Food History: Ketchup and Mustard

The history of ketchup and mustard includes a tomato ketchup pill sold as patent medicine, a personal mustard-maker to the pope, and an early variety of fermented fish-gut “ketchup” bearing little resemblance to the bottle of Heinz you may have in your fridge.

You’ll learn some of the real (and some of the fake) health benefits ascribed to mustard, and we’ll even take a detour to answer an audience question: “Does dark roast coffee have more caffeine than light roast?”

Food History is a series from Mental Floss where we dive deep into the culinary stories that lead to the food on our plates. If you have an idea for a dish, cooking technique, or cuisine that you’d like us to explore in a future episode, tell us in the comments. The history of Japanese food is the just the tip of the iceberg in fascinating food stories.

For some more condiment fun, check out our article about the most popular condiment in each state of the United States: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/570234/most-popular-condiment-each-state-mapped

And for the origins of many other foods, check out our episode of the List Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mTprTFfbuk

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