Civil War Ketchup Recipe Battle - Confederate vs. Union | HARD TIMES

Greetings, beautiful, beautiful, it's an Emmy, welcome back. Today's video is sponsored by the American Battlefield Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving American

battle

fields from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War. Be sure to click the link below for more information. about your efforts and thank you very much for sponsoring this video today I'm going to continue my

hard

times

series, a series that I've been doing of historical

hard

times

recipe

s, today I'm going to make two types, this is actually for two types of

ketchup

Yes, the ubiquitous tomato condiment we dip our fries in.

These are

recipe

s from the

civil

war era. I'm going to make a

confederate

recipe and a

union

recipe and I'm going to test them and compare them, so the idea of ​​Ketchup is actually old, it's believed that the name

ketchup

actually comes from a huge Chinese word called ketsup, which was actually a fermented fish sauce believed to come from Vietnam and was brought to China through Chinese traders, which is why the British brought us to the UK. in the 17th and 18th centuries and an effort to replicate it changed it, then you start seeing ingredients like mushrooms and nuts and that was called ketchup, so I'll link below to the National Geographic article I read where much of this is found. information. came from the first recorded recipe for ketchup that contained tomato was in 1812 a recipe written by James Mies and contained tomatoes and sodium benzoate a preservative, so it was understood that sodium benzoate was not considered healthy in 1876 a company called Heinz. with a tomato ketchup that contained more vinegar rather than settled benzoate to preserve the ketchup, so the rest I guess is history, right?

The American Battlefield Trust asked me to reflect on how I came to historical recipes and history in general, and this is a great example of how I've learned history through food. I'm actually not a big history buff. I'm just not that interested in dates and timelines, but when it comes to food I am super passionate, curious and interested, so through the Lens of Food I have learned a lot of history and I find it absolutely fascinating because food has allowed me this kind of portal back in time. I also love the idea of ​​creating a recipe and then having a tangible means to go back in time.

I can imagine what it was like to struggle and have to make a chop out of a grapefruit pit or having to prepare a meal out of banana peels. I think one of the most important things about history is that it gives us context. It gives us a place to learn from so that we can hopefully make better decisions for our future generations. Many thanks to American Battlefield Trust for sponsoring this video. Be sure to click the link below and visit their website and their many apps to help. people learn more about history and why it is important.

Well, let's go ahead and make some ketchup, so I'm going to make two versions of ketchup, a

union

recipe and a

confederate

recipe, and I got both from this book called A Taste for War by William C Davis and I've referenced this book once. time before when I did my hard homework and I will put a link below where you can find this book. I just checked it out from my local library. It's pretty good, it's culinary history. of the blue and gray and in the back it has a ton of recipes, so other books that I've seen are more recipes from the Civil War era and they include recipes where

civil

ians might have eaten a lot of baked goods and things like that. a soldier wouldn't necessarily be making cake, so I really appreciate this because there are a lot of recipes that include Confederate ketchup and Boston ketchup, so these are the two recipes that I'm going to make today.

Both recipes, of course, are after 1812 and Both contain tomato, so it will be a little more similar to what we consider ketchup today. Okay, let's go ahead and get started. Both recipes are perfect for this time of year because they call for using fresh crushed tomatoes, so I gave it a try. two different versions of shredding the tomatoes: first I scored the skin of the tomato and boiled it and then I tried shredding it and that didn't really work as well as just taking the clean tomato and rubbing it over the holes of a grater and just keep sorting it and sorting it until that you only have the skin left, so to prepare the confederate ketchup we are going to prepare our spices next.

This recipe calls for mace and nutmeg. Did you know that mace and nutmeg actually do? They come from the same fruit, it's super cool, so this part of the membrane on the outside of this nut is the mace, so you're going to take it off and inside of it you have a kind of nut and you open up the nut and inside of you. I have a stone and that is your nutmeg, so two spices are from the same fruit, so I took my mace and put it in my mortar and ground it into a powder, then I cracked the shell and took out the nutmeg stone . and then I just grated it on a fine-tooth grater, three-quarters teaspoon of whole peppercorns, then added about a third of a teaspoon of allspice, three-quarters of a teaspoon of ground mustard, a heaping teaspoon of salt gave it to all a well ground, so in a saucepan we will add a liter of our freshly grated tomato, then we will add 1/8 cup of white vinegar, then we will add our spice mixture, we will also add three red peppers and then we will bring all this to a boil and then we'll reduce the heat and just cook it until it's nice and thick and it's the consistency of ketchup, so that's going to be the confederate style ketchup.

Next we're going to make our binding ketchup, so starting from the same place we're going to use some freshly grated tomato and in this case we're going to add 1/4 of that to a saucepan along with half a teaspoon of salt we're going to take it bring to the boil and Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour, then we'll pour this into a strainer and use the back of a spoon to squeeze out all the juice. We want to leave all the seeds if we now add the strained tomato juice. Back to our saucepan, 2 tablespoons of finely grated onion and a big pinch of mace, about an eighth of a teaspoon, then we'll add 8 peppercorns.

I'm going to bring this to a boil and then I'm going to reduce the heat and simmer it until it's nice and thick so here are the final results 2 jars of union ketchup or just Confederate and just for fun we're going to test it against modern Heinz . Okay, let me go get my fries. Okay, I bought some freshly fried fries. this is my new favorite for making french fries, these are just frozen french fries, it just works wonders, you don't have to add extra oil, it makes them great and it's super fast, so if you have a french fryer such great french fries, I'm pretty sure that's not how soldiers in the Civil War took their ketchup.

Ketchup was more of a ubiquitous sauce used to season dishes and meats, but since we're going to compare it to modern ketchup and that's how we normally have it. I'll try it with fries, confederate ketchup, I can smell the pepper in there, a little bit of vinegar, definitely the spice and this is the union, this one smells more like tomato soup, this one will be here. this one is a little bit darker red in color and not as thick and just for fun we're going to put the modern version in this bowl here we have our two styles of tomato sauce, finally let's try each other, I bought a deliciously spicy French fry.

I love French fries, okay, I'm going to try this one first and this is the Confederate style ketchup. I immediately noticed that the texture is different from the ketchup we were used to, it is much thicker although quite homogeneous and consistent, and it is definitely lighter in color than the Union Style, so let's give it a try. Here we are going to eat the lucky mozz, mmm, but so the spice it contains is not so strong. I thought it was going to be very aggressive, it's very nice and complex and actually reminds me a lot of ketchup.

Today we eat a little bit of that kind of spicy flavor, but what I really like is the inclusion of fresh peppers. A little pepper definitely shows through. It's not just a tomato base, you also have a little vinegar. it gives a little sourness it's not too salty by any means that's really delicious mm-hmm let's go for it just ooh now I can really taste the pepper then I get a little more of that spicy heat sensation now let's try Union and I'm I'll try it just dry it down just first here we go, very different, this actually tastes more like tomato sauce, it has some acidity that comes from the tomato, but we don't add vinegar so it's not as spicy, the cooked tomato flavor is much more. pronounced and concentrated it's more like tomato paste the amount of spices in it is much less it's also there but it's not as common as the confederate version mmm-hmm it's all better with fries I don't know maybe mm-hmm So, in addition to the flavor, the consistency of this ketchup is a little different than Confederate, it's a little more homogeneous and sticky, it doesn't separate as easily as Confederate in terms of flavor.

I actually prefer the Confederate and maybe that's because too. to the fact that this is more similar to my frame of reference of what ketchup is in terms of modern ketchup and speaking of modern, let's compare that to the modern Heinz 57 variety version so we can see that it is much darker than either. of these and it has a much smoother consistency, yes, here we go now comparing it to this one, it doesn't taste like ketchup anymore, how interesting, this is significantly sweeter than any of these other versions, yes, I just dipped it twice, but This is just for me, so it's okay.

So today's one is significantly sweeter than any of the historical ones, it has a much softer consistency and the flavor of the tomato is very cooked and processed, its flavor is not dirty and fresh, it has a little spicy flavor, but not . almost as distinctive as the spice flavors in any of the historic ones, yes, it sounds like a modern processed food, but we love it with our fries and our burgers, right? mm-hmm despite the amount of effort it takes. is dedicated to making these condiments, I think it would be worth the effort because I think they would be excellent as an accompaniment to meat or fish.

I think they would be delicious, so there you have a little historical comparison of Union and Confederate ketchups. Both recipes, as I said, I preferred the confederate one. Thank you very much for watching and many thanks to the American Battle Trust for sponsoring this video. If you liked today's historic recipe, be sure to click the link below and check out Three's upcoming Civil War videos. coffee and rations thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoy it I hope you learned something please share this video with your friends watch the hard times playlist this video subscribe and I'll see you next Dillons, take care, bye during I'm starring I'm starring in my test