Banana ketchup, apple ketchup, and Goose Island sodas
Ever wonder why Heinz carefully labels its ketchup bottles as “tomato ketchup”? Doesn’t that seem vaguely redundant, like mustard labeled as “mustard-seed mustard”? Well, apparently it isn’t.
For one thing, ketchup made with tomatoes was a relatively late American innovation, a cheap new local-ingredients-based twist on a traditional sauce made primarily with mushrooms, or oysters, or walnuts and anchovies.
And for another thing, a friendly A.V. Club reader from the Philippines named Nicole recently informed us that a non-tomato ketchup is big in the Philippines—specifically ketchup made with bananas. In fact, it’s so popular that a Filipino company has just released a ketchup made with apples, as well. As weird as banana and apple ketchup may sound to Americans, Nicole had this to say:
“Banana ketchup is much more popular than tomato ketchup here in the Philippines. I’ve personally never liked it, but I’m very much in the minority. The stuff is apparently really made of bananas with much red food coloring, and is used like regular ketchup, on burgers, fries and most popularly, fried chicken.
Apple ketchup is evidently the result of a brain wave by some product development person at the ketchup company. It’s a brand new product, I’ve never tried it, and neither has anyone else I know.”
Well, you can’t say that anymore, Nicole, because we went out and bought a bunch of fries from the deli across the street, and tried the hell out of both banana and apple ketchup, just for you.
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