full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Dan Kwartler: One of the world’s oldest condiments
Unscramble the Blue Letters
In the mid-18th century, enlgnad was crazy for ketchup. The scuae was a staple, and countless cookbooks encouraged adding khtceup to stews, vegetables, and even desserts. If these seem like odd pacels for ketchup’s tagny tomato flavor, that’s because this ketchup wasn’t the ubiquitous red goop you’re thinking of. In fact, this sewet and savory borwn sauce didn't even have tomatoes in it. So where did this early ketchup come from? And how did it become the dip we know and love today? To answer these questions, we’ll need to turn to ketchup’s condiment cousin: fish sauce.
As early as 300 BCE, chsenie fishermen routinely caught batches of small fish that were too plentiful to eat all at once, but too time consuming to iulniivldday preserve. So often, the day’s catch would be salted and sroted together. Over several months, the fish would ferment as their internal enzymes broke down their bodies’ proteins. The result was a rich, salty liquid which would be strained and stored as fish sauce.
Open Cloze
In the mid-18th century, _______ was crazy for ketchup. The _____ was a staple, and countless cookbooks encouraged adding _______ to stews, vegetables, and even desserts. If these seem like odd ______ for ketchup’s _____ tomato flavor, that’s because this ketchup wasn’t the ubiquitous red goop you’re thinking of. In fact, this _____ and savory _____ sauce didn't even have tomatoes in it. So where did this early ketchup come from? And how did it become the dip we know and love today? To answer these questions, we’ll need to turn to ketchup’s condiment cousin: fish sauce.
As early as 300 BCE, _______ fishermen routinely caught batches of small fish that were too plentiful to eat all at once, but too time consuming to ____________ preserve. So often, the day’s catch would be salted and ______ together. Over several months, the fish would ferment as their internal enzymes broke down their bodies’ proteins. The result was a rich, salty liquid which would be strained and stored as fish sauce.
Solution
- sauce
- england
- sweet
- places
- tangy
- stored
- ketchup
- individually
- chinese
- brown
Original Text
In the mid-18th century, England was crazy for ketchup. The sauce was a staple, and countless cookbooks encouraged adding ketchup to stews, vegetables, and even desserts. If these seem like odd places for ketchup’s tangy tomato flavor, that’s because this ketchup wasn’t the ubiquitous red goop you’re thinking of. In fact, this sweet and savory brown sauce didn't even have tomatoes in it. So where did this early ketchup come from? And how did it become the dip we know and love today? To answer these questions, we’ll need to turn to ketchup’s condiment cousin: fish sauce.
As early as 300 BCE, Chinese fishermen routinely caught batches of small fish that were too plentiful to eat all at once, but too time consuming to individually preserve. So often, the day’s catch would be salted and stored together. Over several months, the fish would ferment as their internal enzymes broke down their bodies’ proteins. The result was a rich, salty liquid which would be strained and stored as fish sauce.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| fish sauce |
5 |
| brown sauce |
2 |
| chinese fishermen |
2 |
| umami flavor |
2 |
Important Words
- adding
- answer
- batches
- bce
- broke
- brown
- catch
- caught
- century
- chinese
- condiment
- consuming
- cookbooks
- countless
- crazy
- desserts
- dip
- early
- eat
- encouraged
- england
- enzymes
- fact
- ferment
- fish
- fishermen
- flavor
- goop
- individually
- internal
- ketchup
- liquid
- love
- months
- odd
- places
- plentiful
- preserve
- proteins
- questions
- red
- result
- rich
- routinely
- salted
- salty
- sauce
- savory
- small
- staple
- stews
- stored
- strained
- sweet
- tangy
- thinking
- time
- today
- tomato
- tomatoes
- turn
- ubiquitous
- vegetables