To make Catchup to keep twenty Years

A scan of the title page of my late copy
of The Art of Cookery by Hannah Glasse

In the comments about my previous post, Secret Ingredient: Anchovies, there was interest in Hannah Glasse's recipe for "Catchup to keep twenty Years". I used to be the proud owner of a 1778 copy of Glasse's book The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, but difficult times forced me to sell it earlier this year. Not to worry, as another edition of it is available for free, courtesy of Google.

The Art of Cookery, written by Glasse in 1747, was a huge success and became the standard reference cookbook in England and in the American colonies in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Because the book was published in earlier editions as simply "By a Lady", Hannah Glasse was assumed for many years to be a pseudonym. Her biography was not researched and her authorship of the book was not confirmed until the early 20th century.

The introduction to The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy is memorable; along with establishing the conversational tone of the rest of the book, Glasse also asserts her status as A Lady with amusing and thoroughly British snobbishness:

If I have not wrote in the high, polite style, I hope I shall be forgiven ; for my intention is to instruct the lower sort, and therefore must treat them in their own way … So in many other things in Cookery, the great cooks have such a high way of expressing themselves that the poor girls are a loss to know what they mean…

The recipes in The Art of Cookery are, for the most part, very brief and general. Just like Escoffier's recipes in Le guide culinaire, they assume a basic knowledge and also leave a lot of room for improvisation.

I've actually cooked quite a few recipes from the book. One that always intrigued me is in a chapter that is headed "For CAPTAINS of SHIPS". The recipe is called "To make Catchup to keep twenty Years". Aside from the novel idea of a twenty-year-old bottle of sauce, it also piqued my interest as an early example of a European adaptation of Asian fish-sauce. According to Wikipedia, the words "Catchup" and "Ketchup" have their origin in China:

In the 1690s the Chinese mixed a concoction of pickled fish and spices and called it (in the Amoy dialect) kôe-chiap or kê-chiap (鮭汁, Mandarin guī zhī, Cantonese gwai zap) meaning the brine of pickled fish (鮭, salmon; 汁, juice) or shellfish.

So, several years ago, I decided to make Glasse's Catchup. The original recipe (with modernized typography, excluding the long "s" (ſ) used prior to the 19th century) reads:

For CAPTAINS of SHIPS. 

To make Catchup to keep twenty Years. 

TAKE a gallon of strong stale beer, one pound of anchovies washed from the pickle, a pound of shalots, peeled, half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of cloves, a quarter of an ounce of whole pepper, three or four large races of ginger, two quarts of the large mushroom-flaps rubbed to pieces. Cover all this close, and let it simmer till it is half wasted, then strain it through a flannel-bag ; let it stand till it is quite cold, then bottle it. You may carry it to the Indies. A spoonful of this to a pound of fresh butter melted, makes a fine fish-sauce ; or in the room of gravy-sauce. The stronger and staler the beer is, the better the catchup will be.

Following is my version of the receipt. The yield is somewhat less than 2 quarts, but you may of course halve the recipe. A kitchen scale is essential for this recipe, and essential to a well-outfitted kitchen. If you don't have one, get one!

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon (128 fluid ounces) heavily hopped, high-alcohol beer
• 1 pound drained & rinsed anchovies
• 1 pound shallots, peeled
• 1/2 ounce (by weight) whole mace
• 1/2 ounce (by weight) whole cloves
• 1/4 ounce (by weight) black peppercorns
• 3 or 4 large pieces of whole ginger root, peeled
• 2 quarts very roughly chopped portobello mushroom caps

Equipment:

• a large stockpot (at least 8 quarts) made of stainless steel, lined copper or other non-reactive metals (don't use unlined aluminum)
• a large metal, plastic or glass container to receive the strained sauce
• a large colander, sieve or chinois
• a large clean cotton kitchen towel, for rubbing the mushrooms
• a piece of very close-weave washed cotton flannel, a washed "flour sack" type cotton kitchen towel, or 5 thicknesses of close-weave washed cheesecloth, large enough to line your sieve/colander/chinois
• several sterilized glass bottles or jars, with lids

Glasse specifies beer as the liquid base of this sauce. 18th century British beer was classified according to how and when it was made. Beer with a very low alcohol content (around 2.8% ABV) was called "small beer" and was made to be consumed right away, often with breakfast. Stronger beer with a higher alcohol content (from 8-13.86% ABV) was called "keeping beer", and was intended to be stored for as long as a year. The strongest beer was called "October" beer, which was brewed in October, the beginning of the optimal brewing season.

For this recipe you need a strongly-hopped beer, with as high an alcohol content as you can find. Make sure you get beer and not ale. The difference, to an 18th century English writer, was that beer was heavily hopped and stronger, and ale was only lightly hopped and was generally weaker than "keeping beer". Choose a beer with an alcohol content of at least 7%, up to 15%. When I made this sauce, I used Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA, but if you can find a good beer with a higher alcohol content, then use it. You'll need a gallon if you make the full recipe, which is slightly less than 11 12-ounce bottles.

Once you have your beer, pour all of it into your large stockpot and set it, uncovered, in the fridge for at least 24 hours, giving it a stir every once in a while. This simulates the "stale" (oxidized and flat) beer called for by Glasse.

If you are using salted anchovies, which I think are best for this recipe, rinse them under cold water, then soak them in a sink full of cold water for about 10 minutes. Rinse them again, and drain. You needn't debone them. If you are using canned or bottled anchovies, drain them in a colander and rinse them well with warm water. You should weigh the pound of anchovies for the recipe after the draining, soaking and rinsing.

Take the pieces of portobello mushroom caps and place them in a clean kitchen towel. Fold the towel around them, enclosing them inside and, grasping this bundle between your hands, rub the mushroom to pieces using the towel to create friction. You may need to do this in several smaller batches, until you have two quarts of mushroom debris.

Put all of the ingredients into the stockpot with the "stale" beer and set it over high heat. Make a note of the level of the ingredients inside the pot, as this will allow you to determine when half of the liquid has boiled away.When the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to low, so that the mixture is simmering. Cover the pot tightly and let it simmer until it has reduced by half. This will take a long time, somewhere between 4-6 hours. This will also create quite a strong smell (to put it mildly), so be sure to open the kitchen windows, or better yet, cook it on an outdoor stove.

When the sauce is reduced to half its starting volume, take it off the heat. Put the colander, sieve or chinois atop a container large enough to hold all of the strained sauce. Line the colander, sieve or chinois with your clean cotton flannel, "flour sack" towel, or layers of cheesecloth, then carefully strain the sauce. It may take a while for the liquid to run through the cloth. Again, do it in batches if needed.

Once the liquid has all run through your sieving set-up and is free of any solids, cover it loosely and allow it to cool. When it's at room temperature, refrigerate it until you're ready to bottle it.

Funnel the sauce into sterilized bottles or jars, cap tightly and refrigerate.

Just to be safe, the sauce must always be kept refrigerated. I have not confirmed Glasse's claim that this sauce keeps for twenty years, nor her claim that you may carry it to the Indies, what with all the customs and TSA restrictions that have been enacted since Glasse wrote this recipe in the mid 1700s. But I will confirm that it is a delicious and strong sauce, heavy on the glutamates, umami-receptor titillating and, as Hannah Glasse suggests, fine when mixed with soft butter and served on fish.