An Unlikely Food Product

When I say ketchup, you probably think of the red, slightly sweet condiment that accompanies some of our favorite dishes—french fries, hamburgers, even scrambled eggs. Made from tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and spices, we’ve been squeezing it on just about everything since we were old enough to nosh on solid food.

But what if I asked you to try a new and improved ketchup made from fermented bananas?

Gag reflex, anyone? Yeah, me too.

But I didn’t grow up in the Philippines.

If I had, I would have grown up with a bottle of banana ketchup on my kitchen table.

Banana ketchup is the brainchild of Maria Orosa— the scientist, activist, humanitarian, and war hero who loved her country and dedicated her life to uplifting the Philippines through food innovation. At the time, the Philippines was heavily reliant on imports like tomatoes, but Maria thought that products native to the island could be manipulated to make the country less dependant on foreign trade. She dreamed of a self-sustaining Philippines and made it her life’s work to educate and uplift people in need. (Source)

One day, she created a banana sauce with mashed bananas, vinegars, and spices. The brownish-yellow color was not very appetizing, so a little red dye was added, and voila—banana ketchup was born.

Maria Orosa is a Filipino food genius.

She made flour from cassava, green bananas, and coconuts; fermented wine using native fruits and nuts; turned pineapple juice into vinegar; and transformed seaweed into agar. Orosa is credited with over 700 recipes, many of which remain pillars of Filipino cuisine to this day. (Source)

And yet…Even in the Philippines Orosa is not a household name.

That’s because food marketers have leveraged Orosa’s incredible inventions for commercial use. And Maria Orosa herself believed knowledge was something to share, not sell.

“When you start an experiment, finish it and write the results for others to use.”

— Maria Orosa

The United States also gave the world some important scientists.

Consider our old friend, Benjamin Franklin. Like Orosa, he never patented a single invention—believing instead that knowledge should be shared freely. He gave the world the lightning rod, bifocals, swim fins, the urinary catheter, and my favorite—the free library.

But few people have ever heard of his culinary contributions. Benjamin Franklin was the first to use a pot to pop corn kernels, and he brought grits and johnny cakes to the public. Franklin even discovered a way to ferment corn mash into beer—a drink that wasn’t very popular at the time, but paved the way for whiskey and bourbon to flourish in time. (source)

Fast forward two hundred years, and we meet a President who kept this quote on his desk in the oval office:

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.”

Isn’t it true that we don’t always get the credit we deserve? Does that diminish the value of the contribution?

Absolutely not!

Maria Orosa died during the Battle of Manila on February 13, 1945. The shrapnel that destroyed her life also destroyed her work-in-progress manuscript.

And Benjamin Franklin is often jokingly referred to as “the only President that wasn’t actually President of the United States.”

Yet their legacies live on…

Which kind of got me thinking…

It’s unlikely that anyone will remember any of us for very long after we’ve gone, and I’ve never done anything close to saving an entire nation from starvation during a major world war, but if I choose to be helpful rather than famous, influential rather than rich, there is no limit to the good I can do.

And that goes for you, too.

As usual, I’ve got some questions for you to consider: