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Anchovy Ketchup
Put half a gallon of mild ale into a saucepan with half a pound of anchovies, three blades of mace, one tea-spoonful of sifted sugar, a little whole ginger, six small onions, a couple of cloves, and twenty black peppercorns. Let all boil up once, then draw them from the fire, and allow them to simmer slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Strain through a fine hair sieve, and stir into the strained liquid two table-spoonfuls of mushroom ketchup. When it is quite cold, bottle it, and cork it securely. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. per quart. Sufficient for two quart bottles.
The interest here is historical rather than practical: this is an early fish sauce of the kind that fed into Worcestershire and the anchovy essences of the Victorian store cupboard. The archaic terms are easily decoded, but the preserving method is not one that can be reproduced.
- Why it failsA simmered, strained fish liquid, bottled cold and corked for storage at room temperature, is a low-acid anaerobic food containing fish. That is the classic setting for Clostridium botulinum, and type E in particular is associated with fish. Nothing here acidifies the liquid, no salt concentration is specified or controlled, and there is no heat process after bottling. A current, tested recipe should be used for any bottled sauce intended to be kept.
- The salt is unmeasuredHistoric salt-cured anchovies carried far more salt than modern tinned or jarred fillets, and it was the salt, not the boiling, that did the preserving. Because the recipe gives a weight of anchovies rather than a salt content, there is no way to know whether a batch is preserved or merely seasoned.
- Half a gallonAn imperial gallon is 160 fl oz, so half a gallon of ale is about 2.3 litres, or roughly 9.5 US cups. That is exactly two imperial quarts, which is the yield the recipe claims.
- Mild aleIn the period this meant a young, lightly hopped, faintly sweet ale, not the dark modern "mild" of the twentieth-century pub, and certainly not a bitter. The low hop rate matters: a heavily hopped beer would turn the reduction harsh.
- Blades of maceMace is the lacy aril around the nutmeg; a "blade" is one dried piece, and three is a modest amount for this volume. Ground mace is not a clean substitute in an infusion, as it clouds the liquid and cannot be strained out.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom liquor, still sold in Britain and quite unlike a tomato ketchup. It is added off the heat here purely for depth of flavour.
- A fine hair sieveA sieve of woven horsehair, the standard fine strainer before wire mesh became cheap. A fine nylon or steel sieve lined with muslin is the equivalent.
- The cost noteThe book reckons one shilling and sixpence per quart, or about three shillings for the two bottles it yields. Bottled anchovy essence was a shop item, and this is the home-made alternative.
Ketchup began as a fish sauce, and this recipe is closer to the word's origin than anything in a modern bottle. The name is generally traced to a Hokkien term for a brined fish liquor carried west through Southeast Asian trade, and the earliest English ketchups were dark, salty, savoury liquids made from anchovies, oysters, walnuts or mushrooms, kept in the store cupboard and spooned into sauces, gravies and fish dishes. Tomato was a latecomer that eventually took the name entirely. Anchovy essence, mushroom ketchup and Harvey's sauce were the savoury flavourings of the period.