Ketchup vs Mustard
The grilling season, which is Poland's quivalent of the American BBQ season, is now in full bloom, having started, as always, during the national holidays of early May. The coronavirus pandemic hasn't stopped people from grilling meat in their backyards. So it's a good occasion to says something about the condiments that are indispensable at any grill party: mustard and ketchup. We're gonna start with a little bit of history and then, together with fellow blogger Michał Górecki, we'll try to make both condiments according to old recipes and see (and taste) how they compare with their modern, store-bought, versions.
But first I'd like to thank Górek for his hospitality and help, and to also thank Marcin Kuc from Jaja w Kuchni for participating in the tasting session. You will find a video recording of the meeting at the very bottom.
Mustard, “an Uncommon Condiment”
Let's start with mustard, a condiment of a truly ancient pedigree. If you take a jar of mustard from your fridge and read the list of ingredients on the label, you'll see it's made mostly of mustard seeds, vinegar, salt and sugar. The composition is so simple you could quite easily make your own mustard at home (more about it later). What's more, the list of ingredients has remained pretty much unchanged for centuries. The crucial ingredient are, of course, the mustard seeds, so let's begin with them.
The mustard plant, which looks quite similar to rapeseed (or what North Americans call "canola") with its bright-yellow flowers, produces seeds which have a very specific taste. But taste is it exactly? The plant's Polish name, "gorczyca" suggests a bitter ("gorzki") taste. But if you ground some with you teeth, you'd notice that they are actually sweetish and very piquant, but not exactly bitter. So did the plant get its Polish name from? Most likely from the verb "gorzeć", "to burn", as both bitterness and the taste of raw mustard seeds could be described as "burning".
Mustard seeds come in three varieties: white, brown and black. In fact, the brown and black ones are more closely related to cabbage that to the white mustard, but let's leave the botanical taxonomy aside and just continue to refer to all three as "mustard".
Mustard seeds have been known to humanity for ages. As an example, let me quote the following simile employed by Jesus:
| What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches. | ||||
— Jesus of Nazareth, quoted in: Luke, 13:18–19; in: Holy Bible: New International Version, 1978
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But wait, what did he mean by "tree"? Mustard is an annual plant, it doesn't grow more than 60 cm tall. Did Jesus get confused or was he misquoted by Luke or mistranslated by Bible scholars?
Anyway, ancient Romans found out that mustard seeds' sharp taste may be somewhat blunted by mixing them with sour-tasting grape must. They called this mixture "burning must", or "mustum ardens" in Latin, which, as you may have guessed, is where the "mustard" comes from. This condiment survived the fall of the Roman Empire and was quite commonplace in medieval Europe. By that time, however, the must would have been usually replaced with either verjuice (unripe grape juice) or vinegar (although the famous Dijon mustard, for example, still has some white wine added to it). The fact that mustard was common known throughout Europe doesn't mean that medieval Europeans didn't have their stereotypes about specific nations' supposed love for the condiment. One such stereotype was best illustrated by Eustache Deschamp, a 15th-century pioneer of French culinary chauvinism who didn't care for any food outside the borders of France. I already once quoted his not too flattering description of Czech cuisine; now it's time for a poem about Belgian cookery.
In Hainaut and Brabant I made | ||||
— Eustache Deschamps: Tousjours, sanz demander, moustarde, in: Selected Poems, red. Ian S. Laurie, Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi, New York – London: Routledge, 2003, p. 116
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And when did mustard find its way into Poland. Probably no later than in the Middle Ages, although the earliest known written mentions of it come only from the 17th century. This what Polish physician and botanist Szymon Syreński (also known as Simon Syrenius) wrote about it:
| Mustard seeds are made into a peculiar and healthy delicacy which is commonly used at the table, especially in the colder seasons. This delicacy is known as "gorczyczka", or by the foreign name "mustarda", and everyone makes it according to their own liking. […] Some simply grind fresh mustard seeds […] and then dissolve them in sweet wine and honey. Others add sugar and vinegar. Others still add finely chopped, honeyed orange zest, which lends the mustard a peculiar taste. Some mix their mustard with pears or skinned dates, as well as with quince, and season it with cinnamon and cloves […] | ||||
— Szymon Syreński: Zielnik herbarzem z języka łacińskiego zowią, Kraków: 1613, p. 1205; quoted in: Jarosław Dumanowski: Staropolskie przepisy kulinarne: Receptury rozproszone z XVI–XVIII w.: Źródła drukowane, Warszawa: Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie, 2016, p. 305, own translation
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As you can see, even back then Polish people knew quite a few mustard varieties, perhaps even more than the typical modern choice of deli, French, Russian, brown, horseradish and honey mustards that you can buy in any Polish supermarket. In Stanisław Czerniecki's Compendium Ferculorum, the oldest printed cookbook in Polish, there's only one recipe for this "niepospolity condiment", or "uncommon condiment" (it calls for mustard seeds, wine, vinegar, pears, raisins and sugar),[1], but you can find more in other Old Polish advice book. Curiously, most of them recommend making sweet mustards. As such, sweet mustard may not be very surprising (honey mustard is still quite popular in our time), but the very diversity of possible sweet ingredients could boggle you mind. What has caught my attention is an 18th-century recipe for mustard flavoured with pears and honey cake (a kind of gingerbread), which you will find at the end of this post.
As new mustard recipes were being developed, so did novel ways to serve the mustard on the table in an elegant way. You may remember Adam Mickiewicz's poetic description of the elaborate centrepiece of Soplicowo. According to Jędrzej Kitowicz, an indispensable element of such a centrepiece were spherical receptacles he called "bubbles", sitting snugly in metal rings welded to vertical parts of the structure.
| In each of these rings there was a lidded bubble, fashioned either out of silver or crystal with silver elements. These bubbles […] were placed inside […] the rings so that they wouldn't be tipped by accident. They were filled with vinegar, olive oil, sugar […] and mustard, which the diners used, when […] wishing to enhance the flavour of some dish according to the subtlety of their palates. Mustard was used with boiled meats and grilled sausages, which they believed to be more healthy and flavourful when eaten with this condiment. […] In the mustard bubble there was a proportionally sized spoon, silver, gilded inside, with a crooked handle. Whoever wished for some oil or vinegar, could just open the lid and pour the liquid; mustard, however, was thicker and wouldn't pour so easily, hence the spoon, without which the diner would either pour too much by tilting the bubble excessively or wait too long for the thick mass to ooze out. | ||||
— O stołach i bankietach pańskich, in: Jędrzej Kitowicz: Opis obyczajów i zwyczajów za panowania Augusta III, vol. 3, Poznań: Edward Raczyński, 1840, p. 165–167, own translation
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Ketchup, “Something Akin to Kabul”
In August last year, a Polish news portal published an article entitled "Strawberry Ketchup from Włocławek: Internet Users in Shock". As usual in modern journalism, the article was based entirely on two tweets. One of them, by Mr. Michał Jadczak, was contained a picture of two red plastic bottles with labels reading, in Polish, "Ketchup with strawberries" and "Ketchup with red currants". The pictured was captioned: "Scandal! Sacrilege! The end is nigh..:/". Many Twitter users confirmed in their comments that they were shocked by the news that the fruits of a plant other than tomato were added to ketchup. Some linked this scandal with the momentous fact that Włocławek-brand ketchup is actually no longer made in the town of Włocławek (pronounced vwawts-WAH-veck).
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 tomato sauce we know today.
Ketchup began its career somewhere in Southeast Asia as… fish sauce. It was originally made by salting fish blood and innards, as well as whole fish that were too small for any other use, and leaving the whole mess to ferment. The smell must have been overwhelming, but only at the beginning of the process. As the mixture was fermenting, the scent and the taste were becoming milder and more palatable. The liquid thus obtained was a natural source of monosodium glutamate; in other words, a kind of ancient Maggi seasoning. In the Chinese dialect spoken in northern Vietnam, this sauce was called "kê-tsiap".
What's interesting, this knd of sauce was most popular in southern China, Indochinda and Indonesia – but not further north, in most of China, Korea and Japan. Why? Well, in the north there was an easier-to-make alternative: the soy sauce. Fish sauce, on the other hand, was also produced in the Mediterranean Sea basin. Manufacture of various kinds of fish sauce (such as liquament, which was used for cooking, and garum a table seasoning) was a big business in ancient Rome. I once visited in Barcelona the ancient ruins of a fish-sauce factory, which had stood next door to an ancient winery. Which means that must, which was used to make old-time mustard, was produced right next to fish sauce which wasn't much different from that which ketchup derives from.
Alas, the technology of fish-sauce production, unlike that of mustard, was gradually forgotten after the fall of the Roman civilization (it did survive somewhat longer in the Byzantine Empire). In Italy, garum was eventually replaced by another delicacy, made from salted, fermented and pressed fish roe, known as botargo. It wasn't until the Age of Exploration that Europeans could come across fish sauces again.
But by the time the English could first sample something the locals in Indonesia referred to as "kecap", this word had already expanded its meaning to cover all kinds of sauces; in fact, modern Indonesians use it mostly when talking about soy sauce. The English borrowed the word and used it for condiments that were meant to last long, as opposed to sauces, which were prepared just before a meal. Ketchup, or catsup, could be bottled and stored for months or even years. One 18th-century British cookbook contains a recipe "to make ketch-up that will keep twenty years".[3] Apart from fish and mushroom ketchups, popular varieties included ketchups made from oysters or unripe walnuts, but recipes are also known for cucumber, plum, gooseberry, grape, peach, bell pepper, bean, lobster, liver, mussel and even herring ketchups (I need to try out the herring one someday). What did they all have in common? Preservatives, usually salt and vinegar, the latter sometimes replaced with strong wine, stale beer or cider, as well as exotic spices, such as ginger, nutmeg and cloves.
| Take walnuts while green, beat them well in a mortar and strain the juice. Let it stand for twelve hours, then to a quart of the fine juice put six herrings with a little of the pickle, having cut the herrings very fine. Put the micture in a stewpan, adding to it a little mace, about twenty cloves, and half an ounce of alspice. Boil the whole over a slow fire for half an hour, then strain it through a fine cloth, put again into the pan, adding to it twenty or thirty eschalots and half a pint of vinegar. Let it boil till the eschalots are tender, then put it into a basin to cool, when cool run it through a fine cloth and bottle it for use. |
| — Excellent Catsup, in: Richard Alsop: The Universal Receipt Book or Complete Family Directory by a Society of Gentlemen in New York, New York: I. Riley, 1814, p. 249; quoted in: Andrew F. Smith: Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment, with Recipes, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996, p. 163 |
By the 18th century, ketchup had become a familiar condiment throughout the British Empire. Jonathan Swift, known especially as the author of Gulliver's Travels, gave "catsup" as an example of "home-bred British" food, as opposed to French "soups and fricassees", in one of his satirical poems. On the other hand, he mentioned catsup in the same line as caviar and the aforementiond botargo, which shows that it was still classified as seafood.
Then Gluttony, with greasy paws, |
| — Jonathan Swift: Panegyric on the Dean in the Person of a Lady in the North, in: The British Poets, vol. XXXVIII, Chiswick: Press of C. Whittingham, 1822, p. 116–117 |
Ketchup could have been made from almost anyhting, so it was a matter of time for someone to get the idea of making kethcup out of tomatoes. But who? The tomato plant isn't native to either Indonesia or the British Isles. Long after the first specimens were brought from America, Europeans were still apprehensive about it, because it reminded them of deadly nightshade, henbane bell and other related, higly toxic plants. It follows that tomato ketchup was invented on the same continent the tomato comes from. At the turn of the 19th century, tomato ketchup was already a popular condiment in the newly established United States of America. Just like other ketchups, it was enhanced by the addition of vinegar, spices and, starting in the 1840s, sugar (which also played the role of a preservative). Ketchup was starting to taste like it does today. And what did it look like? Old varieties of tomato were yellow (hence its Italian name, "pomo d'oro", or "golden apple", which has been borrowed into Polish and a few other languages). And ketchup was often strained and filtered, so it was a runny yellowish liquid rather than a thick red sauce.
It took a long time for the Polish people to learn what ketchup is and even longer for them to acquire a taste for it. First advertisements of "wallnut ketchup", an exotic sauce imported from Britain, started to appear in Warsaw newspapers around the middle of the 19th century.
| Cured meats, smoked tongues and Hamburg Schlackwurst, as well as Mixed Picle, Picca-lilly, Salad Cream, Beefsteak Sauce, India Soya, John Bull Sauce, Wallnut Ketchup, Toniatta and many other sauces, sardines in smaller and larger tins, English Chester cheese have arrived by rail and may be purchased at A. Keolichen's delicatessen at Długa Street […] | ||||
— Advertisement of the Koelichen delicatessen, in: Kurier Warszawski, 132, Warszawa: 23 May 1850, p. 702, own translation (English words left in their original spelling)
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In 1885, one advocate for modern agriculture tried to teach Polish land owners to preserve their produce in the form of ketchup. For him, ketchup was still a runny sour liquid and not a thick syrupy sauce.
| There are two kinds of fruit juices. One kind is more or less sweetened with sugar and is used for flavouring beverages, such as water, tea or vodka, as well as flour-based dishes and ice cream. The other kind is seasoned with more or less vinegar and is used as a condiment for meat dishes. The latter kind is used by the English and the Americans, who call it "ketchup". To differentiate between the two, […] we shall refer to the latter kind by its English name, Polonized from "ketchup" to "kwasób". […]
Kwasób may be made from tomatoes, walnuts or cucumbers. English ketchup is always well seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper, paprika, sometimes also mustard seeds or ginger, nutmeg, etc. | ||||
— Józef Bohdan Rogojski: Owocarstwo, czyli Nowe sposoby użytkowania z owoców drzew owocowych w klimacie naszym wzrastających, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Przeglądu Tygodniowego, 1885, p. 65, 67
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I think it's a great loss to Polish vocabulary that the word he coined, "kwasób" (pronounced KFAH-soop, from "kwas", "sour"), has never caught on. Instead, Polish people are stuck with a poorly adopted borrowing which they can't even agree how to spell ("ketchup" or "keczup"?) nor how to read (KEH-choop or KEH-chahp?), and which remained quite obscure well into the 20th century. A Polish-English phrasebook from 1903 translated the menu item "fried oysters with ketchup" as "ostrygi pieczone z rajskimi jabłuszkami",[4] which literally means "oysters roasted with apples of paradise". Apparently, whoever devised the phrasebook was convinced that not only "ketchup", but even "pomidor" (the Polish word for "tomato") would have been unfamiliar to the average Pole.
Between the World Wars, tomato ketchup (and its advertisements) was already a common sight in the United States. According to a correspondent of a Polish newspaper of that time, all dishes in America were doused with such liberal quantities of ketchup that they all tasted exactly the same.
| All kinds of meat are seasoned in the same fashion, smothered under incredible amounts of pepper and the ubiquitous, heavily advertised sauces called "Chilli" or "Ketchup". If you were served such an otherwise delicious dish as roast duck with oranges, you would only know that it's a duck from reading the menu, because it wouldn't taste any different from other scraps of meat drowned in advertised sauces and condiments. | ||||
— Kłopoty gastronomiczne w kraju dolara: w Ameryce nie wszystko jest dobre, in: ABC – Nowiny Codzienne, No. 215, Warszawa: Mazowiecka Spółka Wydawnicza, 29 July 1935, p. 6, own translation
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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 commercial scale in Poland was Stanisław Fenrych. In 1919, he purchased an estate in the Greater Poland village of Pudliszki (pronounced pood-LEESH-kee) where he set up orchards, vegetable gardens and a factory to turn the produce into marmelades, jams and preserves. According to Pudliszki corporate lore, his neighbours expected that pears would sooner grow on a willow tree than his business venture would become profitable, so he defiantly put a pear-bearing willow in his company's logo and soon proved them wrong. In 1927, Fenrych 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 recipe for tomato ketchup. Its industrial production began in Pudliszki in the following year. In 1929, the business was visited by Polish President Igancy Mościcki; at a dinner given in his honour, he was served hard-boiled eggs with ketchup as a starter.[5]
The idea to make tomato ketchup was soon taken up by other entrepreneurs in the region, as you can see in the advertisments that were placed in local papers of the time.
| The Industrial Food Processing Plant is in the hands of an experienced professional, Mr. Wincenty Paetz, the sole owner. Under the "Pecowin" trademark, the business produces choice natural vingar, wine vinegars, mustard, fruit juices, sauerkraut, dill pickles in barrels, canned cucumbers, the excellent "Tomato-ketchup" sauce, tomato paste, pikled mushrooms in tins and jars, gherkins and other pikles. It is a Christian and Polish establishment. | ||||
— Reklama Zakładów Przemysłowych Przetworów Żywnościowych Wincentego Paetza, in: Rewja Mód, No. 3, Poznań: Jan Lange, 1935, p. 14, own translation
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The press also published recipes for those who wanted to try making "a hot tomato sauce, so called katsup or ketchup"[6] at home. The trend continued even under German occupation, when this way of preserving tomatoes was encouraged by Polish-language Nazi papers.
| As for sauces, I can recommend to you the "ketchup", almost unknown in our country, something akin to Kabul sauce. Take 6 kg of well ripened tomatoes, boil them down completely by stewing them without water. Then press them through a sieve and add 2 tablespoons of salt, one cup of sugar, one teaspoon each of paprika and crushed pepper, alspice, bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, mace and ginger. Some these spices may be omitted. Place all the spices in a small muslin bag and boil it in a litre of vinegar. Once the tomatoes are well tickened (after about 5 hours of stewing), mix them with the spiced vinegar and boil again for 15 minutes. Then pour the mixture into heated bottles and seal with paraffin wax. |
| — Sabina: Nasz dom: Tanie urozmaicenie, in: Nowy Kurier Warszawski, No. 218, Warszawa: 15 September 1942, p. 3. The recipe is almost identical to the one for "catsup" in: Elżbieta Kiewnarska: Oszczędne konserwowanie jarzyn na zimę, Warszawa: 1941, p. 42 |
What's most curious here is the explanation that ketchup was "something aking to Kabul sauce". If you're wondering what that was, it's, well, something akin to ketchup – hot tomato sauce seasoned with garlic and chilli, named after the capital city of Afghanistan, produced in Britain since the 19th century and particularly popular in the Russian Empire (for example, as one of the original ingredients of the classic Russian olivye salad), including the Russian partition of Poland. One of the characters of
Najciekawsze jest tu wyjaśnienie, że keczup to „coś w rodzaju kabulu”. Dzisiejszym czytelnikom trzeba by raczej wytłumaczyć, co to był kabul. A było to… coś w rodzaju keczupu. Sos pomidorowy przyprawiony czosnkiem i papryczką chili, nazwany od stolicy Afganistanu, produkowany od XIX w. w Anglii, a szczególnie popularny w Rosji (m.in. jako jeden z oryginalnych składników klasycznej rosyjskiej sałatki oliwie), a więc także w Kongresówce. Ignacy Rzecki w Lalce Bolesława Prusa spekuluje, że skoro z początkiem 1879 r. (w ramach drugiej wojny afgańsko-brytyjskiej) Anglicy, „pod jenerałem [Frederickiem] Robertsem, weszli do Kabulu”, to „pewnie sos Kabul zdrożeje”.[7]
Takie amerykańskie wymysły jak keczup nie miały łatwo z przyjęciem się w Polsce Ludowej, mimo że już w 1947 r. polski Urząd Patentowy zarejestrował zastrzeżenie znaku towarowego firmy Heinz, która pragnęła sprzedawać w Polsce m.in. „ketchup (rodzaj ostrego sosu)”.[8] W powieści młodzieżowej Wiktora Woroszylskiego pt. I ty zostaniesz Indianinem z 1960 r., jako typowo amerykański przysmak wymienione są „parówki z sosem pomidorowym”.[9] Autor widocznie uznał, że „hot dogi z keczupem” nic by polskiej młodzieży nie mówiły. Dopiero pod koniec lat 70. władze państwowe zaczęły zezwalać na prowadzenie drobnej prywatnej działalności w sektorze gastronomicznym. W ramach tzw. małej gastronomii w Polsce zaroiło się od budek i przyczep kempingowych (odpowiedników dzisiejszych food trucków), w których podawano m.in. kiełbasę z rożna, frytki, hot dogi oraz zapiekanki z serem i pieczarkami (czyli taki polski bezmięsny bieda-hot-dog) – a wszystko to obowiązkowo polane obfitą dozą keczupu. Jeszcze wtedy keczup był dla pierwszych klientów owych przybytków taką nowością, że zdarzało im się zamawiać np. kiełbasę z „keczukiem”.[10] Lata 80. przyniosły też do Polski amerykański zwyczaj spotkań przy grilu, który szybko stał się polską rozrywką narodową. Odtąd poszło już szybko, a Polacy zakochali się w słodkim smaku keczupu pomidorowego.
I choć dziś trudno wyobrazić sobie keczup inny niż pomidorowy, to na opakowaniach niektórych keczupów nadal znajdziemy – zdawałoby się, masło-maślany – napis „tomato ketchup”. Co pięknie wykorzystali twórcy hasła reklamującego keczup firmy Kotlin w 1997 r.:
| To co ma pomidor, to ma to ketchup. |
| — Cezary Filew: hasło reklamowe Zakładu Przetwórstwa Owocowo-Warzywnego Kotlin, Corporate Profiles DDB, 1997; cyt. w: Janusz R. Kowalczyk: Najlepsze polskie reklamy ostatnich 20 lat, in: Culture.pl, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza, 2013 |
Przepisy
W piękny majowy dzień odwiedziłem Michała Góreckiego, który w swoim ogródku akurat nie grilował, tylko wędził. Ale że do wędzonych mięs, ryb, a nawet serów, musztarda i keczup pasują równie dobrze jak do grilowanych, to postanowiliśmy wypróbować dwa stare przepisy te właśnie dodatki. Marcin wpadł potem na gotowe, żeby wziąć udział w degustacji.
Jak już pisałem, musztardę robiono dawniej na słodko, więc taką właśnie zrobiliśy, a mianowicie gruszkowo-piernikową. W Toruniu i dzisiaj można kupić musztardę piernikową, w Jadłonomii można znaleźć przepis na „grusztardę”, ale musztardy z piernikiem i z gruszkami razem pewnie nie próbowaliście. Oto oryginalny przepis:
| Weźmij gorczycy czarnej na mąkę utłuczonej, ile chcesz, weźmij gruszek świeżych, upiecz je, zwierć w donicy, przebij przez sito, […] przylej octu winnego mocnego, ile potrzeba, miodowniku utartego, miodu patoki albo cukru według potrzeby, cynamonu, imbiru, goździków po trosze, umieszaj, postaw w cieple przez kilka dni, aby zakisło, potem schowaj i dawaj po trosze do potraw. |
| — Promptuarium medicum empiricum […] z przydatkiem Apteki domowej, Kraków: 1716, p. 249; cyt. w: Jarosław Dumanowski: Staropolskie przepisy kulinarne: Receptury rozproszone z XVI–XVIII w.: Źródła drukowane, Warszawa: Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie, 2016, p. 306 |
Jak to zrobić w warunkach domowych? Gorczycę (my użyliśmy białej) trzeba utrzeć w moździerzu. Jeśli ktoś ma kamienne żarna, to jeszcze lepiej. Można też młynkiem do kawy, pod warunkiem, że lubicie kawę o musztardowym posmaku. Kiedy ziarenka przestaną już zgrzytać, to do gorczycowej mączki trzeba dodać odrobinę zimnej wody – tylko tyle, by powstała gęsta papka. Woda uwalnia z gorczycy enzymy, które dają ostry musztardowy smak. Na tym etapie można by jeszcze dodać octu, trochę soli i już mielibyśmy musztardę w wersji podstawowej. Ale my wymarzyliśmy sobie gruszkowo-piernikową.
Gruszki trzeba było zatem obrać, usunąć gniazda niesienne, pokroić i dusić z odrobiną wody, dolewając po trosze octu (w tym wypadku jabłkowego; z białego wina też będzie dobry). Kiedy owoce nieco rozmiękły dodałem pokruszone pierniczki, które zostały mi jeszcze z Bożego Narodzenia. Jako że pierniczki były już same w sobie mocno korzenne (cynamon, goździki, pieprz, imbir, kardamon), to osobnych przypraw już nie dodawałem. Kiedy ta gruszkowo-pierniczkowa mieszanina rozpuściła się do jednolitej masy (można ten proces przyspieszyć blenderem) i ostygła, to zostało już tylko połączenie jej z gorczycą (mniej więcej pół na pół). A żeby musztarda miała bardziej apetyczny żółty kolor, dosypaliśmy jeszcze szczyptę mielonej kurkumy (żadne to oszustwo: musztardy zażółca się kurkumą od dawna). Odczekaliśmy trochę, aż musztarda się przegryzie, ale nie czekaliśmy, aż skiśnie.
A co z keczupem? Wybrałem angielski przepis z początku XIX w., który ma cechy przejściowe: już zawiera pomidory, ale jeszcze zawiera ryby – a konkretnie sardele, zwane też z francuska anchois.
| Weź galon [3,8 l] dobrych, czerwonych, w pełni dojrzałych pomidorów. Utłucz je z jednym funtem [45 dag] soli i zostaw na trzy dni, wyciśnij sok i na każdą kwartę [ok. litra] soku dodaj ćwierć funta [11 dag] sardeli, dwie uncje [57 g] szalotek oraz jedną uncję [28 g] zmielonego czarnego pieprzu. Gotuj to razem przez pół godziny, przecedź przez sito i dodaj następujących przypraw: ćwierć uncji [7 g] kwiatu muszkatołowego, po tyle samo ziela angielskiego i imbiru, pół uncji [14 g] gałki muszkatołowej, jedną drachmę [1,7 g] ziaren kolendry i pół drachmy [0,9 g] koszenili. Utłucz wszystko razem i trzymaj na wolnym ogniu przez dwadzieścia minut, po czym przecedź przez worek. Po ostygnięciu przelej do butelek, dodając do każdej butelki kieliszek brandy. Wytrzyma przez siedem lat. | ||||
— William Kitchiner: Apicius Redivivus: The Cook's Oracle, London: John Hatchard, 1818, p. 479–480, tłum. własne
Original text:
|
W oryginalnym przepisie chodziło więc o to, żeby pomidory najpierw ukisić z dodatkiem zatrważającej ilości soli. My zrobiliśmy to w wersji szybszej i ze znacznie mniejszą ilością soli (właściwie to bez soli, nie licząc tej w solonych sardelach), zakwaszając nasz keczup octem. Zaczęliśmy od podsmażenia na odrobinie oleju szalotek. Kiedy się zeszkliły dodaliśmy trzy słoiczki anchois, po czym w powietrzu rozniósł się taki zapach, że wszystkie psy w okolicy zaczęły szczekać. Gdy rybki miały już konsystencję mazi, dodaliśmy do rondla jedną puszkę pomidorów bez skórki i jeszcze to wszystko trochę podusiliśmy, dodając imbiru i kolendry oraz (to już inwencja własna) cząbru i lubczyku. Żeby nasz keczup choć trochę przypominał keczup współczesny, to posłodziliśmy go odrobiną cukru. Natomiast, z braku koszenili, nie nadaliśmy keczupowi typowej jaskrawo czerwonej barwy, tylko pozostaliśmy przy kolorze zupy pomidorowej. Ostudzoną mieszaninę przepuściliśmy przez blender, na koniec (tu już zgodnie z oryginalnym przepisem) dolewając kieliszek brandy.
Jeśli chodzi o moją ocenę, to musztarda wyszła świetnie: jest mocno ostra, ale też wyraźnie korzenno-słodka. Natomiast keczup, mimo że dawny przepis nieco uwspółcześniliśmy, to i tak smakował zupełnie inaczej niż keczupy ze sklepu. A jednak był to smak trochę znajomy… Jedliście kiedyś pizzę z anchois?
References
- ↑ Stanisław Czerniecki: Compendium ferculorum albo Zebranie potraw, Kraków: w drukarni Jerzego i Mikołaja Schedlów, 1682, p. 95
- ↑ Naomichi Ishige: Cultural Aspects of Fermented Fish Products in Asia, in: Cherl-Ho Lee, Keith H. Steinkraus, P.J. Alan Reilly: Fish Fermentation Technology, Tokyo – New York – Paris: United Nations University Press, 1993, p. 22
- ↑ To Make Katch-up That Will Keep Twenty Years, in: A Curious Collection of Receipts in Cookery, Pickling, Family Physic, London: R. Montagu, 1742, p. 22–23; quoted in: Andrew F. Smith: Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment, with Recipes, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996, p. 164
- ↑ Podróż do Ameryki, in: Księga Uciechy i Pożytku, No. 3, Warszawa: Bolesław Londyński, 4 April 1903, p. 164
- ↑ Karolina Sternal: Polski ketchup narodził się w wielkopolskich Pudliszkach, in: Głos Wielkopolski, Poznań: Polska Press, 9 May 2011
- ↑ Kącik dobrej gospodyni, in: Chwila, No. 7320, Lwów: Spółka Wydawnicza Chwila, 10 August 1939, p. 8
- ↑ Bolesław Prus: Lalka, vol. III, Warszawa: nakładem Gebethnera i Wolffa, 1980, p. 64
- ↑ Wiadomości Urzędu Patentowego RP, R. 23, z. 7/8, Warszawa: 30 sierpnia 1947, p. 134
- ↑ Wiktor Woroszylski: I ty zostaniesz Indianinem, 1960; cyt w.: Maja Łozińska, Jan Łoziński: Historia polskiego smaku: Kuchnia, stół, obyczaje, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PNW, 2013, p. 270
- ↑ Zapiekanki z „keczukiem” wprost z przyczepy kempingowej: Początki małej gastronomii, in: TVP Info, Warszawa: Telewizja Polska, 28 marca 2015
Bibliografia
- Marie Nadine Antol: The Incredible Secrets of Mustard: The Quintessential Guide to the History, Lore, Varieties, and Healthful Benefits of Mustard, Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing Group, 1999
- Demet Güzey: Mustard: A Global History, London: Reaktion Books, 2019
- Dan Jurafsky: Ketchup, in: The Language of Food, Blogspot, 2 września 2009
- Naomichi Ishige: Cultural Aspects of Fermented Fish Products in Asia, in: Cherl-Ho Lee, Keith H. Steinkraus, P.J. Alan Reilly: Fish Fermentation Technology, Tokyo – New York – Paris: United Nations University Press, 1993, p. 13–32
- Terence Scully: The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005
- Andrew F. Smith: Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment, with Recipes, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996
- Andrew F. Smith: From Garum to Ketchup: A Spicy Tale of Two Fish Sauces, in: Harlan Walker: Fish: Food from the Waters:Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1997, Prospect Books, 1998, p. 299–306
- Andrew F. Smith: The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery, Urbana – Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001
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