stlbites.com – st. louis food blog of bill burge

Ketchup Quest

Jan 5, 2008 cooking, groceries, recipe, trips

In the early days of the Food Network David Rosengarten had a show called Taste. In a way I guess he was almost the forerunner to Alton Brown, but where Brown will use food science to tweak a recipe or explain its outcome, Rosengarten went straight for the classic recipes never diverging from the path of the traditional dish.

With a tendency to come off a bit insane Brown doesn’t do it for me like Rosengarten did; though he too had his own flaws and would often come off sounding a bit pompous, and perhaps a bit stodgy in his adherence to the classic methods. Still, it wasn’t his attitude or cooking that drew me to the program, because the best portion of the show was the first fifteen minutes (or so), when he would delve into the detailed history of the dish he would be preparing that day.

Ketchup was the episode I remember most vividly because it’s not the kind of thing people typically think to make at home. And while I don’t recall everything that went into it, the one thing I do recall is that anchovies were high on the list; which at the time I found shocking when considering what Heinz tastes like.

Fascinated as I was I never bothered to try my hand at ketchup.

A few years later, at the Racquet Club Ladue, we would make a variation of ketchup in house that I would personally pile high on everything from eggs and hamburgers to the obvious: fries. I think, in fact, that it’s the very same Spicy Tomato Ketchup on Cardwell’s Bill’s Burgermeister Burger. If not, I think it’s damn close and probably still could be traced back to Fedora’s–the restaurant that brought Bill Cardwell to St. Louis in the first place.

Delicious as it is I’ve never committed to making it at home but, loving it as I did, I was always on the look out for a more adult variation of ketchup because I am not a fan of Heinz–to the point, in fact, that I make Ellie buy only Hunt’s because I find it thicker, less sweet, and more tomatoey.

Once my parents brought home a ketchup for me that had been made with Burgundy wine which was really fantastic. It was rather spicy with what I recall being a nice hit of cumin. It had made a stellar meatloaf or two while it lasted but once gone I was never able to find a source for it again.

Around that time I noticed Stonewall Kitchen makes a Country Ketchup. Sadly, through years of looking for it locally, I’ve never been able to find it in St. Louis and the cost of ordering one jar just seemed silly by the time shipping was factored in.

However my tail does not end in tears because earlier this year, while walking around Petoskey, Michigan wondering if Sufjan Stevens used to hang out in the coffee shop we were in, we headed back outside to find an amazing specialty food shop called Symons General Store. They carried an impressive selection considering how far North we were in the lower-peninsula. It seemed astonishingly out of place, and I’m not even sure St. Louis could keep a shop like it in business.

Upon entering, Ellie saw a Stonewall item and began looking for the ketchup even though I was telling her her she’d never find it–no matter how much Stonewall Kitchen stuff a store seems to carry, they never have the ketchup. This time, I was wrong.

It was as great as I’d always hoped it would be, and although the picture looks very smooth, it’s actually quite chunky, with a really strong tomato flavor, a bit less sugar, and definite hit of spice that you don’t generally find in America’s second favorite condiment–unless of course you make it for yourself.

It too makes a stellar meatloaf–up until a few weeks ago when I dropped it on the floor and watched the jar shatter below my tears–but you still can’t get it anywhere in St. Louis, and so I ordered some this afternoon.

If you’re a high roller, at $15 for an 11oz bottle, there’s also this Tomato Ketchup from June Taylor Jams. It gets rave reviews as do all their products which include things like marmalades, conserves, syrups, and a whole lot more.

And if you’re feeling especially ambitious, the recipe for Spiced Tomato Ketchup aka Spiced Tomato Relish after the jump…

Spiced Tomato Relish

yield=1 Gallon (so you’ll probably want to scale it down)

• 10 pounds Roma tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced
• 7 1/2 cups red onion, peeled and minced
• 5 each green peppers, seeded and diced
• 5 each jalapenos, seeded and diced
• 2 ounces garlic, minced
• 5 ounces fresh ginger, minced
• 2 1/2 cups red wine vinegar
• 2 1/2 pounds brown sugar
• 2 1/2 cups corn syrup, light
• 2 cups tomato paste
• 5 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground white pepper
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/4 teaspoons mace
• 3/4 teaspoon ground clove

1. Combine all ingredients in a large non-reactive pot.
2. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer then cook till candied and thick.
3. Place in a 1 gallon container.
4. Cool.

Tags: Alton-Brown, David-Rosengarten, ketchup, Taste