Garum
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Garum is the Latin name for a sauce made of rotten fish that was exported from Gadir (modern Cádiz, in Spain) to all the Roman Empire.
The Food Dictionary tells us that Romans used garum as a flavoring much like salt. This extremely pungent sauce was made by fermenting fish in a brine solution for several days in the sun. The resulting liquid was combined with various other flavorings such as oil, pepper, wine and spices.
The use of fermented fish in cooking has continued into the present in the form of "fish sauce" (an essential element of Southeast Asian cooking) and as Worcestershire sauce (which contains sardines). Ketchup, a sweetened and watered-down product of the relatively recent past, is directly related to these pungent and powerful roots, although the rotten fish, alas, has been removed. Of course, this means that any appearance of ketchup in Cryptonomicon would seem to be cryptic references to the d'Arcachon family.