Experiments on the Spoilage of Tomato Ketchup — John Shaqi
Experiments on the Spoilage of Tomato KetchupBitting, A. W. (Arvill Wayne)
Science
Experiments on the Spoilage of Tomato Ketchup
Bitting, A. W. (Arvill Wayne)
Ketchup
The factory at which the experiments were conducted has sanitary
buildings and surroundings, the floors are of concrete for flushing,
and the pipes used in conducting the pulp to the kitchens are
porcelain-lined to prevent discoloration from the iron and to insure
cleanliness. The tubes which carry the ketchup from the kettles to the
receiving tank, finishing machine, and bottler are silver-plated. Not
all of these measures are necessary to make a good ketchup, but they
show the care exercised in making an article of good appearance and of
the finest quality.
The conditions under which ketchup is made and the care with which the
work is done at some of the better factories is equal to that used in
the manufacture of any food product. Whole selected fruit is used,
cleanliness is maintained at every point, the best grades of spices,
vinegar, granulated sugar, and salt are added for flavoring, and the
bottles are carefully washed. The ketchup put up under such conditions
will have a bright natural color, will remain good as long as the
container is unbroken, and will continue in that condition for some
time after opening if kept at a fairly cool temperature.
INFERIOR PRODUCTS FROM “TRIMMING STOCK.”
In contrast with the strictly high-grade product is the great bulk
of the ketchup found on the market. The material is not whole ripe
tomatoes, but consists of the waste of the canning factory, commonly
designated as “trimming stock,” including the green, moldy, broken,
rotten, and generally unusable tomatoes, the skins, cores, and stems
from the peeling tables, and the surplus juice from the filling
machines, all of which may be allowed to stand during the day and be
run through the cyclone in the evening. At the end of the season, the
frosted and half-ripe fruits may be used. Part of this material can
not be considered “sound fruit” as contemplated by the food and drugs
act. The pulp is put up in barrels, preserved, and allowed to stand,
possibly in the sun, until a sufficient quantity has accumulated for
shipment. Old ketchup barrels may be used and be none too clean. As a
result, it is not uncommon to see an inch or more of pulp in the bottom
of a car at the end of shipment, caused by the blowing out of the
barrel heads from fermentation. The sanitary condition of the factory
may be poor, the handling of the goods be unclean, the spices be the
refuse from the spice houses, the sugar be of the cheapest grade, and
the bottles be only rinsed or be used without even that precaution.
The ketchup is a concoction so heavily spiced with hot spices that the
tomato flavor is lost and might as well be anything else. The color is
normally dirty brown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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