If such a thing is possible, Sir Kensington’s is also the first ironic ketchup.

“There’s something absurd in the whole notion of gourmet ketchup,” Mr. Norton said. “ ‘All-natural,’ ‘farm-fresh,’ ‘local’ — all that stuff is great, but it doesn’t speak to us about ketchup.” Instead of selling the virtues of the product, they sell a persona: an elusive top-hatted roué who Tweets his location in cool locales and slips fetching little jars of ketchup to those in the know.

Sir Kensington’s, like other upscale versions such as Katchkie Ketchup and Stonewall Kitchens’ Country Ketchup, is less sweet and less salty than Heinz. “The point of ketchup is the balance,” Mr. Norton said. “You want to taste the earthiness of tomatoes first, rather than the sweet sting of corn syrup.”

Even within the tomato ketchup category, American once had dozens of regional brands. Mike Gassman, a lifelong ketchup fan, lives in Collinsville, Ill., once home to a cannery that produced a chile-infused local ketchup called Brooks Brothers that was popular in the Midwest. “The old folks still say they miss the smell of the tomatoes and the spices coming through town,” Mr. Gassman said. (Brooks Rich & Tangy Ketchup is now made in Canada.)

“Ketchup” has gradually taken over from “catsup,” a British spelling.

Ketchup was used on the British table long before tomatoes arrived there. It was described in print as early as 1690, having made its way to Europe either from China (the Cantonese ke-tsiap means, roughly, “eggplant juice”) or from Malaysia (where the Malay word kecap referred to fermented fish sauce). Salty Indonesian soy sauce, tart tamarind chutneys and vinegary English sauces made with unripe walnuts have all been called by the name.

American ketchup was first made with whatever the settlers managed to harvest, flavored with the precious spices they brought with them: nutmegs, ginger, pepper. Ketchups were much thinner and spicier back then, and Mr. Hernández has hewed closely to the original recipes for the America Eats ketchups. “I think that we are currently using more mace than any restaurant in the world,” he said.

Ketchup became an institution because it was one of the first American packaged foods, according to Alice Kamps, curator of the National Archives exhibition. “Early in the industrial food era, ketchup tended to be made from the scraps on the floor of the cannery, with red dye and flavorings” she said. “It was also prone to explode.”

In 1906, faced with increasing fatalities and public outrage, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, leading to the Food and Drug Administration. The Act particularly benefited a cannery in Pittsburgh owned by Henry John Heinz, which was the first to sterilize and bottle ketchup without the toxic preservatives then available.