As many of you know, Toes were not invented until the late 19th century by Henry Ford. What is less known is how these toes helped bring about the creation of ketchup by introducing us to the Toematoh.

After Ford invented the toes as radical quick gear shifters, they soon caught on across the world. People, it seemed, could not get enough of toes. They put their feet, they put them on their friends feet, heck they even put them on their enemies feet. Toes became commonplace and, by 1911, every single person in the world had at least eight or nine of the little buggers.

The problem was although toes had caught on in feet, they had yet to catch on in the shoe industry. Cornson Myfeet, shoe behemoth of early 20th century, stubbornly refused to acknowledge the toe phenomenon, insisting that shoes still be made according to 19th century standards. Some tried to stop him, most notably train tycoon Iben Workinon Darailroad, however the law dictated that you could only pursue an industry if your name was related to that industry, a law which explains the Myfeet shoe dynasty.

an early 20th century Myfeet shoe

This created quite the conundrum: either have cold feet and go shoeless, or wear shoes and have your toes hurt something awful. Perhaps people would have gone on like this forever, had war not broken out in 1914, precisely on this issue. England wanted to change the Universal Business Laws to prevent monopolies such as the Myfeet shoe stranglehold on shoes without toes. Germany argued that the UBL were a sacred institution, and to prove it they would invade France while going threw Belgium, as dictated by the UBL. England went to war as well, and soon the whole world was embroiled in a fight over the UBL (sidenote: if you want to talk global conspiracy, World War One was started over a shoe industry squabble… talk about New World Order and Illuminati).

The problem was, soldiers needed shoes, but the shoes hurt, so instead of marching forwards, soldiers on both sides painfully paced back and forth until they had dug themselves parallel trenches, in which they continued to pace back and forth for years. The Great Pace War may still be going on today, had British scientists not invented a new sort of shoe.

In one of the great Bio-Engineering feets in human history, British scientists actually grew an extension unto existing shoes. These red, Gooey objects extended allied shoes enough for them to comfortably slide their toes in, letting them march forwards for the first time in years. It took these scientists 15 different tries to engineer these extensions, so they labelled them Toe Mat-O, since O is the fifteenth letter of the alphabet. Although it is unclear exactly as to how, German soldiers were actually the first to discover that the Toe Mat-Os were edible.

After the war, with the Myfeet monopoly successfully shattered, industry was allowed to start producing shoes which fit the newly toed feet. This left tons of Toe Mat-Os lying around in fields, where they germinated and began to grow. Since Toe Mat-Os were first introduced in Italy, the majority of early Toe Mat-O plants were grown there. This may explain the Italian proficiency at incorporating Toe Mat-O sauce into their foods.

In the 1920s, companies were afraid that consumers would refuse to eat anything called a “Toe Mat”, so they changed the name to “tomato”.

In short, thank World War One and England, because without those things there would not be ketchup… or pizza… or shoes that fit.