WEBVTT - How Does Ketchup Work? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:13.600 Lauren Vogelbaum here. Ketchup is an all American condiment, a 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.840 reliable presence at cookouts, on diner tables, and in packets 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.960 at the bottom of fast food bags. As of twenty 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.639 twenty six, some eighty four percent of US households have 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:29.000 a bottle kicking around. But this condiment had thousands of 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.159 years of history before it came to us. The earliest 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.120 recipes are from ancient China. Ketchup traveled to Europe during 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.440 the era of colonization. By the end of the seventeen hundreds, 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.479 it was a British staple enjoyed by folks like Jane Austen, 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.199 but it wasn't the condiment you might know. Ketchups of 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.760 the time were thin, spiced sauces made with various main 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:57.880 ingredients like anchovies, walnuts, or celery, but not tomato. Tomato 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.680 ketchup was probably an American innovation in the early eighteen hundreds, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:06.800 but only became really entrenched after the Civil War. Originally, 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.120 these ketchups were often used as ingredients in other sauces, 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.520 in dishes like savory pies, or in bastes for meat, fish, 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.119 and poultry during cooking, much like barbecue sauce. It wasn't 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.840 until the early twentieth century the ketchup was reinvented as 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.759 a condiment when hot dogs, hamburgers, and French fries entered 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.880 the American diet, and when Hines used tomato ketchup to 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.679 help fuel a movement that would result in the founding 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:39.280 of the US Food and Drug Administration. Today, let's talk 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:45.200 about all things ketchup. Savory sauces or pastes made by 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.600 salting and fermenting things like fish or soybeans go back 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.640 at least two to three thousand years in cultures all 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.880 over the world. It was a way to preserve some 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.840 of the nutrition and flavor of bountiful foods for leaner times. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.160 Things like Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, miso, and Vietnamese fish 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:10.240 sauce are all descendants of these ancient products. Historians think 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.440 we got the word ketchup from a similar Ish Chinese 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.880 term meaning a brine of pickled fish. The ketchup was 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.639 first recorded in English in the sixteen eighties by British sailors, 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:25.280 traders and colonists. In Southeast Asia who were introduced to 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.560 local savory sauces and really liked them. By the seventeen forties, 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.320 English recipe books were awash with ketchups. These were thin, 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:41.959 dark sauces made with lots of posh spices like ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, peel, 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.160 and black pepper, all mixed with vinegar or maybe white wine, 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.560 and steeped with some kind of main ingredient that needed 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.799 to get used up, things like oysters, anchovies, walnuts, plums, 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:59.880 or mushrooms. Jane Austen preferred mushroom ketchup. The sauces would 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:01.560 be allowed to sit for a few days to a 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:07.480 few weeks to ferment, and would then be strained and bottled. Meanwhile, tomatoes, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.480 which are native to the Americas, were becoming part of 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.280 European and colonial cuisines. The first known recipe for tomato 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.760 ketchup was published in eighteen twelve by a Philadelphia doctor 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.720 and horticulturist by the name of James Nice. He called 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.480 tomatoes love apples, based on the French term for the 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.720 produce of palms d'ye moor. Tomatoes and their etymology whole 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:34.880 different episode anyway, tomatoes and ketchup made from them became 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.000 something of a health craze in the US over the 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.520 next few decades, and some companies tried to commercialize tomato ketchup. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:47.200 But we didn't have really reliable sterilization or canning technology yet, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.440 so those products and their preservatives weren't actually very good 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:57.320 for you. Enter Henry J. Hines. Hines was a businessman 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.880 out of Pittsburgh who had gotten his start bottling and 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.400 selling horseradish around the early eighteen seventies. He teamed up 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.160 with one doctor, Harvey Washington Wilie, who helped him create 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.680 clean manufacturing processes and quality control, and hired a food 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:17.279 scientist to tweak his recipes. Together, they came up with 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.800 a ketchup made from ripe red tomatoes with spices and 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.840 a lot of salt, vinegar, and sugar as preservatives. By 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.239 the eighteen nineties, Hines had a big condiment business going, 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.440 with at least fifty seven varieties of products, though that 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:38.120 exact number was probably just a random marketing thing. Hines 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.560 was a progressive boss. In the late eighteen hundreds, he 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.919 was giving his factory employees free access to medical and 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.440 dental care on site emergency care and life and death insurance. 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.839 The company provided uniforms, laundry service, washrooms, and on site 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.000 manicures to make sure employees came to the line clean. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.920 The Pittsburgh had a swimming pool, jim and rooftop garden 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.720 like I sort of want to go bottle ketchup. In 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.920 the late eighteen hundreds in Pennsylvania, Hines was also marketing 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:16.039 this modern manufacturing process. He opened his factories to public tours. 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.719 He sold his products in clear glass bottles. He hired 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.599 traveling salesmen to display Hines products in local grocery stores 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.960 and espouse the quality of these foods. They were expensive, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.880 but more pure and amidst all of this, doctor Wilie, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.320 who by the turn of the century was the chief 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.599 chemist at the Federal Bureau of Chemistry, was on a 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.600 campaign to bring pure foods to the people by regulating 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:47.599 the increasingly industrial food supply. At that point, we didn't 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:52.480 have national consumer protection laws in place concerning food or drugs. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.400 Producers didn't have to follow sanitation procedures, or label things 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:02.600 accurately or list their ingredients. There was growing public concern 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:08.479 about manufactured foods being adulterated or contaminated, and doctor Wilie 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.440 went on speaking tours railing against big business cost cutters 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.799 as the hosts of Satan and promoting a pure Food 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.000 Act as necessary for the survival of the human race. 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.120 This is ostensibly an episode about ketchup. Hines was a 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.360 big supporter of a pure Food Act. Of course, they 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.400 were already a corporate leader in sanitary manufacturing conditions. They 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.440 were ahead of the game there, but they also wanted 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.680 to help inspire greater public confidence in commercially prepared foods. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.360 These issues had been simmering for decades, but then Upton 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:47.080 Sinclair's The Jungle came out in February of nineteen oh six, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:52.320 revealing highly unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry. 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.160 It caused an uproar, and the Pure Food and Drug 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:01.039 Act passed in June that year. It proper labeling of 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.840 ingredients on packaging and paved the way for the Food 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:08.440 and Drug Administration to be created. Heine's business and their 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.800 Ketchup boomed by nineteen oh eight that sold two point 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:17.040 five million dollars worth of tomato based ketchup as it 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.600 became more popular alternate ingredient ketchups and home recipes faded 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.800 away in the US, though you can still find them 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.560 in other places. For example, the Philippines favors banana based ketchup. 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.400 But okay, we have to talk about the science of 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:38.480 ketchup and specifically how it flows or sometimes fails to flow. 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.920 A lot of technology over the years has gone into 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.280 getting ketchup out of its containers and onto your food. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.800 This roots from the fact that ketchup is what's called 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:55.360 a non Newtonian fluid. Let's unpack that a Newtonian fluid 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.560 is one that has a viscosity, that is, a thickness 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:04.640 or resistance to flow related only to its temperature. Water 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:08.880 and oil are Newtonian fluids because pressure and agitation don't 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.920 affect the rate at which they flow, which is to 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.920 say that no matter how hard you shake water, it 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:19.800 always flows the same way. Viscosity is different than density. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:25.080 Think of pouring honey versus cream into a cup of tea. 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.120 Honey is more viscous and more dense than water. It 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.680 takes longer to pour and it's heavier. You put it 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.640 in tea and it'll sink. Cream is more viscous but 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.040 less dense. It takes longer to pour than water, but 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:44.640 it floats in tea or at least mixes in anyway. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.920 Unlike water and other Newtonian fluids, non Newtonian fluids are 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:55.400 affected by pressure and agitation. Think about quicksand we all 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.040 thought about quicksand right, it's about twice as dense as 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.680 you are, meaning that you can float on it, but 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.559 only if you don't struggle. If you struggle in quicksand 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.679 you agitate it and thus make it less viscous, and 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.400 you'll sink. That's why you should stay calm and move 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.720 slowly if you ever get trapped in quicksand or in toothpaste, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.800 or in ketchup. More practically, though, you can put this 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.960 to use when you're trying to get ketchup out of 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.960 a glass bottle. It's so viscous that it gets jammed 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.839 up at the bottle's neck a butt. By applying agitation, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.080 that is, sheer stress to the ketchup in the neck, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.200 you can make it less viscous and it'll flow faster. 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.400 If you've got a bottle of Hinds, you do that 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:43.840 by tapping the neck of the bottle right on the 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.800 fifty seven label. For any other brand. It's right around 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.559 halfway up the neck. The reason that tapping the bottom 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.240 of the bottle doesn't work is because that only affects 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.600 the viscosity of the ketchup at the bottom, and that's 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:01.880 not where the problem is. Plastic squeeze bottles for Ketchup 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.520 were unveiled in nineteen eighty three, but tended to overshoot 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.880 the problem. The upside down squeeze bottles that debuted in 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.720 two thousand and two from both Hinds and Hunts, its 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.720 main us competitor, incorporate a clever silicone valve in the 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:21.400 lid to fix this problem. The valve has slits arranged 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.600 at right angles to each other, so they part when 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.720 you apply pressure via a squeeze to the bottle, and 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.280 then seal back up neatly when relaxed. The caps also 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.880 feature grooves that capture watery Ketchup juice and prevent it 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.720 from squirting out. Instead, it gets mixed back into the 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.720 body of the ketchup. However, it's packaged. Americans do devour 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.920 tomato Ketchup, but where not it's number one fans per capita, 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.200 Finland and Canada seem to be competing for who can 0:10:55.280 --> 0:11:02.920 consume the most. Today's episode is based on the article 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.600 how Ketchup Works on how stuffworks dot Com written by 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.839 Melanie Redzeegy McManus, and on an episode of my other 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:14.120 podcast Saver called The Saucy History of Ketchup. Brain Stuff 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.800 is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.480 dot Com and is produced by Tyler klang A. Four 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.480 more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.760 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.