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Walnut Catsup
Put one hundred green walnuts into a mortar and beat them well until bruised, then put them into a jar with six ounces of chopped shallots, a head of garlic, one-half pound of salt, and two quarts of vinegar. Stir the contents of the jar twice a day for a fortnight, then strain off the vinegar, put it into a saucepan with three anchovies, one tablespoonful of cloves, two tablespoonfuls of peppercorns and one-fourth of an ounce of mace. Boil the vinegar for half an hour, then strain it off and leave it until cold. Pour the vinegar into bottles, being careful not to get any of the sediment mixed up in it. Cork the bottles tightly and keep them in a dry store-cupboard.
An English-style condiment vinegar rather than a thick sauce, and the whole thing hinges on catching the walnuts at the right stage. Everything else is patience.
- Green walnuts, and only green onesThe nuts must be picked while the inner shell is still soft — push a needle or skewer through the whole nut; if it meets no hard resistance, they are ready. Depending on climate that is generally around late June to mid-July. Once the shell has set, they cannot be bruised in a mortar and the catsup will not draw.
- QuantityOne hundred green walnuts is roughly 6-7 lb of fruit. Against two quarts of vinegar and half a pound of salt that is a heavily salted, sharply acid steep; keep the proportions as given rather than cutting the salt.
- Wear glovesGreen walnut husks contain juglone and tannins that stain skin brown for a week or more and will mark wooden boards and countertops permanently. Nitrile gloves and a stainless or glass vessel throughout.
- Bruising without a mortarA large pestle and mortar is the traditional tool, but a heavy rolling pin against the nuts in a doubled ziplock bag works, as does a few short pulses in a food processor. You want them broken and weeping, not puréed.
- The jar and the fortnightUse glass or glazed stoneware, never bare metal — the vinegar and tannin will corrode it. Keep it covered but not sealed at cool room temperature and stir twice daily for the full two weeks; the liquid turns black as the husks oxidise.
- Anchovies and maceSalted anchovies were the common commercial form in this period and are probably closest to what was meant; six oil-packed fillets substitute for his three whole fish. A quarter ounce of mace is a substantial amount — on the order of a tablespoon of ground mace, or a good handful of blades. Mace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg, not a substitute for it.
- Straining and bottlingStrain twice, the second time through a double layer of muslin, and pour off carefully so the sediment stays behind, as the recipe directs. Fill scalded bottles and cork or cap tightly.
- Yield and useExpect noticeably less than the two quarts of vinegar you started with, after absorption, half an hour's boiling and two strainings. Keep it in a dark cupboard and use it by the spoonful in gravies, braises and steak sauces rather than as a table ketchup.
Walnut catsup is older than the tomato kind. English cookery books were bottling pickled-walnut liquor with anchovies, cloves and mace through the eighteenth century, when "catsup" or "ketchup" still meant a thin, dark, salty seasoning vinegar — the word is generally traced to a Southeast Asian fermented fish sauce, kêtsiap, and the family included mushroom, oyster and walnut versions long before tomato became the default. Its appearance in Oscar Tschirky's 1896 collection is a reminder that a great American hotel kitchen of the period still ran on the English larder: a store cupboard of homemade seasoning vinegars stood behind the sauces, and a spoonful of walnut catsup was the quiet depth in a brown sauce or a devilled steak. The recipe also assumes something no city kitchen assumes now — access to a walnut tree in early summer, and two weeks of daily stirring.