Heinz is why ketchup seemed to become distinctly American.
How the world consumes ketchup
While ketchup is indeed an American staple – 97 percent of households have a bottle on hand – it’s very popular around the world, where the condiment is used in a lot of surprising ways.
Although practically sacrilegious in Italy, ketchup is often squirted on pizza in places as far flung as Trinidad, Lebanon and Poland. Similarly, ketchup is even used as a substitute for tomato sauce in pasta dishes in countries such as in Japan, which created a catsup-based dish called spaghetti Napolitan.
In the Philippines there’s a popular banana ketchup that was invented when tomatoes ran short during World War II but otherwise looks and tastes like tomato ketchup. In Germany the local favorite is a curry powder-spiked ketchup that goes on sausages sold by street vendors everywhere.
Without doubt the most intriguing recipe comes from Canada, where people enjoy ketchup cake, a sweet red frosted layer cake that is much better than it sounds.
The modern variety of ketchup even returned home to China to become the base of many Chinese or perhaps more properly Chinese-American dishes like sweet and sour chicken. Ketchup is sometimes a stand in for tamarind in pad thai.
But the best recipe comes from my father who once told me that during the Great Depression people without money would ask for a cup of hot water to which they would add some free ketchup and have a meal of tomato soup.
