"Tomato ketchup?"
By the campfire, Little Niu hesitantly looked at the potatoes and tomato ketchup in front of him and asked Xu Yun:
"Is it a sauce made from tomatoes?"
"That’s right."
"But aren’t tomatoes poisonous?"
Hearing Little Niu’s question, Xu Yun couldn’t help but laugh:
"Mr. Newton, everyone says tomatoes are poisonous, and indeed, in history, so people have died from eating tomatoes.
But think about those who had accidents from eating tomatoes; what kind of people or which class were they?"
"People? Class?"
Upon hearing Xu Yun’s words, Little Niu was first taken aback, then suddenly realized sothing and rushed back into the house, leaving a sentence behind:
"Wait for , I’m going to get a book."
After a while.
Little Niu returned to the scene holding a book about three centiters thick, flipping through it as he walked:
".....William Potter, an agricultural magnate from Leeds...Milton Bridges, a royal nobleman from Spain...Hissali Wyatt, a noble lady from Italy...."
What Little Niu held was "Herbals" written by John Gerard, the culprit responsible for tomatoes being banished in modern Europe.
In the book, he clearly stated that ’tomatoes are poisonous and cannot be eaten,’ so no one in the United Kingdom dared to eat tomatoes throughout the 17th century.
It wasn’t until the mid-18th century that the British gradually dared to use tomatoes in everyday dishes, and even then, they had to be cooked for a long ti to eliminate the toxins.
The book recorded nurous cases of poisoning from eating tomatoes, which beca strong evidence to support John Gerard’s point.
’Clap——’
After skimming through more than a dozen examples, Little Niu snapped the book shut, pondering as he said:
"Class..."
After a few seconds, his eyes suddenly lit up:
"That’s right, it’s rather strange; these people seem to be wealthy rchants or nobility? Why is there not a single commoner?"
Xu Yun’s lips curled into a faint smile as he continued to guide him:
"Mr. Newton, think about what kind of utensils they were using?"
"Utensils?"
Little Niu’s gaze drifted slightly upward, recalling in the moonlight:
"It was usually pewter, right? I’ve seen it a few tis at school banquets, and Uncle William attended so upper-middle-class gatherings in his earlier, sowhat wealthier years."
"Then think about what in pewter might react with tomatoes?"
Little Niu had already vaguely sensed sothing, and even without Xu Yun prompting, he began to consider the possibility of dissolution and reaction:
"Pewter is usually a mixture, mainly silver, tin, and lead... Wait, lead?!"
He grasped the book tightly with one hand, suddenly raising his head and staring intently at Xu Yun:
"Are you saying the acid in tomatoes dissolved the lead in the pewter, leading to poisoning and death?!"
Xu Yun shrugged, saying nothing; everything was clear without words.
Tomatoes were one of the specialties brought back from Arica by the Spanish in the early 16th century.
They flowed into the United Kingdom at the end of the 16th century, but for a long ti, people only considered tomatoes as ornantal plants, afraid to eat them.
The primary reason was that tomatoes belonged to the Solanaceae family, and most Solanaceae plants contained toxic alkaloids, such as belladonna and mandrake, which were all poisonous.
So at that ti, people believed that tomatoes were also poisonous and should be avoided.
But in reality, the toxins in tomatoes are mainly in the stems and unripe fruit, and the alkaloid content in ripe tomatoes is very low, hardly posing any health risk.
The second reason was the aforentioned quack, John Gerard, who defined tomatoes as toxic in his 1597 work "Herbals" — but in fact, he plagiarized this part from an article by Dodens, and even miscopied the na of the tomato from "lycopersicum" to "lycoperticum."
Unfortunately, at that ti, there was no public channel in Europe to dispel rumors, and since the examples John Gerard ntioned had all really happened, tomatoes were banished from recipes for a long ti and could be seen growing wild everywhere.
For example, not long ago, Xu Yun casually searched outside and found many wild ripe tomatoes, which no one was willing to eat.
This misunderstanding of tomatoes gave Xu Yun the idea of creating tomato ketchup as a super culinary weapon.
Don’t be fooled by the unassuming appearance of tomato ketchup; it might seem far removed from things like soap or antibiotics.
But in modern Europe, the status of tomato ketchup is almost equivalent to that of Laoganma (a popular Chinese chili sauce) in China, if not more.
French fries, hamburgers, afternoon tea, bread, steak... almost everything can be enhanced with tomato ketchup.
Speaking of tomato ketchup, there’s also an unknown little story.
Everyone probably knows that the English na for ketchup is ketchup, but this na doesn’t originate from English itself; it’s a phonetic borrowing from another language.
This language isn’t any other but Chinese!
The earliest recorded use of the word ketchup in English in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1690 (Ketchup - Wikipedia), but the original ingredient wasn’t tomatoes.
The word’s origin is the Chinese ke-tsiap, which originally referred to a fernted fish sauce used for seasoning during cooking.
Professor Ren Shaotang from Stanford University once wrote a blog titled "The Language of Food," where he argued that the root of tomato ketchup can be traced back to a type of fish sauce from eastern Min Province:
In the 18th-century Min dialect, this fish sauce was called ’ketchup,’ ’ge-tchup’ or ’kue-chiap’ in different regions.
Those familiar with the Min or Cantonese dialects can recognize the last syllable’s Aricanized pronunciation, ’chiap’ or ’tchup,’ which ans ’sauce,’ the Mandarin pronunciation being ’zhī.’
He also noted that the 1982 edition of the "Mandarin Minnan Dialect Dictionary" confirms "蕃" is an ancient character, pronounced as "gue" in Minnan colloquial language, aning preserved fish.
Therefore, "蕃茄酱" in Minnan dialect is the ancient term for "fish sauce." (Two papers, DOI: 10.1515/bz-1969-0202, DOI: 10.2307/2852096, the latter is from Cambridge)
Of course.
With updates and iterations, today’s tomato sauce has little resemblance to the 17th-century ketchup.
Just like the ancestor of cats is the Proailurus, it’s a sort of ancestral link.
Xu Yun glanced around, noting that as ti passed, the outdoor temperature was dropping sharply:
"Mr. Newton, why don’t you try a couple of bites? It’s a very common sauce in our Eastern cuisine. Not only is it non-toxic, but so who eat it beco the five whites of the Central Plains... *cough*, beco very wealthy!"
Hearing this, Little Niu couldn’t help but scrutinize the tomato ketchup in front of him again, appearing sowhat hesitant:
Though he didn’t want to admit it, this Eastern person nad Fat Fish had indeed brought him many good things and helped him quite a bit since his appearance...
Thinking this, Little Niu made up his mind and took a potato voluntarily.
It’s not like it will kill ; I might as well try a little.
The skin of the roasted potato was a bit hot, so Little Niu quickly switched the potato between his hands, continuously blowing on it.
With the help of the cold air, the surface temperature of the potato quickly dropped.
Little Niu skillfully pinched a slightly indented part, using a bit of force.
With a puff of white steam, the potato was split into two.
Then he took the smaller half, dipped it into the tomato ketchup mixed by Xu Yun, and popped it into his mouth along with the potato.
After a while, Little Niu exclaid softly:
"Hmm? The taste isn’t bad, it’s delicious!"
At that ti, seasonings in the United Kingdom were very scarce; bread with butter was the most common setup, beyond that, it was pickled vegetables with salted at, combined with pogranate seeds and peeled li, made into an early form of simple salad.
Therefore, the introduction of tomato ketchup was like filling the gap between ’sour and sweet,’ and its popularity has been proven nurous tis in later generations; it’s no exaggeration to say, this stuff is inherently a perfect match for Europeans.
Watching Little Niu already going for a second dip, Xu Yun smiled slightly and said:
"So, Mr. Newton, if we were to set a low price for tomato ketchup and sell it, do you think people would be willing to pay?"
"Sell? Pay?"
Thud——
Upon hearing those keywords, Little Niu froze like a battery-powered toy suddenly disconnected.
He didn’t even notice the potato in his hand had fallen to the ground.
After a few seconds.
A light suddenly ignited in his eyes, like two gold coins embedded in there, glittering brightly.
User Comments
0 comments from readers