Ketchup is a tomato-based sauce, and a must have to accompany your sandwiches, burgers and fries with a tasty flavor.
Several theories compete to explain the terminology of the word. The official one tells that in the 17th century, British sailors who used to travel to east Asia, brought back from one of their trip in China a spicy sauce called “K” Tsiap”. They hardly liked the taste of this spicy sauce and added mushrooms and sugar to make it sweeter. The Chinese name was changed for a much English-sounding word: Ketchup.

In the late 19th century, some recipe books started to give tips to make a good ketchup sauce. In the meantime, in 1876, the first marketed Ketchup bottle was sold. Since then, many “mini-revolutions” shaken the world of Ketchup manufacturers: first, the glass bottle was replaced by a plastic bottle. Indeed, everybody knows how slimy the sauce is, and it used to be very difficult to pour it from a glass bottle: it stuck too much, and emptying down the bottle completely was a great challenge requiring to resemble all of one's strength to hit on the bottom. Nowadays you just have to squeeze the plastic bottle and the Ketchup goes out!

The recipe for ketchup sauce varied through its history, until major brands like Heinz found out how to create a bitter and yet salty and sweet taste. The “basic” ketchup is even added in some bottles some ingredients to give it a barbecue or a spicy flavor. Speaking of Heinz, the brand that made a fortune on Ketchup, the label of its bottles has always aroused curiosity: on top of Heinz bottles is written “57 varieties”, when the brand offers for sale much more than 57 varieties of sauce...