Los Angeles-based food entrepreneur Emily Williams is hoping that the next best thing since sliced bread is... sliced ketchup. With her business partner Thac Lecong, she's currently crowdsourcing funds to bring her Bo's Original Slice of Sauce ketchup singles to market.

The creator of Slice of Sauce™ was experimenting with family recipes given to her by her father, a restaurateur in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She ended up developing a no-mess, portable condiment that adds a layer to flavor to anything from burgers and sandwiches to wraps and burritos. Slice of Sauce™ is shelf-stable and needs no refrigeration, making it perfect for outdoor occasions like picnics, barbeques or tailgating, and activities like hiking and camping – or even grabbing a bite on the go.

As you can see below, her mess-free ketchup slices resemble dried fruit leather but are shaped like Kraft Singles. Pledging $15 ($10 + $5 shipping) gets you a package of eight of these slices. As of this writing, the campaign is nearly funded.

Read the rest

This Ketchup and Mustard Cake by Shared Food seems like a really bad idea unless condiments are your life, like if you're a Wienermobile Hotdogger or something. The recipe is here and, yes, it uses actual ketchup and mustard.

(Foodiggity) Read the rest

John Brownlee recalls how a 17th-century fish sauce evolved into a patent medicine, a health hazard, and finally a $3bn industry. It's all about the bottle:

How bad were the ketchups of the time? In a study of commercial ketchups conducted in 1896, 90% of all ketchups on the market were found to contain "injurious ingredients" that could lead to death. ... If there was one principle that Henry J. Heinz valued more than any other, it was purity and transparency. "It is always safe to buy the products of an establishment that keeps its doors open," Heinz once famously wrote. That every bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup sold is see-through is no accident. It’s a design statement: purity through transparency.