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#1005 - Gourmet Condiments
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Over the last several shows we've been talking about two of my favorite hand-made condiments, pesto and aioli. Today we're going to look into the world of fancy store-bought condiments, which is the province of our guest, Adam Borden. He has filed this report.
Ketchup, now the preferred American spelling to the British catsup, “was used on the British table long before tomatoes arrived there,” says the New York Times. “It was described in print as early as 1690, having made its way to Europe either from China (the Cantonese ke-tsiap means, roughly, “eggplant juice”) or from Malaysia (where the Malay word kecap referred to fermented fish sauce). Salty Indonesian soy sauce, tart tamarind chutneys and vinegary English sauces made with unripe walnuts have all been called by the name.” Although we think of ketchup today as made with primarily tomatoes, the historical antecedents were made with many other ingredients including fruit, mushrooms and oysters to name a few.
Modern gourmet ketchups differ from the mass produced supermarket versions in several important ways. Mass ketchups use a tomato concentrate – tomatoes that are strained without the skin, drained, dehydrated and then rehydrated – while specialty ketchups typically use crushed, whole tomatoes. Another important differentiator is the sweetener. Most specialty ketchups use brown sugar, white sugar or agave syrup while mass ketchups typically contain high-fructose corn syrup and in significantly more quantity. Lastly, specialty ketchups often use apple cider vinegar, which imparts a tarter flavor than the white vinegar used in industrial ketchups. Heinz and Hunt’s combined control 77% of the $400 million US ketchup market, while specialty ketchups amount to likely less than one percent of total sales.
Modern gourmet ketchup seems to come in two flavors: traditional tomato or spiced.
Sir Kensington’s (http://shoppe.sirkensingtons.com/) is the premiere gourmet ketchup on the market. Its traditional ketchup has a chunky texture with a strong tomato aroma and sweet taste. The company’s spiced ketchup is also excellent, with a smoky adobo (roasted jalapeno) flavor and darker color. Completely different is the Sweet Orange Chili ketchup from Dulcet Cuisine (http://dulcetcuisine.com/index.html). This sauce has a slight heat with strong orange notes that would pair well with roast pork or duck.
The name mustard comes from the Latin words “mustum ardens”, which means “burning wine” and refers to the flavor created by the spicy heat of the crushed mustard seeds mixed with the juice of unfermented wine grapes. Although mustard is frequently associated with France, 90% of world mustard seed production comes from Canada and the US. Americans’ taste for yellow and Dijon mustards are evolving into coarse, spiced mustards with world flavors.
Two superior mustards also come from Dulcet Cuisine. Their Moroccan mustard is a smooth grind and has a balanced heat on the back end while their Creole mustard is coarse and chunky with a startlingly spiced complexity.
Soy sauce was introduced to the US about 50 years ago post-WWII with the return of US troops from Japan and with the arrival of Japanese cuisine in Southern California. It is made by fermenting soy beans and wheat with salt and filtered water. While most mass soy sauces are aged for several months, Bourbon Barrel Foods (http://bourbonbarrelfoods.com/) ages its soy sauce for 12 months like other Japanese premium soy sauces. The product is aged and fermented in used bourbon barrels with the same limestone filtered water preferred by bourbon makers. While large makers produce hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, Bourbon Barrel bottles just 2,500 gallons a year. Their sauce is thick and smooth with not nearly the saltiness of more conventional products.
Relish & Pickles
Most Americans are used to a sweet cucumber relish which is made with high-fructose corn syrup and guar or xanthan gum as a thickener. American relish is frequently mushy, soupy and a muted green color. McClure’s Pickles (http://www.mcclurespickles.com/) has a Garlic Dill relish that stands in stark contrast. It is bright green in color with sweetness replaced by a tangy, crunchy bite. The company presses water out of the cucumbers to reduce the volume and uses vinegar to acidify the pickle instead of fermentation.
Pickles are also usually thought of as green and sweet. Pickles, however, are primarily a preservation technique rather than a technique that can be applied to any number of raw materials, not just cucumbers.
Boat Street Pickles (http://www.boatstreetpickles.com/) combines sweet and savory ingredients in very unusual combinations. Its hallmark product is pickled figs, or black mission figs cooked down in red wine, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, sugar and salt. The figs are tangy, savory and sweet all at once, a perfect complement to roasted meat or creamy cheeses.