To All I also grew up in Bridgeton and joined the military but not until 1962. We lived on Fayette St from 1958 until 1962 and I must agree with most on the message below except that one of the Pritchard plants was in operation every summer from 58 - 62. We could smell that wonderful smell 24 days a day during ketchup season. Have not been back to the area in over 5 years but I was surprised at the change in the city, not all good. Russ McClelland El Paso, TX -----Original Message----- From: Wil Husted [SMTP:wmhusted@wtp.net] Sent: Thursday, January 07, 1999 3:53 PM To: NJCUMBER-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [NJCUMBER-L] Catsup/ketchup Hello All, >From the subjects of today's messages, I gather that most of you are younger folks. Well, I'm 70 and want to pass on a few memories of south Jersey. I was born and raised in Bridgeton and lived there until September 1947 when I joined the Air Force. At that time, there were three catsup/ketchup factories in Bridgeton. Two were Pritchard's and one was Ritter's. I liked both brands. One Pritchard's plant was at the intersection of Irving Avenue and either Bank or Pearl Street. The other two plants were down along the Cohansey River below the Broad Street bridge. Many farmers in the surrounding area, including two of my uncles, grew tomatoes for the ketchup industry. I think that most of the tomatoes were the Rutgers variety, a very tasty tomato. The tomatoes would be hand-picked when they were ripe, put into wooden baskets (called five eighths baskets - 5/8 bushel I believe), loaded onto flatbed trucks and hauled into one of the plants. At the height of the ketchup season trucks would be lined up along streets around the plants waiting their turn to unload. A truck would enter the plant gate and pull up beside a culling or sampling station. Several baskets of tomatoes would be taken from a truck at random and emptied into separate bins where they would be inspected and "culled". I believe that the price the farmer was paid for his load was based on this culling - how many bad/unacceptable tomatoes were in the sampling. Then the truck would pull ahead and park beside a metal flume. The baskets of tomatoes were dumped into the flume to be carried inside the plant by a flow of water. I never got inside the plant to see what happened beyond that point but there must have been a lot of cooking going on. When the ketchup season was in full swing, the entire town had the aroma of ketchup. I loved it! Both Pritchard's and Ritter's had a wide distribution. I recall both brands being on the mess hall (dining hall) tables at Albrook AFB, in the Canal Zone 1948-1951. However, all three plants went out of production not too long after the end of World War II. Many of the messages today concerned favorite foods. Tomatoes were and remain one of my favorites. However, ya can't get 'em like that anymore. I suspect that they have been bred for disease resistance, shipping and shelf life and other factors rather than flavor. I've tried to grow many varieties including Rutgers, but they just don't taste like those south Jersey tomatoes of my youth. My experiment with Rutgers was in Georgia where the nematodes got them. The home grown small cherry tomatoes come closest in flavor. Maybe some of you older readers can correct my recollections and/or add details. Wil Husted Billings, MT