HP sauce and a blast from the past

"a great British irony: that is, printing a non-English label, in a country where we can't do foreign languages, in the language of a country that has never liked HP Sauce." Dinsdale Landen & Jennifer Daniel

I have no idea why I was thinking about HP sauce. Suffice to say that I was, and that whenever I think of HP sauce I remember the above video of the late, great Marty Feldman, doing Charles Aznavour singing the words on the HP sauce bottle. There used to be a paragraph in French on the label - written as Marty Feldman sings it (well almost). Apparentlythe French was dropped by HP in 1984. To howls of protest - most notably to my mind from:

"French-teachers [who] said that it introduced many young people to their first taste of French." Miles Kington - The Independent

And yes I do remember reading the label in French and comparing it to the English. A bit of French revision as somebody said. And no the French never took to it, even though at one point it was owned by Danone.

The Independent article recounts the history of the whole French thing. He references a book called The True Story by a minor British actor, Dinsdale Landen and his wife Jennifer Daniel which also says:

"The first version of the French text to be written was discovered to carry undertones of a rather suggestive nature. Red-faced with embarrassment, those responsible quickly produced a second and innocuous version."

Maybe Marty Feldman was trying to put some of that suggestiveness back into the now innocuous words.

Apparently those words were first put on the label back in 1917 and one has to wonder why. The Independent article doesn't say. And neither does anybody else other than to say that it was a marketing idea. French food was seen as superior and so the French gave it a bit of class.

Ditto for the name and the label. HP stands for the Houses of Parliament because the sauce's inventor, one FG Garton from Nottingham believed that it was served in the Houses of Parliament. Mind you I now have seen another story that has the inventor as Mary Moore wife of Edwin Samson Moore, owner of the Midland Vinegar Company in Aston, Birmingham but then they are supposed to have bought the recipe from Mr. Garton, so who knows.. It's certainly true that this company owned HP sauce for some time. Whoever it was, it was certainly invented in the dying days of the nineteenth century and went into full production in the very early 1900s. Since then it has been owned by various different companies including Danone and Imperial Tobacco and was always manufactured in Aston near Brimingham, but it is now owned by Heinz who moved the manufacture to the Netherlands, the Aston factory having been closed down. So it's no longer British.

Nevertheless it clings to its Britishness, having changed the label recently to include the scaffolded Big Ben, and still having a Royal charter. Apparently the Queen loves it.

I gather that in the UK sales of HP and other similar sauces are dropping, also Ketchup - in favour of more trendy things like aioli, and sriracha, but back in the day it was the big thing.

My family, however, were never into HP sauce. We bought OK sauce - a similar thing which has also undergone a really intriguing evolution.

old ok ad

ok sauce bottle

chinese ok

Also a nineteenth century thing, OK sauce is now owned and manufactured by Colman's of Norwich who bought it from Mason's. So it's still British owned, but not sold to the British. Now it is sold more or less exclusively to the Chinese for:

"OK Sauce has become a feature of Asian, particularly Chinese and Cantonese cuisines. How crazy is that?" Jessy James - Deliveroo

So what do these sauces taste like? Well they are probably tomato based with various spicy additions. I suppose a smooth kind of chutney. Nobody knows the recipe of course, and I believe that is has also changed - most recently under Heinz. Here's one opinion of what it tastes like:

"It's almost shocking how delicious HP is. From its lowbrow reputation and unappetising hue bursts a remarkable aroma: complex, fuggy and fruity, like swimming through compost and Jif. It tastes better than it smells, too, a sweet-sour, subjugating blend." Oliver Thring - The Guardian

And what can you do it with it apart from just slathering it on things that the Australians might use tomato sauce for? Well here are a few suggestions, just to give you an idea:

• "Mix a tablespoon of the stuff with tahina (add a little water to loosen it up) for an intriguingly moreish sauce: goes well with smoked fish, fried vegetables and crisps;

• Mix a couple of tablespoons in a bowl with a teaspoon of oregano, a tablespoon of tomato ketchup, a splash of olive oil and some chilli flakes and you’ve got a terrific marinade for ribs;

• Beat 1 desertspoonful of HP together with the same amount of vinegar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon of chopped taragon, 1 teaspoon of honey and some S & P for a rich dark dressing for salads or steamed vegetables;

• Beat 2 tablespoons of it into about 200ml of natural yoghurt, add some chopped garlic, chives, and seasoning, and you have a top relish for burgers;

• Add it to the cooking stock when you are boiling green vegetables – the sweetness contrasts nicely with the nuttiness of broccoli etc …. " Persepolis

But really:

"the brown stuff will always remain the best complement to one of our greatest offerings to the world: the full English breakfast." Oliver Thring - The Guardian

We use it when we have sausages, or sometimes with omelette.