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Ketchup vs Mustard

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[[File:TT Włocławek.png|thumb|upright|Strawberry and and red-currant-flavoured ketchups made in Poland. Source: Twitter.]]
In August last year, a Polish news portal published an article entitled [https://finanse.wp.pl/truskawkowy-keczup-od-firmy-wloclawek-internauci-w-szoku-6412050532366465a “Strawberry Ketchup from Włocławek: Internet Users in Shock”.] As usual in modern journalism, the article was based entirely on two tweets. [https://twitter.com/michaljadczak/status/1160165241117970432 One of them,] by Mr. Michał Jadczak, contained a picture of two red plastic bottles with labels reading, in Polish, “Ketchup with strawberries” and “Ketchup with red currants”. The picture was captioned: “Scandal! Sacrilege! The end is nigh..:/”. In their comments, many Twitter users expressed their dismay at someone’s nerve to adulterate ketchup with fruits of plants other than tomato. Some linked this scandal to the momentous fact that Włocławek-brand ketchup was actually no longer made in the town of Włocławek (pronounced: {{pronczyt|vWawts|Wah|vekWłocławek}}).
If you, too, are shocked by strawberry ketchup, then what would you say to mushroom ketchup? Or walnut ketchup? Oyster ketchup, anyone? It turns out that the origin of this condiment is no less ancient than that of mustard, but while we would easily recognize ''mustum ardens'' from centuries ago as mustard, we would be hard pressed to recognize original ketchup as ketchup. It has come a long way to become the uniform, thick, red, sweet sauce we know today.
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I think it’s a&nbsp;great loss to Polish vocabulary that the word he coined, ''“kwasób”'' (pronounced: {{pronczyt|kfah|soopkwasób}}, from ''“kwas”'', “sour”), has never caught on. Instead, Polish people are stuck with a&nbsp;poorly adopted borrowing on which they can’t even agree how to spell (“ketchup” or “keczup”?) nor how to read (''keh-choop''{{pron|kehczyt|choopkeczup}} or ''keh-chup''{{pron|kehczyt|chahpkeczap}}?), and which remained quite obscure well into the 20th century. A&nbsp;Polish-English phrasebook from 1903 translated the menu item “fried oysters with ketchup” as ''“ostrygi pieczone z&nbsp;rajskimi jabłuszkami”'',<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = Księga Uciechy i&nbsp;Pożytku
| rozdział = Podróż do Ameryki
[[File:Stanisław Fenrych.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Stanisław Fenrych (1883–1955)]]
That’s not to say ketchup wasn’t increasingly advertised in Interbellum Poland itself. What’s more, this is when it certain pioneers started to complement the supply of imported ketchup with domestic production. The first man to manufacture tomato ketchup on a&nbsp;commercial scale in Poland was Stanisław Fenrych. In 1919, he purchased an estate in the Greater Poland village of Pudliszki (pronounced: {{pronczyt|pood|leesh|keePudliszki}}) where he set up orchards, vegetable gardens and a&nbsp;factory to turn the produce into marmalades, jams and preserves. According to Pudliszki corporate lore, his neighbours expected that pears would sooner grow on a&nbsp;willow tree than his business venture would become profitable, so he defiantly put a&nbsp;pear-bearing willow in his company’s logo and soon proved the naysayers wrong. In 1927, Fenrych sent his advisors to Britain to obtain tomato seeds, believing that British varieties would do well in Polish climate. The advisors brought back not only the seeds, but also a&nbsp;recipë for tomato ketchup. Its industrial production began in Pudliszki in the following year. In 1929, the business was visited by Polish President Ignacy Mościcki; at a&nbsp;dinner given in his honour, he was served hard-boiled eggs with ketchup as a&nbsp;starter.<ref>{{Cyt
| tytuł = Głos Wielkopolski
| nazwisko r = Sternal