Worcestershire Sauce: the history of the famous brand

Worcestershire sauce or Worcester sauce, some called its Worchester sauce, which in a sense became a symbol of English cuisine, appeared almost accidentally in the English town of Worcester, the capital of Worcestershire. In 1835, Lord Marcus Sandis, a resident of the city and former governor of Bengal, handed over a recipe for an Indian sauce, to which he had a special weakness, to two pharmacists, John Wiley Lee and William Henry Perrins, asking them to cook a similar sauce. They agreed.

However, judging by everything, the culinary experience ended in failure. The sauce turned out to be unpleasant to the taste, and the men tried to get rid of it as soon as possible, hiding the container with the mixture in the basement of the pharmacy store. Two years later, during the spring cleaning, Lee and Perrins, before throwing the sauce, ventured to try it again. Incredibly, the product had a wonderful and very original taste. Both came to the conclusion that the mixture must be kept for some time in wooden barrels and shaken, if necessary. They also decided to buy a recipe for Marcus Sandis and sell the sauce as their own invention.

Since 1837, the commercial history of the product, registered as "Original Worcestershire Sauce Lee and Perrins" begins.

The sauce was sold at the pharmacy / grocery store of Lee and Perrins, they also sent their representatives to almost all the docks of English ports to convince the stewards of the passenger ships to bring bottles with sauce on board the liners and put passengers on the dining tables.

Spicy and piquant, with a rich taste, the sauce quickly gained popularity, and Lee and Perrins opened up new retail stores in different English cities. Along with other products, they necessarily sold Worcestershire sauce. The recipe brought by Sandis from India, as is known, included tamarind, anchovies, African chili peppers, sugar, molasses, garlic. But the whole set of components for a long time the owners and employees of the factory was kept in secret. On the label of the bottle with sauce, tamarind extract, vinegar, anchovies, sugar, molasses, salt, onions and garlic are indicated. But other ingredients are not listed and appear as "spices" and "flavoring additives."

The original recipe was opened in 2009. Brian Keogh, a former accountant at Lea and Perrins, found a leather-bound notebook with a neatly-written ink sauce recipe in the paper garbage of the factory. However, the man continued to keep in secret the exact recipe. After his death, Bonnie's daughter Clifford handed over a document with a prescription to the Museum and Art Gallery of Worcester, where it is on display today. Among the "spices" and "flavor additives" - cloves, soy sauce, lemon, pickles and peppers.

Anchovies are one of the key moments of the original taste of the sauce. During the time that the sauce is fermented, which takes about two years, the anchovies gradually decompose and dissolve in the liquid, giving the sauce a spicy taste.

Worcestershire Sauce "Lee and Perrins" is known in two versions. A sauce prepared especially for the British, and an option for the rest of the consumers, mainly designed for Americans. In the British version, the recipe includes sugar and malt vinegar. Alternatively, high fructose corn syrup and distilled white vinegar.

Worcestershire sauce is used as a component in the Caesar salad, the classic English recipe for Oysters Kirkpatrick and other dishes for the flavoring of the Bloody Mary cocktail. It is popular in many countries of the world, plays a significant role in Asian gastronomic traditions. Especially in Cantonese cuisine, no less than the famous sauce "Hoysin", which is called its special flavor.