MovieChat Forums > Meet Me in St. Louis Discussion > Ketchup soup??

Ketchup soup??

posted 8 years ago by djrosenblatt
3 replies | jump to latest

Much of the first few minutes of the movie is spent with Rose & Katie in the kitchen preparing homemade ketchup, with every visitor sampling it and rendering his/her opinion. Later, at dinner, we see Katie serving a reddish soup to everyone. Is that the ketchup? Was ketchup actually treated as a soup back then? (And, if so, did it actually have the same formula back then as what we call ketchup today, or was it something we would find more palatable as a soup?)

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[–] mca1218 8 years ago

It's not mentioned whether or not the soup being served is actually the ketchup, but the two items could've been made at the same time.

[–] djrosenblatt 8 years ago

Of course. That's why I'm hoping there may be a culinary historian out there who knows whether 1900-era "ketchup" is the same as what we know as ketchup today, both in terms of what it consisted of and how it was consumed. Wikipedia does indicate that the concept of ketchup has evolved over the years, but gives no indication that it was ever served as a standalone dish.

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Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers! But if you could show us something in a nice possum…

[–] muchmeow 8 years ago

You must have missed the scene where Katie is pouring the ketchup into ketchup bottles. It's when Agnes asked Katie where her cat is.