Selects: How Ketchup Works

There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer. No, this is stuff you should know. I hate ketchup? Do you really really? Do you like tomato sauce like papasta? Sure? I love it? Do you like tomato soup? D don't love it? I'll I'll choke it down, though. So I'm starting to see a spectrum emerge here. Oh yeah, I don't. I don't go for raw tomato much. Well, I love cooked pasta sauce. Yeah, but I'm a mayonnaise guy at heart,

So we're talking condiments. You know, one thing about the the Derrito effect that it kind of ruined me a little bit on food. Like I'll be like, oh, this is a good tomato, and then some part of my brains like, yeah, well it's not in nineteen forties tomato. You don't know what a good tomato is. What do you mean, like like a Jersey tomato versus uh, you know,

just some other stupid tomato. No, supposedly, like just the agricultural production in the US is so homogenized now that like we've lost all these great heirloom varieties of especially tomato and the stuff that that most people get that our tomatoes are just no, they're no good compared to how they used to be. Oh, you hit up a farmer's market, sure, but even still grow that junk yourself right there, you go, or build the time machine, take the way back machine, and get some tomato. We got

that our disposal. What's your what's your problem? Just cheap? I don't like to spend it on the gas. Yeah, well that's funny, Chuck, that you like mayonnaise, Because did you know did you know before this I should say that the number one condiment for sales wise in the United States as mayonnaise. I did not know that. And when I saw that that surprised me A, and it surprised me B that it was that much more than Ketchup.

I figured Ketchup would be far and away the winter because I always feel like the ultimate weirdo for not liking Ketchup. So what is it about Ketchup? You know, all like the taste. Okay, that's a pretty good reason not to like. I'm not wild about vinegar based thing. Oh yeah, I do like balsamic vinegar, but a lot of the other vinegars I'm not crazy about. That's one of the reasons I don't like pickled things, right, But so vinegar based things, Um, it's really sweet. Um. Then

I don't love sweet condiments. Um. Have you ever had curry? Catchup? No? I don't. I don't need to catch up? Oh I see. Uh. And then the when I was a kid, I can't lie it probably gross me out a little bit because yeah, that was oh my god, Oh that's disturbing. Um, the blood thing, you know, I probably thought, you know, it grossed me out because we would use it as blood for play acting in things. So yeah, just not into it.

Those are some solid reasons to not like catch Up. Plus, I don't know if people would probably argue that catchpimanes are great together. But um, once you're on the mayo train, to mix up another condiment with it just doesn't make sense to me. I I don't. I don't discriminate all. I like most, if not all, condiments. So like, catchup, mayo and mustard on a burger is good? Do you? Yes?

I can't. It's not like I can't eat it without it, like I've actually found, Um, I can eat burgers without catchup now, I'm a grown up, But I do like a little bit of catchup on there, a little bit of mustard, and then yes, definitely mayo. Well, Emily loves catch up so much that she calls French fries a ketchup delivery system. Yeah, that makes sense, their vehicle for it. Ye. Tell her to try curry ketchup. It'll knock her socks off. I totally will. Um. Yeah, but you don't like catch up,

so you wouldn't like this. But if she likes catchup, even if she doesn't like curry, she may still like curry catchup, Well, then she's gonna love curry ketchup. So mayonnaise is the number one condiment in the United States. It's a big surprise, which must mean catch up is number two. Yeah, which, by the way, I had mentioned how much more. I think it was about two billion dollars to eight hundred thousand, eight hundred million dollars, which

is that's more than double. That kind of surprised me. Yeah, it is very surprising. What's even more surprising is I was being facetious because ketchup isn't even the number two condiments in the United States, is That's right. It's also had a big surge in the like eighties and nineties. It's because people like to say salsa catch up is number three, right, at least it's got mustard beat. For Pete's sake, What is this the you you know yet

of American households have a bottle of ketchup in there? Well, it says kitchens, But we'll get to the fridge non fridge thing later. Sure. So, yes, everybody loves ketchup, especially in America because it's obviously an American invention. Everybody knows that John Wayne's grandfather invented ketchup while he was sailing his Ford truck down the Mississippi River and one day a magical bottle bug Wiser came and whispered the recipients here,

and they commemorated the event by tuning off fireworks. I love it, and that's how ketchup was born. Everybody knows it and fireworks right pretty neat. No, that's not true. Although I take a little bit of issue with this because ketchup was first created in Asia, in China, and about I should say, I saw they think maybe the

Chinese got it from the Vietnamese. Yeah, I saw that too. Um. But as you will see these recipes that were originally for preserving fish, it's hey, they didn't have tomatoes at all. That came in America much later. But it's so not like ketchup to me, it's you can't even trace it back and say like, yep, that's ketchup. The point and even linking these things because you can link them like it's it. That's the fascinating thing to me about it.

It's like American ketchup. What we think of as ketch up here in the States, like hind fifty seven stuff, right, is it's a species that evolved, not hinde fifty seven sauce, but hinds ketchup. What everybody thinks of his ketchup right.

It's a species that evolved from an ancestor. That that is, it can directly trace its lineage right back to this ketchup in in Asia, so much so that the word ketchup is an anglicization of either a melee word that was borrowed from the Cantonese or a hokey in South China Fujian province word. Either way, it was something like cats you and it meant a fermented fish paste. It's like when when you go to the store today and you buy fish sauce. I love it. That's that's that

was that's the progenitor of ketchup. That's where ketchup came from. Yeah, I mean, I guess that makes sense. It's just to me, it's changed so much. It's almost like, uh, you should just draw a line. That's and I guess that line would be pret tomato and post tomato. I think, yeah, I think that's pretty fair to say, yeah, pret tomato and post tomato. You can. You can definitely draw a line because if you look at Heinz ketchup bottles, it

says clearly tomato ketchup. And there's this really great I think it was a Fast Code design article by a guy named John Brownlee who points out, like, why would they even bother putting tomato on the label. Of course it's tomato ketchup, you idiot. And the reason is because that's a throwback to a time when Ketchup didn't have tomato and it had things like, um, sardines and anchovies. Yeah, well not sardines by anchovies, so that there were sardines

that there were you name it. And it was probably in Ketchup at some point, right, so Asia, maybe Southeast Asia, maybe China. The Brits encountered this on some of their wild trips abroad. Uh, and as many things brought at home, said we love this stuff, let's try and replicate it. Uh. And then in seventeen thirty two was one of the first published recipes in the UK Ketchup in Paste by Richard Bradley, Right, yeah, Ricky Bradley, and he did reference

the the East Indies as its origin. Yeah, and then it was still pre tomato. Sure. Yeah, it was a very pretty a faithful recreation of the fish sauce that they found the catsie. Um, I'm pretty sure that's how you say it. I would be very interested to know how to pronounce it um correctly, but it was. It was a faithful recreation of it, which was basically like preserved fish and a sort of brine with some spices thrown in, maybe a little mace, some salt, some pepper,

maybe something like lemon peel. And then yeah, if you like fish sauce, you would love the original Ketchup because it's basically the same thing. Right, Well, I do like the sauce, but it's um, you gotta use it liberally and it's only for certain things. Yeah, yeah, you know you don't want to just like go throwing fish sauce on on everything. I don't know, man, if you love fish sauce, it's it's like it's like Ketchup. People will put catchup bung just about anything. Well we'll get to that.

So so at first the Brits are like, blind me, this is really good stuff. Well that's a good accent, But I I'm not that big on anchovies. What else can we replace it with? So they started making their own kind of offshoots of Ketchup where they replace the anchovies with other stuff. Yeah, I mean mushrooms, walnuts, Uh, what else elderberry, yeah, oysters. Yeah. And what they were going for was that ou mommy flavor. They didn't know it at the time because UMMI wasn't discovered until with

the sixties. I think, Yeah, everybody kind of knew that it was a thing, but no one had actually like sussed it out or named it. But that's what they were going for, was that savory, meaty flavor that you would get from something like fermented anchovies. And they were trying to recreate it, and they did. I mean, like apparently mushroom catchup uh tasted a lot like Worcestershire sauce um and then uh yeah, walnut catch up. Apparently Jane

Austen was a big fan of that. And if you're sitting there thinking of putting this on like your hot dog, hot dogs weren't invented yet. They that's not what people were using it for. They were using it as like a base for stews or um like meat pies, things like that. It was like a sauce. It was a base. It was something that that you were taking bland food and making it savory with this bottle of this stuff

that was made from fermented something or other. Well, and they would base it on They would use it like we can use barbecue sauce. They would baste it on things while they're cooking um which I just can't imagine that like basting tomato based. Well this is before's tomato,

I guess, but this is when it was mushroom based. Yeah, but you mentioned umami and your buddy Malcolm Gladwell but an article for The New Yorker and kind of throwing out the question like why are there so many kinds of mustard yet to catch up as kind of ketchup, and his answer was because it satisfies all the fundamental taste, all five sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Another answer is that there actually are a ton of different kinds

of catchup. Well, yeah, I wouldn't any as there are mustards. Uh. So America is who first because tomatoes are are native to North America and this is where people first started using tomatoes the base. Yeah, but Chuck, it took a

really long, circuitous route to get to that point. And the reason why is in American people were making catchup, but they were still doing things like using walnuts and using mushrooms and oysters as the base of it, right, they still weren't using tomatoes, even the tomatoes were everywhere, and that was because the Europeans and American colonists or European colonists considered tomatoes poisonous, so they didn't eat tomatoes. I think they used them as like ornamental plants or

something like that. Finally some people started to like try them and tried to convince other people, and then they went through a little period where they were considered medicine. And then finally somebody started adding them too to catch up. And the first tomato catchup recipe appears in an American cookbook, depending on who you ask, either in eighteen twelve or eighteen o one. Yeah, the eighteen twelve when uh, well yeah, that's the one I found was eighteen twelve, but it

still didn't really really take off until post Civil War. Uh. And this is eighteen seventy one, when a man named Henry Hines he got together with a doctor. Isn't that right? Yes, that guy, um Dr Wiley. I can't remember his first name, but he shows up in our FDA does f does the FDA protect Americans? Remember that guy who put together that group of people who would like eat preservatives until they were poisoned to find out whether something was poisonous or not. Yes, that was the guy who set up

that squad. Yeah, Dr Harvey Washington Wiley. Yeah, So his whole deal was for for a while there. Ketchup was had some really nasty chemicals in it, uh, some of them had and these were all preservatives. Some of it was cold tar um that gave it the red color, uh, and then sodium benzoit benzoit and that helped to retard spoilage. So it was really nasty stuff and he kind of first championed um that this stuff is harmful to your health.

So he got together with Henry J. Hines, who was producing Ketchup in eighteen seventy six, and they were like, you know what if you use really good because at the time the ketchup they were making was from like scraps of tomatoes that were kind of kind of like junk tomatoes, and they said, you know, if use good ripe red tomatoes as your base, it has a natural preservative in it called pecton um, and it really you know, we got to ramp up the vinegar because that'll help

out with the spoilage and all of a sudden, we don't need to use chemicals anymore, right, which was a huge breakthrough. And the reason why there are so many preservatives in Ketchup was because tomatoes have a pretty short growing season. It's like mid August to mid October, and so the only time during the year you could make fresh ketchup was those two months. You couldn't make a

year's worth of ketchup. Like by this time, people were buying millions of bottles of Ketchup in America alone a year, right, so you couldn't make all that in two months, So you had to preserve the pulp. But they they took terrible standards and practices to preserving. So when you opened up that tub of pulp, you know, come July, good name to make some to make some some new ketchup, it was totally spoiled, ridden with bacteria. It was very dangerous stuff to begin with, and that was the basis

that they used to start with. So it was really bad stuff. And when Hines created this preservative free version of Ketchup, it was a huge, huge breakthrough. Yeah, and uh way back in even created that iconic octagonal ketchup bottle that you can not buying stores anymore as far as I know, but you can still get in restaurants. You can take them from restaurants. Just leave an extra good tip. Right, So let's take a break here and we'll get back and talk about this foul condiment right

after this. M hm alright, So today, catch up is basically tomatoes, salt, yeah, vinegar okay, onion powder or some spice, some kind of sweetener, either a lot of sugar or a lot of corn syrup or high fruit dost corn syrup. Yeah, it used. I think high fruit coast corn serves the standard. And I think it was Hunts that first came out with a brand that didn't have high fruit toast corn syrup. And they tower it at all up and down the

avenue and Hines is far and away. Like, since I don't do catch up, I made the bad mistake of buying the wrong ketchup one time for Emily, What do you what kind did you get it? I think it was Hunts, and you know she was like no, no, no, no no, It's like, don't bring any Hunts and God forbid any del Monty ketchup. It's outsold. It's Heinz Heinz Hines in my house, and uh, it is far and away the the leader. I think they have what like sixty or so percent of the market share that's in

the US. They have about of the global market. So not bad. Hines is synonymous literally with Ketchup around the world. That's everybody who knows Hines ketchup. Right. We should have gotten them as a sponsor, Yeah, we should, but then we wouldn't have been able to do a show about ketchup. We're given this. We have values, yeah we do, we really do. Chuck. Congratulations to you on your value and you as well. So um, catch up is much more

standard ied. Depending on who you ask, it's either incredibly toxic or actually has some health benefits. Could be both. Right, there's a I said, I think I already said that. There was a period where tomatoes were seen as medicine back in the day. Yeah they had tomato pills. Yeah, they had tomato pills, and actually they had ketchup pills too.

There was a doctor in Ohio who stole the ideas of another doctor in Michigan and went to a guy who was selling patent medicine and said, hey, man, tomatoes are super healthy, and so by extension, ketchup should be super healthy. And I believe that they do things like um treat indigestion by removing bile from the body, some diarrhea, et ketchup, got jaundice ketchup pills? Right about rhutatism or headaches? Well, so this is where it starts to get a little wacky. Right.

They started selling Doctor Mills compound extract of tomato, and they were successful. It's just back in eighteen thirty five, and they were successful in a bunch of imitators came on the market, and um, all of a sudden, it was not so so great any longer. Well no, because a lot of them didn't even have tomatoes in them. They were fraudulent ketchup pills, or they were laxatives acting as laxatives. And so that calls the great tomato pill

market crash of eighteen forty. But today we're much smarter and rather than catch up pills, we take tomato pills. Also known as lacapine supplements. Yeah, because lapinas that's the good stuff that you're looking for that has been shown to help cancer patients specifically. I think the one that they've actually proven is prostate cancer. Right, so they haven't proven it, but that one's shown there's been the most like positive studies. But even still the jury is still

out on that one. But but yes, prostate cancer is the one that they they roundly point to and say, lycopene really helps with this, and at least some studies have shown that they, like a pine, somehow disrupts communication between cancer cells and um. It retards the growth of blood vessels to the cancer cells, so they don't get they can't grow as well. And apparently the body produces like a pine naturally, but also readily absorbs and uses it too. And one of the great sources of lycopene

is tomatoes. Lecopeine gives tomatoes, among other things, that's red color. But the amazing thing about it is if you eat a raw tomato right now, you're not going to absorb as much like a pine as if you ate some ketchup right now. Yeah it's gotta be cooked. Yeah, it releases the likecopiner. It makes it more readily available the human body. We should say, yeah, But they also say, even if it does help, it's like, you know, a little catchup on a Hamburger is not nearly enough to

really do you a lot of good. No, it's something like um uh to two point five milligrams of lycopene in a table spoonful Ketchup. You say, well, I'll just eat a bunch of ketchup. The problem is is if you eat, say like a half a cup about seven tablespoons of ketchup, but you just have to be a weirdo anyway to do that, you're getting about three quarters of your daily sodium intake and four key spoons of added sugar as well, where you're just better off like

eating some tomato sauce instead. Yeah. But the point is if lycopene helps humans, which the jury is still out, but it looks like it's possible, then catch up actually can help humans by giving a little extra lycopine. Just put ketch Up in your on your tomato sauce. Yeah, and all these things can add up over time. Sure, so Ketchup was was selling well in America post Civil War. You got the tomato go and now everyone loves it. But there was a problem early on with Ketchup that

took a long long time to fully solve. Um and I bet you they're still sort of working on it is that catch up. Anyone who grew up in the seventies and eighties and loved ketch up at a diner would have a hard time getting to catch up out of that glass bottle. And there were there were all kinds of tricks. I remember. One of them was that if you tapped on the fifty seven and the on the label was that it that it would come out better.

Then you had the jackass who would just smashed the bottom of it until ketchup would shoot out all across the table that works but not well, or the more sheepish person that the diner might stick a butter knife in there be like die ketchup and coke and coax it out. And the reason all this is happening is because ketchup and this isn't a good little dinner party.

Factoid is a non Newtonian fluid. So if you ever change your oil or or even pour water out of a cup, you will notice that all pours out at the same rate. It has a single viscosity. It's a Newtonian fluid. Newton's like catchup. It can start to come out very slowly and then all of a sudden it starts picking up steam and coming out of that bottle,

and that's when you know you're really cooking. Uh. That's has different external forces acting upon it to either increase or decrease that viscosity, right, So it has multiple viscosities, which makes it a non Newtonian fluid, right. And when you when you put force on its, specifically sheer force, it changes the viscosity. It actually decreases the viscosity to catch up, which increases the flow rate, which means it

comes out of the bottle faster. And one of the ways that you can introduce sheer force s h e. A r um is to tap on the bottle. That concussive force looses or changes the viscosity and the ketchup

flows more quickly. So it actually is true to that then, Yeah, that tapping on the embossed fifty seven, the one that was like embossed on the bottle, that's that's the perfect spot to tap because if you hit it with the heel of your palm onto the rear of the bottle, if you hit it, if you write, if you do that lightly, all you're doing is is reducing the viscosity of the ketchup right in the rear, but the stuff toward the neck of the bottle that you're trying to

get out, it remains highly viscous. Right. If you tap towards the neck of the bottle, you're going to reduce the viscosity of the ketchup that's up there in front, and it'll start to slide out. If you hit that thing on the bottom hard enough that you change the viscosity of all that catch up inside, Yeah, it's gonna come shooting out and you're gonna look like an idiot. All your friends are gonna laugh at you, and you'll die alone, That's right. So they had a problem with this,

and they thought in night, what about ketchup packets. This kind of solves that problems. You can squeeze it out, uh, And they said, yeah, that's kind of neat. It might do well for restaurants, but no one's gonna have a ziploc bag full of ketchup packets in their fridge unless you're my mom and they're from like eight different fast food restaurants. Uh, God bless her, um, so that you

know those are still around. But it finally it took till three to come up with the plastic squeeze bottle, which still didn't fully work um because, as this our own article points out, they made funny farting noises, which I guess is unseemly at a dinner table. Uh. And then that what the industry insiders called serum, that thin, watery kind of grow of stuff that nobody wants on their their hamburger hot dog ketchup juice. Yeah, towards the end that serum comes out and nobody wants that. So

those squeeze bottles weren't the ultimate solve. Yeah, it's just it's basically just separated water separated from the ketchup solids. And there's their actual academic papers on this conundrum, this problem with serum separation and ketchup people trying to figure out how to how to get get around it. They I think they've hybridized a new kind of tomato that um allows for less serum separation once processed in to catch up. Even what, could you just shake it up?

I'm a novice, but yeah, you do. You do shake it up, and it typically works. But and I think two thousand two Hinds and Hunts and apparently Hunts was working on at first, and Hines got wind of it and started their own project. But almost simultaneously, Hinds and Hunts released Um, a new type of squeeze bottle that you could stand upside down. Ketch Up stayed towards the bottom right, and it was actually designed to catch the Ketchup juice, the serum and remix it back into the

Ketchup solids as it flowed out. That's right, a a dude named Paul Brown Um is the hero too many because he created the silicone valve and it wasn't just for Ketchup. In fact, I don't even know if it was. Originally it was for sham it was for shampoos. I think that he was trying to come up with well

that makes sense, but he's a hero to Ketchup lovers. Yeah, So these these liquid valves, they had right angle slits cut into the valve, so when you squeeze a bottle, it flows out nice and neat, and then they close back up when you stop squeezing, which seals it back up inside the bottle. And then it's a revolutionary. It's a dome that has the slits cut into the side

of it and then around the dome. It's a place where the serum call X and then as the ketchup is moving out, it's supposed to mix back in together. It's so funny how much science has gone into this right just to get the ketchup right, and it still isn't perfect. Like you, you, anybody who uses this bottle knows that you still get ketchup choice when you first scored it, unless you shake it first. Yeah, and even then you're still gonna get a little serum. It's just

a fact of life, you know. You just you don't want to You don't want to do it on a bad day because that can be the thing that that's straw that just breaks the camels back, you know where you just suddenly you're sobbing standing in your kitchen holding that squeeze bottle of ketchup. See, that's why you go for mayonnaise, because although it is a non Newtonian fluid, Uh, there's no mannaise serum. Did you finish your CUPI mayonnaise? Yet?

I did? And I need to go to the little martin near my house to see if they have more any any halfway decent Asian market will have it. I'm sure they do. I mean you can buy uh Macha powder and eel, so I'm sure they will have cupey mannaise. All right. So two thousand two is when that new valve was introduced by Hines and Hunts. Uh. It doesn't mention poor del Monty. I wouldn't feel too bad for them, though they're still They're still sell a lot of Ketchup. Yeah,

they're still making that money. You know. I want to know. I want to hear from people though they are like, no, I'm a del Monty man. Oh there's somebody somebody out there. We want to hear from the legit ones, not hipster ones. Yeah. Yeah, like I like Mallard and del Monty Ketchup and PBR. I don't um. So two thousand two was when that

was admitted and then i'm sorry, implemented. And then there was that still final problem apparently with Ketchup, where you get to the bottom of the bottle of those squeeze bottles and you can't get it all out, and that was solved with a little bit of technology courtesy of M I T called liquid glide. Yeah. I don't know if they've implemented this yet. It sounds like, um, adding something that is really unnecessary that could conceivably be toxic. Oh is it not in there yet? I don't believe so.

From the House Stuff Works article makes it sound like they've invented it in in and they're planning on it. Got you haven't put it in yet? Yeah. So the thing with liquid glide, I looked up what that was all about, and I think the deal is is it essentially sort of is a coating on the inside of the bottle that makes the inside of the bottle pre wet in a way. Okay, that's slippery. That um that What was it that Clark Griswold came up with in Christmas vacation?

It was like a silicone that he ended up putting on the y that's liquid glide. Yeah. Basically I thought if there was gonna be any vacation reference in this, it would be real to me to catch up. Betty, I know what was that one? And that was when he spooned. Yeah, he spooned the ketchup on the sandwich and it was kind of this chunky uh and real to me to catch up and he went nothing but the best Clark uh. So liquid glide by all accounts,

is they say food safe. Um, but I always wonder about this stuff, like I don't trust the f D a sou or I'm not gonna say that I don't. I don't fully trust the FDA in all cases. So I just can't imagine that that this that we haven't

been poisoning ourselves all along with food containers. You know, don't you wonder like if there's going to be that revelation that like it's a cookbook moment or soil and green as humans, just that that moment where we come to realize that this beep whateverything it is, is this is the thing that's been giving everyone who's ever had cancer since it's been invented cancer, you know, like this

is the smoking gun. Don't you just think that there's got to be I assume it's just plastics in general. I think it's a mix of a lot of things of modern manufacturing, so and farming and pesticides and I mean, you name it so depressing. Should we take a break, Yeah, maybe we can pull this one back from the brink. All Right, We're gonna get to catch up versus cats up, which I know everyone wants to know about all right, Chuck, we shouldn't put it off any longer, all right, hit me.

So ketchup k E T C h U P yep versus cats up c A T s up weird the house Stuff Works article I didn't see. I didn't actually look, but I didn't see this anywhere else. Is that they're pronounced the same, correct? Have you ever heard that? So you you've seen people say ketchup and you knew that in their mind they saw the word cats up, all right. I did not realize that. I yes, but I always say ketchup. I say cats up like mockingly, but I

that's how I pronounce it, you know. But apparently the they're both just bastardizations anglicizations of whatever word ketchup originally comes from either that Fujian um word or the Malaysian word for for again that that anchovy fermented paste. And so I think Hines used ketchup starting pretty early on correct. Yes, So that's an interesting story, and you just basically told

the whole thing. But yeah, they came Hines. Even though they're like the global the global leader in in ketchup, they came to the market pretty late, like thirty years after Ketchup was sold and mass produced in the US, Hines came along finally, and they wanted to distinguish themselves for their competitors, so they used ketchup. But ketchup wasn't a new word. It was the original word. If you look back at like some of those eighteenth century recipes,

it's ketchup k E T c h up. And then apparently sometime in the eighteenth century people started calling it cats up, and so that was the preferred term spelling. And then Hines distinguished themselves and brought ketchup spelling. This the popularized spelling with the K back. Because they got market share, that became the norm exactly. And then so it was del Monte who was the big outlier for

years and years and years. Yet when they finally said all right, no more cats up, ye go home with ketchup, yep, and they did gave in. What about this other thing that I know a lot of people have argued over um for generations, is fridge or no fridge? So, I mean, it's got a lot of vinegre in it. It's supposedly as far as Hinz is concerned, they say it's it's shelf stable, meaning that even after you open it, it's got enough stuff in it that it's going to stay

fine right outside of the fridge. But they still recommend keeping it in the fridge. Yeah, they say. This is a direct quote from Hines. Whoever the the latest Hinds Air is. I think it's John Kerry. Oh right, wasn't that wouldn't his wife the Hinds Air? Yeah, Teresa, Teresa Hines? Right. So John Kerry says because of its natural acidity, it shall stable. However, it's stability after opening can be affected by storage conditions, so we recommend, like any process food,

to be refrigerated after opening. So, in other words, if you live in human Arizona, you might not want to keep your catchup in and you don't have eric inditioning, you might not want to keep your catchup on the table, but you probably could if you really wanted to. But if you lived in southern California, where the breeze is always cool and the air is always clean, then yeah, then you might wanna. You know, you could put it

on your table and you'll probably be fine. Yeah, And again, it's kind of like a number of different preservatives in it. It's got vinegar and it has sugar, which is a preservative, has pecked and naturally found in tomatoes. It's a preservative. It's probably gonna be fine. But but keep it in the fridge. I mean, why not. We don't listen to us unless you have, Like, if you don't have enough room in your fridge for the bottle of cats up, then you have too much. Uh, salsa and sarracha, right,

s Racha? Sara racha? You hipster? You ye? Saracha is really good actually, and in fact that as we'll get to that, there are sharracha ketchups. They are pretty popular these days because this are article says millennials like their spice more than their parents. That's depending on where you are in the world. Uh, there are all flavors of ketchups and all ways to use ketchup, depending on where you are. Yeah, And I just want to say, I

love how that was put. Can't you see a hipster's parent coming to them and be like, what do you like more your spice or me, I like my spice more than my parents. Well, you know that's not what they meant, right, I know, But let's take a tour around the world. I know you were leading up to I just had to double back to that. All right, let's go to uh, let's go to jolly old England or maybe then as weight Light even because apparently they

like sweeter ketchup in those two places. Yeah, And in the Philippines they like sweet catchup, but they like sweet ketchup that's made from a banana base rather than a tomato base. But they're not crazy over there, so they die it red so it looks like tomato ketchup. Yeah, and we also should say that in England they might be more apt to reach for the HP sauce before they catch up though, right, the brown sauce, Yes, they love that stuff. Yeah, I think that's their number one

condiment over there, HP sauce. What do they just call it the brown sauce? They call it the brown, the brown, that's heroin, big brown, No, big brown. Apparently Americans, like we said, uh, well, we eat a lot of ketchup, but we're not the leading consumer because the Fins and the Canadians love the stuff more than we do even, yeah, which is pretty shameful. America's shameful. Yeah, Mayonnaise and salsa so um in China, Jamaica, and I believe Thailand they

like to put ketchup on fried chicken. I gotta try that one. What about pizza, uh, Eastern Eastern Europe apparently, and Trinidad, India, Japan and Poland. That's how you know it's good man. That is a diverse collection of countries that all put ketchup on their pizza. You know what's funny is my friend Eddie, I can say all of these foods ranch dressing. Well, yeah, I mean, ranch dressing should be the number one condiment in the world. Chuck, hold on, I have to tell you something. You have

to go to Japan one of these days. Right there are over there they Oh, I thought it was just understood. You have a standing invitation to come to Japan every time we got because you are the ambassador. All right, I've got the sash and everything, but Japan's misspelled. Um it's a They have pizza over there and rather than tomato sauce, it's gonna knock your socks off. They use that Japanese mayo what with corn and sometimes ham pan

chetta or something like that. All right, so you've got a dough, then you've got a spread of mayonnaise, corn off the cob huh and ham. Yes, and it is mind blowingly good. Is there cheese? I don't remember if there's no. They're not big on They're not big on cheese or dairy. They don't have that much room for cows all the all the cows they have are like Kobe beef cows. I think that's what they kind of

dedicate their cow space too. Could ever tell you my story of being at the Chinese restaurant when I was a kid. Uh, there was a guy getting take out and he went through about uh, probably about five or six different things, asking if it had cheese on it, like egg rolls have cheese on it? Uh, moogo guy

pans have cheese on it? And that the sweet Chinese owner is kind of an older guy kept saying like no, no, no, no. And at the very after like the fifth thing, the guys stopped them and said, uh, and his very sweet Chinese American accent that no Chinese food has cheese on it. Really was the guy just messing with them or something? No, man, I think, I don't know. I guess he was just unfamiliar.

I mean this was the nineteen seventies. Oh, so uh maybe he you know, didn't have experience with Chinese food, but it's funny as an adult to think about, like melted on Yeah, that's got white American. Uh so Sweden, if you go to Sweden, they will actually squeeze catch up over their pasta. That's like, um, honey boo boo. Really yeah, they used to put and I never really watched this show, but I mean I was a conscious human being back then, so I was aware of this.

But they would they would cook pasta and then put butter on it and then squeeze catch up on him. That was like honey boo boo spaghetti. Oh my god, no comment. We used to be colleagues of honey boo boos at one point. Did they work for Discovery? Yeah, they were all on TLC. I have to remember to put add that back to my resume. Um where where else? What else we got? What kind of crazy catchups do we have? Okay? So, um, all right, you ready for

this one? This is I've never heard this before in Canada. Have you ever had while you wouldn't have, but have you ever seen ketchup potato chips? Uh? Yes, they're pretty good. They're better than barbecue chips. If you ask me, hairs makes a good one, right. Apparently the Canadians do some wacky thing with it where they take can they take catchup potato chips and turn it into a catchup cake of some sort. I've not had this before, but we're gonna be in Toronto and Vancouver this year, so I

express multiple catchup cakes. Yeah, but not really. You don't really have to make this catch up I should point out to since we're talking about that tour that, uh, Toronto and Vancouver are far and away leading in ticket sales right now out of the gate, so Canada, like Ky needs to step it up because Canada's kicking your

butts man. That's the great thing about doing um multinational tours as you can put one country against the other, right Yeah, especially as everybody's kind of devolving into nationalism right now, you can really get it going. Uh. You know what kind of chips that did have the other day was the the what do you call it? The country gravy sausage and country gravy Oh the las Yeah. I haven't tried those? Are they good? Um? Yeah? I mean, do you like white gravy sausage? Gravy. Sure it tastes

like that. Really, they nailed it. They nailed it, because sometimes those things are way off. Well, yeah, they have a contest, now, don't they. Yeah, yeah they do. I'm trying to remember some of the other ones because they've they've had some good ones. But um, oh, chicken and waffles. Chicken and waffles one was really good. Yeah, it had like just this hint of maple and but yeah, I kind of tasted a little fried chicken. Ee. It was it was good. Crazy, Um, what are the kinds of

crazy catchups do we have? What about catch up ice cream? No? Thank you? So Baskin Robbins apparently came up with it and it died in the lab. But apparently it was based on a Heinz ice cream recipe for Heinz carnival cream. So that was a thing, which I mean again, I would try this stuff. Did I ever tell you about the time you and I went to Plaza Fiesta and tried tuna gelato and it was like it tasted just like raw tuna. It was insane. Never heard of it

before and never seen it anywhere else. It was like this one specific place had it. Man, if you ever if you ever find yourself in Atlanta, Georgia, was some time to kill, go to Plaza Fiesta. Try to find the gelato place and see if they have the tuna gelato. They have a good uh cowboys store over there too. Yeah, they have a bunch of them, like good good boots, hats and shirt belts and checkered shirts and brother, if you're throwing a kisignea, that's where you Yeah, I'm sure so. Lastly, Chuck,

we have to give a shout out. We would be really remiss if we didn't mention that one of tomato is a or catchup is a big ingredient in something called pruno. Yeah, we talked about prison wine in our Prisons episode. I did not. I don't think I remembered that that was. In fact, maybe I didn't know. Did we say that it was an ingredient. I don't think so. I didn't notice it until now. But it's like part of the It's like you use that in sugar packets

to feed the fermentation process in a sock. Right. Uh. I don't know if you could make an ass like I think it needs to be a little more air tight than that. But maybe not, Maybe you could, although it all just drip out. I'm not sure man man for the RECP. I came across its like in a like a big gallon sized zip block bag. But yeah, after like day two, we were three fermentation. You feed it with ketchup packets and sugar gross. Yeah, and then you got some Pruno, which you should never try. You

got anything else? Yeah, we should cover this thing, this last thing you sent headline Israel ketchup war forces Hines to relabel sauce as tomato seasoning. So in Israel, the leading ketchup maker is h O S E M O S M. And they have a sixty six percent market share. And uh. In Israel, as in most countries, they have food standards where you can only call something something if it has this much of whatever. And apparently Israel's standards

are much higher than the US or Europe's. Yeah, so you have to have a certain percentage of tomato concentrate to be labeled tomato ketchup in Israel. And so oh Sim, even though they have six mark or sixty six percent market share, went after Hines. They said, hey, we did a study with an independent lab. It had no skin in the game. Leading European external laboratory, and they found out that Hines did not have the required percentage of

tomato concentrate. So they can't even call it ketchup anymore. And I believe it's being enforced over there. Right. Yeah, Well this was from two fifteen, and the thing leaves off. I didn't see any updates, but the article leaves off that Hines was petitioning with the Health ministry to change the tomato concentrate requirements down to something like six. Well, here's the thing is hind said their claims have no substance. Well, then why are they lobbying to get the percentage lowered? Right?

And I think what happened was Hines was selling the same ketchup that they sell in Europe and America. And this is just speculation on my part, but they were probably selling the same ketchup that they sell elsewhere but in Israel. But Israel has higher food standards at least as far as they're cut up goes, and their competitor nail them on it. That's what I think happened. But yeah, they can't on the label that they can call it

ketchup in English, but they can't call it ketchup. In in Hebrew, they can only call it a seasoning malk Oh, it's pretty funny. It is. It's a funny world. Chuck it and now Ketchup is done. I guess I didn't think it would take us in our nine hundreds something episode to finally get to catch up, but we did well, and this now freeze up. Now I have permission to request mayonnaise. Okay, that's a deal, we'll do that, all right. Maybe we should just have condiment month. Okay, I like

the sound of that. Well. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about ketchup, you can type that word in the search bar at how stuff works dot com. You can also check out that geo's articles on it. Like I said, fast code is fine, Mental Flaws had a great one and we got some stuff from our friends at list Verse who had a pretty interesting compilation of some cool tomato facts or catch up facts. And since I said tomato instead of catch up, it's time

for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this wow signal update. Um, did you get tweets about this? It didn't ignore them all because I think this is a lie. Oh all right, Well, so I think it's propaganda. Here we go. Then, Hey, guys, first one to let you know that I love the show. I always look forward to new episodes Tuesday Thursday, as

well as the selects on Saturday. I know you would be interested to find out that I saw a news article the other day that states that an experiment was ran earlier this year based on a paper from the claimed the Wow signal was caused by hydrogen clouds from comments which transisted, uh transisted, transited that area of this guy back in nine seven. In January of this year, those comments transited once again and it was determined they

were indeed the source of the signal. Of course, this sparked quite a bit of controversy among those hoping that this was a sign of alien life. But the last it appears it wasn't. So I can't help but be a little disappointed. Ever since learning of the wild signal, I knew it was a long shot. Anyway, keep up great work. I love to see you in Charleston, South Carolina someday. I'm sure you'd love that city. And Sean Flanagan,

I do love Charleston. Yeah, Charleston is a top notche town. Yeah, I don't know if that's has enough people for us to go. But maybe I don't know. People might come from around the southeast to that show. Who knows that hecky went to Birmingham. Let's go to Charleston. Yeah, it's I mean us playing there is a good enough reason to get people to go to Charleston. Maybe Bill Murray would come. Oh yeah, is he still there? I know

his family is. Yeah, he lives there. Okay, I mean he's I think he's got more than one place, but I think he Well, it's tell you what, Murray, if you're listening, we'll list you for our show if you'll come. He's just crazy enough to show up. Yeah. So that's from Sean and uh, we had a lot of people right in about the Wild Signal. So yeah, disappointing that everybody bought into it, like, oh no, it's not Aliens,

it's this hydrogen cloud. Stupid comments. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us or at s y s K podcast. You can send us all an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff You Should Know dot com Stuff You Should Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.