My friend Brent (from the wine tasting) is a mushroom hunter. Last Sunday, he brought me a great quantity of beautiful chanterelles. I have had tart on the brain for awhile (I've got a crock of sauerkraut fermenting on the kitchen counter and a big, beautiful head of Napa cabbage to turn into kimchi in my fridge), so I decided to go with something new, different, daring, and utterly traditional. I made myself some mushroom ketchup.
Now, non-foodies (and non-Colonial-foodies) are probably wondering what in the fuck I'm talking about. Americans have a very narrow understanding of ketchup. Ketchup is the tomato-HFCS-vinegar stuff you put on fries, eggs, hot dogs, hamburgers, etc. Believe it or not, people have very strong feelings about ketchup.
One benefit of ketchup is that it's easy to be a snob about it. Some declare it too sweet. Others think it's too acidic. Some insist that it ruins food. Others think no barbecue is complete without it. But above all, people generally insist that it must contain tomatoes. These people are incorrect.
Short history lesson: the word ketchup is most likely an Anglicized version of Hokkien Chinese. The original ketchup was (yum) fermented fish sauce. British colonists came home and tried to make their own version with the ingredients they had on hand. Their versions did not contain tomatoes. Shellfish, nuts, and mushrooms were common ingredients. Oh, yeah... the sauce was also thin and runny, not thick and spreadable. The tomato didn't enter stage left until 1812. Read more on National Geographic's The Plate: http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/21/how-was-ketchup-invented/
Anyway, I have a deep affection for all things vinegar, so I decided to give it a whirl. I followed the recipe on Revolutionary Pie. http://revolutionarypie.com/2013/03/14/mushroom-ketchup/
Full disclosure: I wound up with only about half the amount of mushrooms and I completely neglected to buy a lemon. And horseradish. But it is otherwise the same. And it is delicious. After I squeezed out the cheesecloth, I licked my fingers. Umami and tart and salty. Winner!
