Indian mushroom relish was SC - Ham

[lilinah at grin.net]

James F. Johnson <seumas at mind.net> wrote:
>Helen wrote:
>> > If you want to see another coop of a name, follow the history of
>>catsup from
>> > Indian mushroom relish to American tomato liquid.
>
>Somewhere, I have a recipe for mushroom ketchup, but I doubt it's
>historic integrity. I'll check.

I've had a mushroom soy sauce from China. I'd be interested in your
mushroom ketchup.

>I though ketchup was Malaysian fish sauce. Indian?

Well, i don't have an authenticated history as long as my arm for it, but
when i lived in Indonesia, kecap (the "c" is pronounced as "ch") was soy
sauce. My understanding, which may be flawed, is that the name is derived
from Chinese, but i could be wrong here.There are a couple kinds, the main
ones being kecap asin - salty soy sauce - and kecap manis - sweet soy sauce
which has sugar added. It has a thick syrupy consistancy. There are another
couple, rarely found, specialty kinds, one claiming to contain honey, which
is a very rare commodity in Indonesia.

I though the Brits, who colonized Malaysia (whose language, culture, and
cuisine are siblings to those of Indonesia), brought the term "catsup" back
from there. There is a significantly larger Chinese population in Malaysia
than in Indonesia, and they are better integrated into Malaysian culture.
When i was in grad school (getting my MA in Southeast Asian studies), i was
taught that the native Malay and the Chinese populations were nearly equal
at a bit under 45 per cent each while the Indian (mostly Tamil) population
was around 15 per cent. There's no significant Indian population in
Indonesia, which was colonized by the Dutch (not counting the outer islands
which are currently in turmoil).

So here is the intersection of British, Indian, Chinese and Malay and what
may have been the fertile breeding ground of ketchup as we know it today :-)

There is no fish sauce in Indonesian cuisine (and i think not in indigenous
Malaysian either). Both use shrimp paste, though, of which there are
several varieties, including:  blachan (Malay spelling), trassi, and petis
udang. The Thai also use shrimp paste. To the best of my knowledge, fish
sauce is used in Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines (and i think in
Laos, Cambodia, and Burma/Myanmar, but my knowledge is weaker here). I
think there may be a Chinese variety, too.

>I think US ketchup is more like tomato flavoured sugar sauce.

Well, it's partly due to the FDA - to be legally called ketchup (or
catsup), it must contain a federally mandated amount of sweetener. I buy
something call "Unketchup" because it has no sweetener at all, just tasty
tomatoes and seasonings, made by Westbrae. I don't even like the
fruit-juice sweetened ketchup; it's too sweet for me.

Anahita Gawri bint-Karim al-hakim al-Fassi
who is naturally sweetened, errr, i mean sweet


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