When is tomato ketchup not tomato ketchup? Or should the question be: where is tomato ketchup not tomato ketchup?
The answer to the second question is: in Israel, where the health ministry has ruled that Heinz Tomato Ketchup must now be referred to as “Tomato Seasoning”.
This comes as a result of a complaint by Osem, manufacturers of a rival product. Apparently the Heinz product, which is known and used worldwide, has only 21 per cent tomato concentrate, while Israel’s law requires ketchup to have 41 per cent. Exactly what’s in the other 59 to 79 per cent, I do not know (or care to ask).
This storm in a sauce bottle is not unique. In Queensland, Australia, where I grew up, peanut butter was long known as peanut paste because the dairy lobby convinced the government of the time that the use of the word “butter” was misleading since the product did not contain butter. (This notwithstanding, peanut butter with butter is a taste sensation.)
For some reason Oil of Olay used to known in Australia as Oil of Ulan; and chocolate lovers in Britain long resisted the renaming of the Marathon bar to Snickers, even though it was an identical product.
The Brits also objected to having to refer to the cleaning product they knew as Jif (which made sense in English) as Cif (which didn’t), because that was the name used across Europe.
Does a name make a difference? I’d like to think it does — especially when it evokes a memory or other sensory experience.
But maybe I’m just old fashioned in that way.
