Ketchup

Menetta Eitemiller's neighbors don't have to guess when she's making ketchup."There's no secret about the day I do it. The smell just carries out the basement window," said the Randallstown grandmother, homemaker and small-time rival of the H.J. Heinz Co. Her 1993 production run of the sweet red stuff filled 14 soft drink and beer bottles.In her recipe, she uses a half-bushel of ripe tomatoes -- she refers to them as "dead ripe" -- two packages of McCormick pickling spices, vinegar, salt and pepper, three or four onions and a whole day standing over the stove.

GARRISON KEILLOR and the Ketchup Advisory Board must be having a good laugh now. For years, the radio show host and his regulars have lampooned the tomato-based condiment and its "natural mellowing agents." For a testy husband, a hormonal wife, a dollop of ketchup can cure your woes, as the advisory board's theme song goes, "A new day is dawning, a new life has begun ... " And now comes Dr. Edward L. Giovannucci of the Harvard School of Public Health with the real word on ketchup's healing powers.

IN THESE TIMES of crisis, when America seems to have lost its way, Congress is finally facing up to, yes, the ketchup issue.Salsa, as you may have heard, has surpassed ketchup as America's favorite condiment. And this can't be right, not in the America I used to know.We're already facing the browning of not just America, but also of American bread. The whole-wheat fad, not to mention the bagel fad, the pita-bread fad and, most disturbingly, the corn and wheat tortilla fads, are undermining the long-standing concept of white-bread America, land of the (color)

It's hard to imagine American food without ketchup. Backyard barbecues and Fourth of July picnics would be sorry affairs without it. Last year, Americans consumed over 65 milliongallons of this sanguine condiment, enough for every man, woman and child in this country to have 36 ounces a year.To most Americans, ketchup is as modern and American as baseball. You might be surprised to learn that ketchup originated in China and that the recipe is more than 200 years old.The term ketchup (also catsup and catchup)

In the early 1990s, news reports suggested that ketchup was under challenge as America's national condiment. Dollar for dollar, sales of salsa were exceeding ketchup. A decade later, ketchup's popularity is stronger than ever - thanks to green and purple versions that appeal to kids, as well as to gourmet sauces like banana, mango or green tomato ketchup aimed at higher-end consumers. Ketchup has been one of the most stable foods on the market. But it seems to be turning on its head. Besides green and purple food coloring, the sauce is being infused with ginger, maple syrup, jalapeno or prickly pear cactus, as a new generation of microbrewed ketchup shows up in specialty stores.

Why do onions need to be refrigerated after cutting? Wouldn't it be just as well to put the onion in a container or baggy and put it back in the pantry? And does an opened container of ketchup need to be refrigerated? You refrigerate a cut onion for several reasons. One is that cutting into anything introduces bacteria, which will grow more quickly and cause spoilage faster at room temperature. When you cut the onion, you also rupture the cells, which leak moisture and cause spoilage.

Holly Renew from Baltimore was looking for a recipe for a mushroom loaf that was served at the now-closed restaurant in Canton called the Wild Mushroom. She said it was a featured item on the menu and similar to a meatloaf in consistency but contained no meat. I was not able to track down the exact recipe she sought, but I did some research and found a recipe for a very tasty vegetable "meatloaf" that was published in the March 2012 issue of Cooking Light magazine. This loaf is full of mushrooms and other vegetables.

MOSCOW -- When most Russians think ketchup, they think of Baltimor. Not Baltimore the American city, but the maker of the condiment generously smothered here on foods that most Americans wouldn't care to use it on, including rice, bread and boiled meat dumplings. It turns out Russians think ketchup a lot: Average annual consumption is estimated at more than three pounds, more in Moscow and other big cities. This has laid the groundwork for a kind of ketchup war. The producer of America's best-selling ketchup, Heinz, has launched an effort to squeeze more of its brand onto Russians' dinner plates and challenge its Russian counterpart -- Baltimor -- as king of the condiments.

The average American eats 92 pounds of tomatoes a year. Eighty percent of that, however, comes in a processed form, such as sauces or ketchup. -- Time magazine

"Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment," by Andrew F. Smith (Smithsonian Institution Press, 242 pages, $16.95). Nobody is sure where it came from - 18th century France and ancient Greece and the Gulf of Tonkin are among the speculations. But everybody knows that for many Americans it improves the edibility of almost anything. I know people whose behavior makes it clear they believe French fried potatoes were invented as a condiment to augment ketchup, a main dish. This history of the stuff is scholarly but never stuffy, full of delights.