to further bottle up our accumulated stress and frustration for other condiments…like mayonnaise…damn you mayonnaise!
2000 produced a stunning revolution to the world of ketchup. Why not change ketchups color. Such a simple idea with such a dramatic effect on society. At first fear, then curiosity, then a general acceptance. “What is this blue ketchup….is it ketchup made from blueberries…or this…this green ketchup…do they make this with green tomatoes…are the fried green tomatoes….this is so strange!” Well there really isn’t much of a mystery at all, basically the right amounts of food coloring is the simple culprit behind the colored ketchup phenomenon. Soon other food items like butter would try to capitalize on the colored ketchups success….damn you butter! Apparently as of this month Heintz plans to discontinue the colored ketchup phenomenon, satisfied that their color switch attracted attention and a new found affection from this staple of American condiment…cy…er…uh….ology?
Speaking as a grocery stocker I spent a good amount of time down on my knees for ketchup……….stocking the shelves that is. I noticed that Heintz had a marketing idea to brand every so odd number of ketchup bottles with different slogan-like phrases. These were very subtle and were easily overlooked as normal labels such as “serve with fries”. Apparently a new celebrity line of ketchup label phrases are in the works with quotes from William Shattner, Mia Hamm, Terry Bradshaw and even Lindsay Lohan. Shattner’s phrase is labeled as “Fixes burgers at warp speed”. Ah marketing genius in full swing.
Close to marketing is packaging, ketchup can be found in glass bottles, plastic bottles, paper packets, and in fast food restaurants, straight from the tap. I find it strange that unlike soda or beer taps, no one want to put their head underneath the ketchup tap and let that sweet red ooze fill their mouth with tomatoey goodness.
In the 2004 presidential election the world of ketchup was again revisited when John Kerry’s wife Theresa Heintz Kerry…heiress to the Heintz family…became a household name. The Republican Party’s chief supporters…crazy white religious people with hypocritical and questionable morals…decided they needed something to dip their “Freedom Fries”…something that unlike Heintz ketchup wouldn’t leave a nasty democratic taste in their mouth. Solution…W ketchup. This American flag cladden bottle of ketchup comes bursting with patriotic goodness with a huge “W” on the label. The makers claim that the “W” stands for Washington as in George Washington…but it’s an interesting coincidence that George “W” Bush’s known nickname is of course “W”. Instead of boasting 57 varieties, W ketchup places a similar sticker stating 50 states. That’s how I like my politics….on fries.
Being in st.louis we are neighbors to one of the biggest landmarks in ketchupdom. The world’s largest bottle of ketchup is located just across the river in Collinsvill Illinois. This 170 ft water tower modeled after a 1950’s era brooks ketchup bottle pays tribute to ketchups colorful past…physically and metaphorically speaking. Ketchup is part of the American culture and surely will be for years to come. So instead of passing over the mushroom paste, you can now proudly say, “hey could you pass the ketchup”, all while knowing a delectable treat of tomatoey goodness will soon comfort your burgers and fries…carefull though when it comes to hot dogs. Putting ketchup on hot dogs might just get you killed in some parts of the country, but that’s whole nother story all together.