By Amy Bentley,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innov...ted-180969230/
From the last third:
....Early on, ketchup functioned as a great equalizer, with a €śspecial and unprecedented ability to provide something for everyone.€ť Tomato ketchup became €śentrenched as the primary and most popular of condimental sauces, its appeal to Americans deep and widespread,€ť wrote food historian Elizabeth Rozin, who called it the €śEsperanto of cuisine.€ť Ketchup functioned as a class leveler. Regardless of income or education, Americans could drop into a roadside diner or barbeque joint. Affordable to most, a burger and fries spiked with ketchup was a democratic, delicious lowest common denominator meal. Today ketchups appeal is in part because it embodies principles that Americans prize including consistency, value, and cleanliness. Moreover ketchups use, noted Rozin, was shaped by foods and meals that are perceived as €śAmerican€ť in their preparation and presentation: think hamburgers and fries, €śballpark€ť foods, fast food in general.
The rest of the world, for better or worse, regards ketchup as emblematic of U.S. cuisine, too€”and the condiment continues to shape food everywhere it goes. In Japan, people love a cuisine known as yoshoku, which they also sometimes call €śWestern Food.€ť Yoshoku restaurants use a lot of ketchup. They serve a dish called naporitan, made of cooked spaghetti that is rinsed in cold water, then stir-fried with vegetables in ketchup. Omu rice is an omelet lying over a mound of ketchup-flavored rice. The hambaagu is a Japanese version of a hamburger patty, usually served bunless. Swedes love €śDepression spaghetti€ť€”ketchup poured over pasta as a sauce, as many Americans did during the 1930s and probably still do...
(snip)
About the author:
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty/Amy_Bentley
Lenona.