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Plum Catsup

A preserved plum condiment made with sugar, cinnamon, mace, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Plum Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Scald and strain the plums through a sieve.

Make the ketchup

  1. Add sugar, cinnamon, and mace to the plum puree.

  2. For each quart of the mixture, add ½ pint of cider vinegar.

  3. Boil the mixture well.

Bottle

  1. Cork the mixture airtight in bottles.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Plum + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Plum + cidertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the bulk of the puree, supplying the fruit flavor and body of the ketchup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled down, helps thicken the ketchup and preserve it.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spiciness to the ketchup.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture well. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugar and fruit solids, so the ketchup thickens and keeps well in sealed bottles. Under-boiling leaves it thin and more prone to spoiling.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (plum, sugar, cinnamon, cider, vinegar):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against plum, sugar, cinnamon, cider, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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