Worcestershire sauce facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids
Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce in a dish
Alternative names	Worcester sauce
Type	Condiment
Created by	John Wheeley Lea William Henry Perrins
Main ingredients	Malt vinegar spirit vinegar anchovies tamarind garlic onions molasses sugar salt spices flavourings

Worcestershire sauce or Worcester sauce (UK: ⁱ/ˈwʊstər(ʃər)/ wuust-ƏR(-shər)) is a fermented liquid condiment invented by the pharmacists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins in the city of Worcester in Worcestershire, England, during the first half of the 19th century. The inventors went on to form the company Lea & Perrins.

Worcestershire sauce has been a generic term since 1876, when the English High Court of Justice ruled that Lea & Perrins did not own a trademark for the name "Worcestershire".

Worcestershire sauce is used directly as a condiment on steaks, hamburgers, and other finished dishes, and to flavour cocktails such as the Bloody Mary and Caesar. It is also frequently used to augment recipes such as Welsh rarebit, Caesar salad, Oysters Kirkpatrick, and devilled eggs. As both a background flavour and a source of umami (savoury), it is now also added to dishes that historically did not contain it, such as chili con carne, beef stew and baked beans.

History

Origins

Fish-based fermented sauces, such as garum, go back to antiquity. However, no direct link of Worcestershire sauce with such earlier sauces has been demonstrated and they were made very differently.

In the seventeenth century, English recipes for sauces (typically to put on fish) already combined anchovies with other ingredients.

Invention

The Lea & Perrins brand was commercialised in 1837 and was the first type of sauce to bear the Worcestershire name. The origin of the Lea & Perrins recipe is unclear. The packaging originally stated that the sauce came "from the recipe of a nobleman in the county". The company has also claimed that "Lord Marcus Sandys, ex-Governor of Bengal" encountered it while in India with the East India Company in the 1830s, and commissioned the local pharmacists (the partnership of John Wheeley Lea and William Perrins of 63 Broad Street, Worcester) to recreate it. However, neither Lord Marcus Sandys nor any Baron Sandys was ever a Governor of Bengal, nor had they ever visited India.

According to company tradition, when the recipe was first mixed, the resulting product was so strong that it was considered inedible and the barrel was abandoned in the basement. Looking to make space in the storage area some 18 months later, the chemists decided to try it and discovered that the long-fermented sauce had mellowed and become palatable. In 1838, the first bottles of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce were released to the general public.

Ingredients

The original ingredients in a bottle of Worcestershire sauce were:

Since many Worcestershire sauces include anchovies, it is avoided by those who are allergic to fish, and others who avoid eating fish, such as vegetarians; several anchovy-free varieties, often labelled as vegetarian or vegan, are offered to accommodate them. The Codex Alimentarius recommends that prepared food containing Worcestershire sauce with anchovies include a label warning of fish content, although this is not required in most jurisdictions. The US Department of Agriculture has required the recall of some products with undeclared Worcestershire sauce. Generally, Orthodox Jews refrain from eating fish and meat in the same dish, so they do not use traditional Worcestershire sauce to season meat. However, certain brands are certified to contain less than 1/60 of the fish product and can be used with meat.

Although soy sauce is used in many variations of Worcestershire sauce since the 1880s, it is debated whether Lea & Perrins has ever used any in their preparation. According to William Shurtleff's SoyInfo Center, a 1991 letter from factory general manager J. W. Garnett describes the brand switching to hydrolyzed vegetable protein during World War II due to shortages. As of 2021, soy is not declared as an ingredient in the Lea & Perrins sauce.

Varieties

Lea & Perrins

Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce as sold in the U.K. and Canada

Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce as sold in the U.S.

The Lea & Perrins brand was commercialised in 1837 and continues to be the leading global brand of Worcestershire sauce.

On 16 October 1897, Lea & Perrins relocated manufacturing of the sauce from their pharmacy in Broad Street to a factory in the city of Worcester on Midland Road, where it is still made. The factory produces ready-mixed bottles for domestic distribution and a concentrate for bottling abroad.

In 1930, the Lea & Perrins operation was purchased by HP Foods, which was in turn acquired by the Imperial Tobacco Company in 1967. HP was sold to Danone in 1988 and then to Heinz in 2005.

U.S. version of Lea & Perrins

The U.S. version is packaged differently from the British version, coming in a dark bottle with a beige label and wrapped in paper. Lea & Perrins USA claims this practice is a vestige of shipping practices from the 19th century, when the product was imported from England, as a measure of protection for the bottles. The producer also claims that its Worcestershire sauce is the oldest commercially bottled condiment in the U.S. The ingredients in the US version of Lea & Perrins also differ somewhat, in that the US version uses distilled white vinegar as opposed to the malt vinegar used by the UK and Canadian versions.

Brazil and Portugal

In Brazil and Portugal, it is known as molho inglês ('English sauce').

Costa Rica

In Costa Rica, a local variation of the sauce is Salsa Lizano, created in 1920 and a staple condiment at homes and restaurants.

El Salvador

Worcestershire sauce, known as salsa inglesa ('English sauce') or salsa Perrins ('Perrins sauce'), is very popular in El Salvador. Many restaurants provide a bottle on each table, and the per capita annual consumption is 2.5 ounces (71 g), the highest in the world as of 1996.

Germany

A sweeter, less salty version of the sauce called Worcestersauce Dresdner Art was developed in the beginning of the 20th century in Dresden, Germany, where it is still being produced. It contains lower amounts of anchovies. It is mostly consumed in the eastern part of the country.

Mexico

In Mexico, it is known as salsa inglesa (English sauce).

United Kingdom, Australia

Holbrook's Worcestershire was produced in Birmingham, England, from 1875 but only the Australian subsidiary survives.

United States

Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce is sold in the United States by Kraft Heinz following the Kraft & Heinz merger in 2015.

Other leading Worcestershire sauce brands in the United States include French's, which was introduced in 1941.

Venezuela

It is commonly named salsa inglesa ('English sauce') and is part of many traditional dishes such as Hallacas (a traditional Christmas dish) and some versions of Asado Negro.

Non-fish variations

Some "Worcestershire sauces" are inspired by the original sauce but have deviated significantly from the original taste profile, most notably by the exclusion of fish.

Thailand

Thai Gy-Nguang brand Formula 2 Worcestershire sauce (2010)

Gy-Nguang (Thai: ไก่งวง) Worcestershire sauce has been produced since 1917. It relies on soy sauce instead of anchovies for the umami flavour. The company makes two versions: Formula 1 for Asian taste, and Formula 2 for international taste. The two differ only in that Formula 2 contains slightly less soy sauce and slightly more spices.

Japan

In Japan, Worcestershire sauce is labelled Worcester (rather than Worcestershire), rendered as ウスターソース (Usutā sōsu). Many sauces are more of a vegetarian variety, with the base being water, syrup, vinegar, puree of apple and tomato puree, and the flavour less spicy and sweeter. Japanese Agricultural Standard defines Worcester-type sauces by viscosity, with Worcester sauce proper having a viscosity of less than 0.2 poiseuille, 0.2–2.0 poiseuille sauces categorised as Chūnō sōsu (中濃ソース), commonly used in Kantō region and northwards, and sauces over 2.0 poiseuille categorised as Nōkō sōsu (濃厚ソース); they are manufactured under brand names such as Otafuku and Bulldog, but these are brown sauces more similar to HP Sauce rather than Worcestershire sauce.

Tonkatsu sauce is a thicker Worcester-style sauce made from vegetables and fruits and associated with the dish tonkatsu.

China, Hong Kong, Taiwan

A bottle of Shanghainese "spicy soy sauce", Taikang Yellow brand

Worcestershire sauce has a history of multiple introduction in Chinese-speaking areas. These sauces, each differently named, have diverged both from the original and from each other:

Spicy soy sauce (Chinese: 辣酱油; pinyin: là jiàngyóu), Shanghai: Worcestershire sauce was first produced under this name in 1933 by Mailing Aquarius, then an English-owned company. With Mailing moving to Hong Kong in 1946, the Shanghai branch was nationalised in 1954. Sauce production was transferred to Taikang in 1960. The sauce was reformulated in 1981 under a "nine flavours in one" formula, and again changed in 1990 into two "Taikang Yellow" and "Taikang Blue" varieties. As of 2020, only the yellow variety remains available.; The Taikang Yellow sauce contains no fish. It is used in Haipai cuisine, especially on pork chops and Shanghainese borscht.; A descendant of an earlier form of the sauce is found in Taiwan as "Mailing spicy soy sauce", originally produced by the HK branch of Mailing. It is found in steakhouses.
Gip-sauce (Chinese: 喼汁; Mandarin Pinyin: jízhī; Jyutping: gip1zap1), Hong Kong: This variety is of uncertain etymology: it may have come from catsup or the verb give. Save for the Lea & Perrins original sold as a gip-sauce, most varieties of this type have a stronger umami flavour with the addition of soy sauce, fish sauce, and/or MSG; some commercial varieties forgo fish altogether. This sauce is commonly used in dim sum dishes such as steamed meatball and spring rolls.
Spicy vinegar (Chinese: 辣香酢), Taiwan: This variety is descended from the Japanese Worcester Sauce via the Kongyen company, originally founded by Japanese businesspeople. It is also known under the name Taiwan Black Vinegar due to confusion post-WW2.