Ketchup is an indispensable part of American food, but this does not mean that American ketchup is labeled "Heinz." Chef Jos é Andr é s, who was born in Spain, has been running a restaurant in Washington for 20 years, and he has a commitment to ketchup.

In Joseph's new restaurant, America eats tavern, there's a separate menu of traditional ketchup. The ketchup is cooked with local tomatoes and ingredients, and is served with fried chicken, steak or hot dog, all with the original American flavor.

Now, the restaurant has eight different flavors of ketchup on the menu, and Joseph's team is still creating new members of the list. Recently, they have discovered some ketchup recipes recorded in antique recipes, such as Miss Beecher's domestic receive book (1846) and the Virginia housewife (1824), which contain some rare ketchup recipes. "It's not always the best way to make a recipe. Some flavors are no longer suitable for today's dishes, but we can get inspiration from them, and the process of transforming ketchup is also very interesting."

Ketchup comes from the English spelling catsup. When the Mayflower sailed from England to the North American continent, the sauce was made in the same way. However, in the extremely difficult pioneering years, these "immigrants" used all kinds of cold resistant spices to make tomato sauce, so the traditional American tomato paste formula added ginger, pepper and cardamom, which made the taste more spicy and the texture more thick.

"We're experimenting with blueberry ketchup and even oyster sauce in the traditional way." "And the results of the trial surprised us. We didn't expect that these new flavors of ketchup could be so trendy." Indeed, the balanced sweet and sour fruit ketchup, as well as the cold and salty flavor of oyster sauce (fresh oysters cooked in various materials such as red wine, butter, green onion, etc.) are all novel to customers who first taste them.

Some of the ketchup is red with cherries or spices; some are yellow because of the yellow tomatoes; the two sauces are salty because of oysters or anchovies. Blueberries, walnuts, mushrooms, mustard are all great seasonings to add to ketchup. They are sweet, spicy, sour or salty, but none of them is as boring as a typical syrup ketchup. "The key to ketchup is balance. You want the first taste of the sauce to be fresh tomato flavor, not some pungent sweetness

"In such a diversified society, why not try more? It's boring to watch black-and-white TV instead of leaving the rainbow bridge! " And Joseph said. As a matter of fact, many hamburger chefs make their own special ketchup. Only fresh tomatoes, ginger with moderate tenderness, ripe figs and peppers with moderate pungency can make sauces that satisfy them.

Although he liked the new taste, Joseph did not abandon the original tomato sauce, but only if it came from his own kitchen and had to eat something new. "I'll mix mayonnaise, ketchup and brandy and add mustard to make a special sauce. It's perfect with seafood."