Is there a difference between tomato sauce and ketchup?

[FridgeMagnet]

What is "that"? It makes a difference.

And the default, unless there is some unusual "that", is Tomato Ketchup Stroke Sauce.

 

[Orang Utan]

Mushroom ketchup exists. (I use it. It's a 'secret ingredient' in a lot of old recipes. Mrs Beaton's book, for example).

I have some at work and at home. If someone asks me for ketchup, I smirkingly hand them the mushroom ketchup and then they hit me.
All they had to do was ask for the tomato ketchup. If they do this at home, I ask them to get out of my house (unless it's my flatmate and he's got a plate of fish fingers, a burger or a bacon sarnie).

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Bounder.

 

[Orang Utan]

Bah, this is quibbling. "Do you want ketchup on that?" Are they referring to cactus ketchup? Dormouse ketchup?

Who knows? Which is why they should say tomato ketchup? The brand would help too.

 

[strung out]

i agree with dodgepot and fridgemagnet

 

[Orang Utan]

Are you all from the lower classes? That must be it.

 

[electrogirl]

I agree with Strung Out, dodgepot and Fridge Magnet.

 

[Orang Utan]

Scum. Subhuman scum.

 

[electrogirl]

Scum. Subhuman scum.

Well you're just a pedantic berkface.

 

[tendril]

Mushroom ketchup exists. (I use it. It's a 'secret ingredient' in a lot of old recipes. Mrs Beaton's book, for example). Therefore tomato ketchup is a kind of ketchup.

'Ketchup' is not American in origin. A recipe is given in The Compleat Housewife, by Eliza Smith, published in London in 1727. It is not a tomato ketchup, though.

I use that very product at work. Proper oldskool cooking, that is

 

[tendril]

Ketchup, (also spelled catsup, or catchup) also known as tomato ketchup, tomato sauce, red sauce, Tommy sauce, Tommy K, or dead horse,[1] is a condiment, usually made from tomatoes. The primary ingredients in a typical modern ketchup are tomato concentrate, spirit vinegar, corn syrup or other sugar, salt, spice and herb extracts (including celery), spice and garlic powder[2]. Allspice, cloves, cinnamon, onion, and other vegetables may be included.

Ketchup started as a general term for sauce, typically made of mushrooms or fish brine with herbs and spices. Some popular early main ingredients included blueberry, anchovy, oyster, lobster, walnut, kidney bean, cucumber, cranberry, lemon, celery and grape.

Ketchup is often used with french fries, hamburgers, sandwiches and grilled or fried meat. Ketchup is also used as a base for various sauces.

So, strictly speaking , yes, ketchup is tomato sauce. But of course, we know it isn't.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The Germans make a curry ketchup which is quite good. Ketchup isn't an american thing by any means.

 

[Cid]

And the default, unless there is some unusual "that", is Tomato Ketchup Stroke Sauce.

Balls. If I offered you beans with any kind of English meal I would probably be referring to the baked variety, if I offered you vinegar with chips it's unlikely to be a rich, dark balsamic, if you were to humbly indicate that 'cheese' might be a possibility with the ham sandwich you had so generously proffered it would, like as not, be cheddar.

 

[Cid]

Indeed I feel the beans example is perfect; if someone were to proffer 'baked beans' you would assume them to be Heinz (or something very similar), just as you would with ketchup... However there are different types of baked beans, some of which may actually be baked rather than stewed. Basically FM (and everyone like you) you are little more than sponges who have absorbed the fountain of corporate shit spouting from the pustulant arseholes of advertisers everywhere. I spit on you.

 

[ajk]

IIRC ketchup was originally a (Chinese?) word for fish sauce, if that helps at all. I'm not entirely sure what "Stroke Sauce" is though, but seeing as Fridge is an adult what he puts on his own sandwiches is his own business.

 

[lang rabbie]

Oddly enough, despite the Americans' reputation for adulterated food, AFAIK you aren't allowed to describe a tomato sauce preserved with vinegar as "ketchup" in the US of A if it is thickened with anything other than tomato solids.

 

[Grobelaar]

Nah, that's ketchup - ketchup's thicker

I can just picture you having a big kick-off in a greasy spoon caff over whether the thin red sauce in squeezy tomato dispenser is the 'ketchup' that you requested - no doubt you'll be wearing your top hat and finery.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Indeed I feel the beans example is perfect; if someone were to proffer 'baked beans' you would assume them to be Heinz (or something very similar), just as you would with ketchup... However there are different types of baked beans, some of which may actually be baked rather than stewed. Basically FM (and everyone like you) you are little more than sponges who have absorbed the fountain of corporate shit spouting from the pustulant arseholes of advertisers everywhere. I spit on you.

I'm sure you and your Guardian-reading friends have lots of jolly laughs giving people a pinto bean kebab on a crumpet when they ask for "beans on toast". But for the rest of us, unless otherwise specified "beans" means beans in bean sauce, "egg" means a chicken's egg not an organic quail's egg or caviar, and "tomato sauce" means tomato ketchup. And if you don't like the English language you can go and speak Esperanto with your yoghurt-knitting circle.

 

[tarannau]

<applauds FM>

A victory for common sense and decency!

 

[Orang Utan]

I can just picture you having a big kick-off in a greasy spoon caff over whether the thin red sauce in squeezy tomato dispenser is the 'ketchup' that you requested - no doubt you'll be wearing your top hat and finery.

You wouldn't catch me in one of those places in the first place - I might catch tuberculosis or something

 

[laptop]

So after only two pages we can conclude:

• Not all ketchup is tomato
• Not all tomato sauce is ketchup
• Therefore the answer to the OP question is "Yes, there is a difference."

Well done Urban! A thread finished cleanly and neatly closed!