Old-time catsup/ketchup recipes

Catsup (ketchup, if you prefer) has been on my mind since supper two nights ago. I'm starting a personal jihad against high-fructose corn syrup, which is what catsup is nowadays, so I wondered what catsup used to be and how I'd make it from scratch.

Well, it started out as a tangy tasty dipping sauce, and there are all kinds of catsup, including tomato catsup, green tomato catsup, walnut catsup, oyster catsup, mushroom catsup, gooseberry catsup, cucumber catsup, currant catsup, apple catsup, and a couple of tarted-up vinegars filed under catsup: celery vinegar and spiced vinegar. All those are from this 1887 book which serendipitously appeared at Project Gutenberg this morning: the The White House Cook Book: Cooking, Toilet and Household Recipes, Menus, Dinner-giving, Table Etiquette, Care of the Sick, Health Suggestions, Facts Worth Knowing, Etc., Etc., The Whole Comprising a Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home, by Mrs. F.L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann, Steward of the White House.

Neither a novice, a statistician, nor a Yankee

The mint julep ceremony of Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. Though I'm of Kentucky Catholic blood, I was born a Yankee. We'll see what happens.

A mint julep is not the product of a FORMULA. It is a CEREMONY and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician, nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the old South, an emblem of hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flower-strewn paths of happy and congenial thought.

Three mint julep recipes and a story

Gibbons Burke has a valuable compilation of mint julep recipes, one embedded in a story by William Alexander Percy, uncle of Walker Percy.