Max Hauser wrote:
> Question arose about ambiguous North American spelling of an old condiment.
>
> In fact it's a phonetic word, evidently imported into English and without
> traditional consistent spelling (data below), a situation not uncommon.
> (Another example that arose on newsgroups is "recipe" and "receipt,"
> pronounced differently today in NA English although "receipt" appears
> interchangeably with "recipe" in older cookbooks. A scholar of 18th-century
> English advises that they were the same word originally, just different
> spellings.) Lacking consistent spelling, people can spell ketchup as they
> please, and they do.

Some where i have a walnut catsup recipe, in a section of a book with
several variations, here's the entry from my dictionary

catsup |ˈke ch əp; ˈka ch əp; ˈkatsəp| noun variant spelling of ketchup
.. ketchup |ˈke ch əp| (also catsup pronounce. same or |ˈka ch əp;
ˈkatsəp|) noun a spicy sauce made chiefly from tomatoes and vinegar,
used as a condiment. ORIGIN late 17th cent.: perhaps from Chinese (
Cantonese dialect) k'ē chap "tomato juice.
--
JL



>
> As shown below, popular US cookbooks for 200 years normally spelled it
> catsup. I seem to remember such spelling as common on tomato-catsup bottles
> through about the 1960s, ketchup gradually displacing it (more phonetic, or
> a British Invasion? Compare Mrs Beeton below). At the same time, catsups as
> a wide class of savory condiments, from various vegetables, fruits, or
> seafoods, and normally unsweetened, became eclipsed by commercial tomato
> catsup, which also got sweeter. The Hesses in _The Taste of America_
> (1977), who by the way spell it ketchup, note that it was widely homemade,
> in various flavors, until recent times. They cite OED for the Amoy Chinese
> word kétsiap, and say the Malay word kechap may also come from that source.
> The Hesses wryly add that a modern US firm developed a bottled ketchup with
> natural tomato flavor but it didn't sell, until the product was "slightly
> scorched and a metallic component added to give it the taste of 'real'
> ketchup." (A comment fairly representative of their book.)
>
> What I found in popular, mostly US, published cookbooks:
>
>
> Mary Randolph,* 1824 (edition of 1860): "Catsup"
>
> Eliza Leslie, 1837 (edition 1851): "Catchup" (including "Tomata"
> tchup.) -- A chapter with eight recipes. Three include wine, one beer.
>
> Mrs Beeton (British, edition 1861): "Ketchup"
>
> Fannie Farmer, 1927: "Catsup"
>
> Morrison Wood (_With A Jug of Wine_), 1949: "Catsup"
>
> Joy of Cooking, 1964: "Catsup"
>
> Fannie Farmer, 1965: "Catsup" (five recipes)
>
>
> Respectfully submitted -- Max
>