Ketchup

Ketchup (pronounced kech-uhp or kach-uhp)

(1) A condiment consisting of puréed tomatoes, onions, vinegar, sugar, spices etc.

(2) Any of various other condiments or piquant sauces for meat, fish (mushroom ketchup; walnut ketchup etc).

1711: From the Malay (Austronesian) kichap or kəchap (fish sauce), possibly from the dialectal Chinese kéjāp (Guangdong) or ke-tsiap (Xiamen) (akin to the Chinese qié (eggplant) + chī (juice)) or from the Chinese (Amoy) kōetsiap (koechiap) (brine of pickled fish), the construct being kōe (seafood) + tsiap (sauce).  Linguistic anthropologists concluded that if came from the latter, it was probably from the Chinese community in northern Vietnam.  Catsup and the even earlier catchup (1680s) were earlier anglicized forms which died out, except in the US where, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, catsup is still in use.

Tomato came later

Ketchup was originally a fish sauce made from various plant juices but came to be used in English for a wide variety of spiced gravies and sauces.  In the seventeenth century, the Chinese mixed pickled fish and spices and called it (in the Amoy dialect) kôe-chiap or kê-chiap (鮭汁) meaning the brine of pickled fish (鮭, salmon; 汁, juice) or shellfish.  By the early eighteenth century, the table sauce had arrived in the Malay states (present day Malaysia and Singapore) and colonists took it home to England.  The Malaysian-Malay words for the sauce were variations of kicap & kecap and those evolved into the English "ketchup". 

Published in London, William Kitchiner’s (1775-1827) Apicius Redivivus (Cook's Oracle, 1817), included seven pages of recipes for different types of catsup (1 spelled ketchup, 72 catsup), including walnut, mushroom, cucumber, oyster, cockle and mussel, tomato, as well as more exotic concoctions made with vinegar and anchovies, suggesting the word was adopted to describe just about any spiced sauce.  By the 1870s, English cookbooks and encyclopedias noted mushroom, walnut, and tomato ketchup were the predominate flavors; in the US, tomato ketchup emerged circa 1800 and dominated by the late nineteenth century.  In the English-speaking word, despite Ketchup’s English origins, it seems now regarded as a US form and “tomato sauce” is elsewhere generally preferred.  In German use, Ketchup is now the approved form, the alternative spelling Ketschup now proscribed after being deprecated in a 2017 German spelling reform.

In 2004, US food processing company HJ Heinz conducted its "Four stars fall for Heinz Ketchup" promotion with the debut of Heinz's new Celebrity Talking Labels.  Former Pittsburgh Steelers National Football League (NFL) quarterback Terry Bradshaw (b 1948), dual Olympic gold medalist, and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion Mia Hamm (b 1972), actor William Shatner (b 1931) and actor Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) were the subjects of the talking labels campaign and the range was released in what Heinz said were "limited-edition bottles of the condiment", each featuring labels with quotes from each celebrity.  The promotion was well-received and extended until 2006 when Heinz offered consumers the opportunity to create their own labels by ordering customized bottles through a page on the Heinz website.