You are making us feel bad.

Of course we get comments now and then from people who object to what we apparently mistake as our own sense of humor. But we don't want you or anyone else walking on egg shells for fear of upsetting us and bringing down the wrath of Ochef on your heads. We really don't want anyone to feel shy about asking us his or her deepest and darkest cooking questions. And we're really quite nice, most of the time.

We certainly don't mind you asking what catsup is. It is simply an alternative spelling of ketchup. The word you have comes closer to the Chinese kêitsap (a fermented fish sauce) than the slightly more recent Malaysian kechap or kecap (a soy sauce). These sauces and their names were brought to the Western world by Dutch traders in the 1600s.

Between the Dutch discoveries and the present, there have been ketchups based on all kinds of foods - mushrooms, oysters, mussels, walnuts, elderberries, etc. Nowadays, of course, ketchup, catsup, and even catchup are used interchangeably in this part of the world to refer to a somewhat vinegary, sometimes sweet, tomato sauce that is both a condiment and an ingredient in many recipes.