My Mom used to make homemade ketchup when I was a kid. It was horrid.
I see your Mom must have used the same tomato canning/cooking book that my Mom did. Stewed tomatoes - were awful.
I thought about putting in her casket as she loved that book - and so no one could ever ever cook from it. My sister took and kept.
I miss my Mom - she died a few years ago. I don’t miss those tomatoey weapons of mass destruction.
There are a ton of different ketchup recipes and not all are tomato based. In fact originally it was a fermented fish sauce. Over the years its gotten sweeter and has been standardized by the FDA. I’ve got some old cookbooks and have made some versions from 1920s and earlier. Some were pretty good acme awful but none were like current katchup. I haven’t made them again.
That adjective applies to every other brand that is not Heinz. But I hate that horseface Kerry is married to one of the heirs.