QUESTION: Which condiment was originally sold as a medicine?
ANSWER: Ketchup traces its roots to an Asian fish sauce called ge-thcup, which European traders brought home and transformed into a condiment. In 1812, James Meade created the first tomato-based ketchup, though tomatoes were widely mistrusted at the time. That changed in the 1830s when Dr. John Cook Bennett promoted ketchup as a cure for ailments, even selling it in pill form, sparking a booming industry for tomato ketchup and pills.
