Mushroom ketchup facts for kids
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Mushroom ketchup is a special kind of ketchup made mainly from mushrooms. Long ago, in the United Kingdom, ketchup was usually made with mushrooms, not tomatoes like most ketchups today. People would pack whole mushrooms with salt to make it. This ketchup is used as a condiment (a sauce or spice added to food) and can also be an ingredient in other sauces. Many brands of mushroom ketchup were sold in the UK, and some are still made today.
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A Look Back: Mushroom Ketchup's Story
For a long time in the United Kingdom, ketchup was made using mushrooms. This was often called "mushroom ketchup." Today, most ketchup is made from tomatoes. Mushroom ketchup likely started in Great Britain. In the United States, people were making mushroom ketchup as early as 1770. A cookbook from Charleston, South Carolina, written in 1770, had a recipe for mushroom ketchup. It even used egg whites to make the mixture clearer. This old book also had a recipe for walnut ketchup.
How Mushroom Ketchup Was Made
To make mushroom ketchup, people would pack whole mushrooms into containers with salt. They would let the liquid from the mushrooms fill the container. Then, they would cook the mushrooms to a boiling point in an oven. After that, they added spices like mace, nutmeg, and black pepper. The liquid was then strained to separate it from the solid mushroom pieces.
Different types of edible mushrooms were used. Some recipes also included vinegar. The final ketchup had a dark color. This color came from the mushroom spores that mixed into the liquid. One old recipe from 1788 suggested using dried mushrooms. It also used red wine and cooked the mixture down to make it stronger.
A book from 1891 about British edible fungi said that for the best results, you shouldn't mix too many different kinds of mushrooms. It explained that some mushrooms go well together, but others should not be mixed at all. This book also described "double ketchup." This was made by cooking mushroom ketchup until half of its water evaporated. This made the ketchup twice as strong.
How Mushroom Ketchup Was Used
In the 1800s, mushroom ketchup was used to make other sauces. For example, it was an ingredient in a sauce called "quin sauce." Quin sauce could be made by adding mushroom ketchup (or walnut ketchup) and anchovies to another sauce. This other sauce was made with white wine, vinegar, lemon juice, dried mushrooms, garlic, and spices.
Mushroom ketchup was also used to flavor a type of beef soup called Scotch brown soup. This was a bread soup from an early 1800s recipe.
Making Other Condiments with It
An 1857 recipe for "camp ketchup" used mushroom ketchup as an ingredient. It also included beer, white wine, anchovy, ginger, and other spices. These ingredients were mixed and left to sit for two weeks before being bottled. Other camp ketchup recipes from that time used mushroom ketchup with vinegar, walnut ketchup, and more spices.
Different Kinds of Mushroom Ketchup
Ketchup You Could Buy
Many companies in the United Kingdom made and sold mushroom ketchup. Some popular brands included Crosse and Blackwell's Mushroom Catsup, Morton's Mushroom Ketchup, Jacky's Pantry Mushroom Ketchup, and Geo Watkins Mushroom Ketchup. Some of these companies even sent their products to the United States. This created competition with ketchup brands made in the U.S., like those from the H. J. Heinz Company.
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A bottle of Geo Watkins Mushroom Ketchup
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A bottle of Jacky's Pantry Mushroom Ketchup
