CHAPTER VIII
A DISCUSSION OF PRESERVATIVE AND NON-PRESERVATIVE CATSUPS, AND THE MOST FREQUENT CAUSES OF INFERIORITY
Unfavorable Publicity on Preservatives
When the pure food movement first swept over this country the subject of preservatives got very wide publicity, and the sensational press fed the people up on the news that their food was being doctored with all sorts of chemicals. Tomato catsup came in for its share of this publicity, and the two preservatives most commonly used in catsup, namely, benzoate of soda and salicylic acid, were classed among the chemicals that were ruining our stomachs.
Although salicylic acid has been ruled out, benzoate of soda is still being used to some extent. The great bulk of the catsup now being manufactured, however, is made without preservative, because packers realize that a good percentage of the public became prejudiced against preservatives of all sorts during the pure food agitation, and a great many are still prejudiced against even so mild and harmless a preservative as benzoate of soda. There are those who still maintain that this preservative is or may be harmful when used to the extent of one-tenth of one per cent, which is the permissible amount according to the federal law; however, the Remsen board appointed by President Roosevelt to decide the benzoate question unanimously decided that when benzoate of soda is used in condiments to the extent of one-tenth of one per cent it is perfectly harmless. It was even found to be perfectly harmless in much larger proportions.
These facts, however, have never reached the masses, most of whom never heard of the Remsen board, and even if they had, a great many people would still remain prejudiced. Most packers think, therefore, that it is best to play safe and make their catsup without chemical preservative, relying solely upon sterilization to keep their product from spoiling up to the time the bottle is opened, and upon so called “natural” preservatives to keep it from fermenting after the cork is drawn.
“Natural” Preservatives
That these “natural” preservatives, when present in large quantity, as they sometimes are, may be more harmful to the stomach than a minute quantity of benzoate of soda, is surely a reasonable supposition. I have known of people getting sick directly after a meal by eating a good deal of catsup of high acidity on a steak and drinking milk along with it. At least the sickness was attributed to this combination, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable. A high acetic acid acidity will keep catsup as well or better than ⅒th of 1% of sodium benzoate will. There are catsups on the market made “without preservative” that would probably never ferment, even if exposed to the air for a year, because they contain so much acetic acid. The raw acetic acid is, of course, not permitted to be used, but a very strong distilled vinegar is used containing about 10% of acetic acid.
The “natural” preservatives of catsup are the vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices. The vinegar probably exerts 80% of the preserving property, the sugar about 10% and the salt and spices together 10%. The sugar would have much greater preserving properties if it was present in higher concentration as in preserves or jelly. It is doubtful if the preservative properties of sugar are very great when it is only present to the extent of about 10 or 15%, and the product is of a liquid nature like catsup.
Proper Acidity
The proper thing for a packer of non-preservative catsup to do is to strike a happy medium on acidity; use enough vinegar to keep it under almost any conditions, but not so much as to almost entirely mask the tomato flavor and require sugar in such large quantity as to make the final product resemble tomato preserves. A good total acidity is 1.25%, figured as acetic acid. This figure includes both the acetic acidity of the vinegar and the natural acidity of the tomato. If a catsup is properly manufactured, this acidity should answer practically all purposes. The catsup packer should not be expected to make catsup which will keep in perfect condition in restaurants where absolutely no care or intelligence is used in handling it. This class of restaurant proprietor is fortunately in a decided minority, but rather than make a catsup that will be so strongly acid that it will stand up under his treatment, he should be educated to use a little care in the handling of the catsup.
The following is a common abuse in restaurants. We will say, for example, that three catsup bottles are on the tables containing from a half inch to two inches of catsup. The waitress does not like to put a bottle which is almost empty before a customer, so she pours the contents of two of the three bottles into the other one. The catsup in these bottles may be a week old. When the contents of the bottle containing this mixture are almost gone she pours the rest of it into another partly filled bottle and so on, so that some of the bottles may contain catsup which is over a month old, and in a warm, poorly ventilated restaurant it is apt to start fermenting. The proprietor should be educated to the fact that when using a non-preservative catsup he must not pour it from one bottle to another, but must leave it in the original container until almost gone, and then use the balance for making tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and for flavoring soups, gravies, etc.
One advantage the packer using benzoate of soda has over the non-preservative packer is that he can make his catsup so that it will keep properly and at the same time maintain the natural tomato flavor to a high degree. The tomato flavor is maintained because it is not largely masked by the use of a lot of vinegar and sugar. The packer using benzoate rarely uses more than a third as much vinegar or half as much sugar as the non-preservative packer.
Many non-preservative catsup makers who read this will think a total acidity of 1.25% is higher than necessary. They will say to themselves that the acidity on their catsup never runs over 1%, and they have never had any complaints. It may be that they do not have a very big restaurant trade where so many of the fermentation complaints come from, or that they do not have a very wide distribution of their product so that it is subjected to all sorts of climatic conditions, or it may be that they are having a case of fermentation now and then in households but never hear about it. In that case the housewife usually merely drops that brand and buys another one next time. But where a restaurant or hotel is having fermentation trouble, the manufacturer is sure to hear about it quick.
It is wise to allow a fair margin of safety, and my experience is that a total acidity of 1.25% is not too high. Quite a few catsup packers maintain an acidity between 1.50% and 1.75%, and one large concern has for years kept the acidity of their catsup around 2%. This, however, seems unnecessarily high. Acidity will be discussed further in the next chapter.
Processing Catsups
Non-preservative catsups should either be processed after filling and sealing, or the bottles should be sterilized before filling and the catsup filled very hot without giving an after-sterilization. Catsups made with the addition of benzoate of soda are not processed; however, the fact that benzoate is used should not cause laxness at any stage in the manufacturing process. It is a mistake for manufacturers to think that ⅒th of 1% of benzoate of soda will keep their product in perfect condition regardless of how careless they are in their manufacturing processes.
Advantage of Benzoate Catsups
Some brands of benzoate catsup enjoy a very good sale, and are popular with those who do not like a strongly acid and sugary catsup, but prefer one which is mild and in which the predominating flavor is one of tomato blended with mild spicing. A restaurant using a catsup or chili sauce of this character will almost always use more of it than they will of a strongly acid catsup which is highly spiced. If the catsup is mild, more of it is usually used at a time.
Causes of Poor Color and Flavor
The chief objections to most of the catsups on the market are a lack of bright red color, and a more or less scorched taste. This may be due to a number of causes. The brownish color may be due to underripe tomatoes, or to tomatoes which were picked during a spell of cold, dark weather. It takes sunshine to give tomatoes a brilliant color, and when there is an absence of sunshine for a week or ten days many of the tomatoes will rot before they attain a bright red color. At such times during the season it is impossible to get a brilliant color, but if the packer will exercise as much control as he is able to over the picking, persuading the farmers to hold their tomatoes back just as long as possible, he will not have a great deal of such goods and he can get a fair color out of what he does get, out of these dull colored tomatoes. He should be careful not to mix brownish tinted catsup with the brilliant red goods. If he will keep similar shades of catsup in the same shipment he is not nearly as apt to have complaints as he will have if he mixes different colors. It is even more important that all the bottles in one case should be very nearly alike. A grocer who receives a case of catsup all of which is very slightly off in color will usually not complain unless it is decidedly off. If, however, off colored bottles are mixed in the same case with bottles of a brilliant red color, the poor colored goods suffer greatly by comparison, and then there is apt to be a complaint.
The other causes of poor colored catsup are scorching at some stage in the manufacturing process and too much cooking. By too much cooking is not only meant too long a cook at one time, but also too much cooking in the aggregate. For example, a packer receives tomatoes of good color and he cooks them into pulp, which requires a cook of thirty minutes. He packs the pulp in No. 10 cans and sterilizes it about forty minutes, and he has a good colored pulp, as it has only received two short cookings. He stores this pulp for several months, and then makes it into catsup. It is reheated, which is hard on the color, as heat applied to cold pulp for five minutes to bring it to a boil seems to hurt the color as much as a half hour added on to the cook after the pulp is hot. After reheating, it is cooked into catsup, which requires about thirty minutes, and after being bottled it is sterilized at a high temperature for about an hour, which makes the fourth cooking those tomatoes get. This is what is meant by too much cooking in the aggregate. Too long a cook at one time will, of course, also darken the product.
Scorching is more frequent with catsup made from pulp than with that made from fresh tomatoes. Much of the catsup made from pulp, although not actually scorched, has a very faint scorched flavor to it.
It is hard indeed to make catsup from pulp which tastes like the goods which is bottled from freshly run tomatoes. It falls behind in both color and flavor. One finds that color and flavor are very closely associated in catsup. A bright red catsup is practically always a fine flavored product, while a dull colored catsup with a brownish cast to it very frequently has a more or less unpleasant taste with the suggestion of being somewhat scorched.
Advantage of Direct Conversion of Tomatoes Into Catsup
Many catsup makers are doing away with winter packing almost altogether. They bottle at least 90% of their catsup direct from fresh tomatoes. Half of the remaining 10% is made from 50% fresh tomatoes and 50% pulp, the pulp being added about ten minutes before the cooking is completed. This fresh tomato and pulp mixture makes a much better flavored product than one can expect to get from straight pulp. Pulp can always be used in combination with fresh tomatoes at the beginning and at the close of the season when the tomato receipts are light.
Catsup made direct from tomatoes is not only of superior quality, but it can be manufactured at least 20c a dozen cheaper for the pint size than catsup made from canned pulp. In many cases the difference will run more than that. Packers who put up a general line of tomato products will do well to reserve their fresh tomatoes for catsup, and to use their pulp for bean sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, etc., all of which can be made better from pulp than one can make catsup from pulp.
Thickness
The thickness of catsups found on the market is fairly uniform, and there is rarely a cause for complaint on this score. When catsup is packed in cans, the thicker it is the better the buyer likes it as a rule; however with bottled goods excessive thickness is not a virtue but a cause of much annoyance to the consumer. It is better to have it just a shade too thin than too thick.
Spicing and Sweetness
Improper spicing of catsups is not a common fault either. Even where essential oils are used exclusively for spicing, a real good flavor can be had if the oils are properly administered. As to sweetness, many catsup makers are coming to the conclusion that the public is demanding a slightly sweeter catsup than was generally packed eight or ten years ago. There is very little doubt but what a composite sample from a half dozen prominent brands of today, if compared with a composite sample taken from the same brands ten years ago, would show quite an increase in sweetness. One of the largest selling brands on the market has a distinct sweetish taste, and the public, at least a large percentage of it, seems to like it. There are still many who like a tart or slightly sour taste, but the tendency is unquestionably in the other direction.
“Black Neck”
A rather common defect in bottled catsup is what is commonly called “black neck,” which is a darkened space in the neck of the bottle, all the way from a half inch to over two inches in depth. Several years ago I made a very thorough investigation of the causes of black necked catsup, and every thing seems to point to the fact that in nine cases out of ten it comes from leakage of air into the closure of the bottle. The space between the surface of the catsup and the top of the bottle should be a vacuum if the seal is perfect, as this space is left by the contraction of the catsup in the bottle when it cools. Many closures, no matter what style, do not seem to be entirely impervious to air, and the catsup gradually darkens as the air is gradually admitted. A suggestion for overcoming “black neck” will be given later under the head of “stacking catsup.”
General Attractiveness
The general attractiveness of the package is, of course, important. A cheap, unvarnished label which quickly becomes dirty looking, and a cheap tin cap which gets black and filthy looking on the inside after the catsup has been open a few days, do not enhance the sale of a product, and only make a very slight reduction in the manufacturing cost. The packer should by all means use either a re-tinned cap or an inside enameled cap. Ordinary plain tin caps should be absolutely barred, as they are entirely unfit for a bottled condiment which contains as much acid as catsup.
Although the remarks in this chapter have been confined to catsup, it should be understood that they apply equally to chili sauce, which only differs from catsup in that it is made from peeled instead of strained tomatoes, and is usually a little bit more spicy.