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Mushroom Ketchup
Mushroom ketchup is more highly esteemed and more generally useful than any other. It is best when made of the large mushroom flaps, fully ripe, fresh, and perfectly dry--that is, gathered during dry weather. If this point is not attended to, the ketchup will not keep. Do not wash or skin the mushrooms, but carefully remove any decayed, dirty, or worm-eaten portions; cut off about half an inch from the end of the stalks, then break the rest into small pieces, put them into an earthen jar, and strew three-quarters of a pound of salt amongst two gallons of mushrooms, scattering the larger portion over the top. Let them remain all night, and the next day stir them gently with a wooden spoon, and repeat this three times a day for two days. At the end of that time put the jar into a cool oven for half an hour, then strain through a coarse cloth the liquid which flows from the contents, and let it boil for a quarter of an hour. Do not squeeze the mushrooms. To every quart of the liquid put a quarter of an ounce each of Jamaica pepper and black pepper, and two blades of mace. Boil again until the quantity is reduced one-half. Pour it out, and let it stand until cool, then put it into perfectly dry bottles, being careful to leave the sediment, which will have settled at the bottom, undisturbed. Resin the corks, or tie bladder over them, and keep in a cool, dry place. The liquid will have a better appearance if it is strained through a tamis after being poured from the sediment. If liked, two or three drops of brandy may be put into each pint of ketchup. It is well to use small bottles, so that the liquid may not be long kept after it has been exposed to the air. Probable cost of mushrooms, variable.
This is a Victorian preserving formula, and the preserving part is where it fails modern standards. The glossary below explains what the instructions mean; it is not a route to making the ketchup safely.
- Why it cannot be made as writtenThe finished liquid is a low-acid, sealed, room-temperature preserve with no measured acidity, no known final salt concentration and no processing temperature or time. Corks sealed with resin or a tied bladder create exactly the oxygen-free environment in which Clostridium botulinum spores germinate, and the two boiling stages here are nowhere near sufficient to destroy spores. If you want mushroom ketchup, use a current tested recipe.
- The salt is not a reliable controlThree-quarters of a pound of salt to two gallons of mushrooms sounds substantial, but most of that salt ends up distributed between the drained liquid and the discarded solids in proportions the recipe never fixes. Because the yield of liquid is unstated and varies with how wet the mushrooms are, the final brine strength in the bottle is unknowable, so it cannot be counted on to inhibit anything.
- Wild mushrooms and the "flaps""Large mushroom flaps" means the fully opened caps of the field mushroom, Agaricus campestris, gathered from pasture. Foraged Agaricus can be confused with the yellow-staining mushroom, and at the button stage with young Amanita; the recipe also instructs the cook not to wash or skin, which removes a close inspection point. No amount of boiling addresses a misidentified mushroom.
- "A cool oven"The coolest working heat of a coal range, well below a baking heat; the book gives no temperature and no modern figure can be assigned with confidence. The half hour there appears to be intended to draw more liquid out of the salted mushrooms rather than to sterilise anything.
- Jamaica pepperAllspice, the dried berry of Pimenta dioica, not a pepper at all. A quarter ounce is roughly a tablespoon of whole berries. "Two blades of mace" means two pieces of the lacy aril from around a nutmeg.
- A tamisA fine worsted or hair straining cloth stretched on a frame, used for clarifying. A double layer of muslin or a jelly bag does the same work.
- Do not squeezeThe one instruction worth keeping in mind for any mushroom extraction: pressing the pulp drives fine solids into the liquid and clouds it. The recipe's own concern that the liquid "will have a better appearance" after straining shows clarity was valued here.
History: Before ketchup meant tomatoes, it meant this. The word entered English in the late seventeenth century from a Southeast Asian fermented fish sauce -- usually traced to Malay kicap or a related Hokkien term -- and English cooks applied it to any thin, dark, salted, long-keeping seasoning liquid: walnut, oyster, anchovy, cucumber and above all mushroom. Cassell's confidence that mushroom ketchup is "more highly esteemed and more generally useful than any other" reflects its role as the standard depth-adding bottle in a nineteenth-century British kitchen, splashed into gravies, hashes, stews and made dishes the way a modern cook reaches for soy sauce or Worcestershire. Mushroom ketchup survives commercially in Britain, and the tomato version began as only one entry in a long list of ketchups.