Choose your condiments

Barbeque season is nearly here and while we are all pretty much familiar with ketchup, mustard and relish, I thought it might be fun to look at a international twist on these three condiments that might be less familiar with the North American crowd.

The word “Ketchup” is actually from a Hokkien Chinese word  “kê-tsiap” made not from tomatoes but from fermented fish. Hmmm. For some reason I always thought it originally came from Indonesia. Probably because there is a condiment called “kecap” which is more like a sweet soy sauce than a ketchup as we know it. In any event, after the Europeans brought the dish from the Far East, it took on a whole different flavour. By 1870 three popular “ketchup” recipes emerged in Europe-mushroom, walnut and tomato.

A slow cooked ketchup like condiment from Bangladesh called “Kasundi” is one I’m dying to try.  I found out about it on one of my favourite pickling blogs Punk Domestics. The recipe calls for a blend of spices, tomatoes, sugar, chili and a few other ingredients and then slow cooked for about an hour. Apparently “It starts as a bunch of different flavors, but after a long period of cooking together, they come together into something insanely addicting,”. Sounds like a winner to me.