I hadn’t heard of mushroom ketchup before visiting Colonial Williamsburg. It isn’t at all like tomato ketchup, which didn’t exist in the 18th century. Many people in England and North America still believed then that tomatoes were poisonous, and tomato ketchup wasn’t common until the mid-19th century. Until then, ketchups were prepared from mushrooms, walnuts, anchovies, or shellfish. (The word ketchup is thought to come from the Chinese ke-tsiap, or pickled fish sauce.) Continue reading →