The origins of ketchup – or catsup – run through ... fish sauce?

Like many Americans, I dip my french fries in ketchup. Or is it catsup? As a condiment and as a word, ketchup has an interesting history.

I had thought that was the corn-syrupy sauce beloved by children and scorned by gastronomes, was the original, more sophisticated version. It turns out that in name, at least, is actually closer to the sauce that inspired it. According to food writer Stephanie Butler, this sauce was first made around 300 B.C., in southern China. Taste-wise it was apparently nothing like America’s favorite fry topping, being a fermented paste “made from fish entrails, meat byproducts and soybeans,” but its name looks similar: , , or . The Oxford English Dictionary explains that in dialects of Hokkien, a language of the area, is a kind of fish, and means “juice, sauce.” Our tomato-based, sugary is, literally, “fish juice.”