Is Tomato-Free Ketchup Still Considered Ketchup?
The other day, I came across a post on the Fill Your Plate blog that talked about new kinds of ketchup including pumpkin, curry and even oyster-flavored ketchup. This new trend of unusual – and often tomato-free – ketchup is apparently taking off around the country, according to Girl Meets Fork. There’s even a new restaurant in D.C. that serves eight kinds of ketchup, ranging from mushroom to red currant.
Call me a ketchup purist – I even avoid using the word “catsup” – but I think that if it doesn’t contain tomatoes, it’s not ketchup. We don’t call mustard “yellow ketchup” – from Dijon to honey mustard, it has its own condiment name. Sauce might be a better term… although I admit that pumpkin sauce still doesn’t sound that appealing, even when they say that “folks can use similarly to the way they would use a traditional ketchup.”
Then there are the artisan ketchups that do still have tomatoes, but aren’t your average bottle of Heinz (although don’t even get me started on its purple and green ketchups…ew.). Dulcet Cuisine won a food award for outstanding condiment for its Mild Indian Curry Ketchup, and it also markets exotic ketchup varieties in “Peppery Moroccan” and “Sweet Orange Chile” flavors. And just last week I went to a local restaurant that bottles its own maple ketchup – which I appreciate on a burger as a companion to the toppings, but honestly, for fries it just didn’t quite do the trick.
I have no problem with trying out this new food trend of artisan ketchups – but is it too much to ask for them to be called condiments or sauces and not ketchups? And maybe it’s just me being ketchup crazy … after all, I do put ketchup on everything from eggs to certain soups. So yes, maybe I’m just a little too ketchup crazy for this food fad.
On that note, I’ll leave you with some of our recipes that call for ketchup (the original kind):
Have you tried any unusual flavors of ketchup, or do you have any favorite ketchup-ingredient recipes? Let us know in the comments!