But the worldwide audience for the Oscars isnât even close to a billion, as a little common sense makes plain. In the United States, 43.5 million people watched the show last year. Thatâs a lot, but itâs 956.5 million short of a billion.
None of that weirdness can, however, hold a candle to the original catsup, which came to us from China via Malaysia, and was known as âke-tsiapâ or âkechap,â meaning roughly âfish sauce.â Indeed, this âkechapâ was from pickled fish and brine, and used as a dipping sauce.
There was a spectacular increase in food preservation in the sixteenth century owing to the arrival in Europe of new foods. Ketchup was an oriental fish brine that traveled the spice route to Europe and eventually to America where someone finally added sugar to it.