Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give a big thank you to
Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams. Keep them all in check,
Speaker 1: shut up buster rhymes.
Speaker 2: Uh you say, I got to something on the something
Speaker 2: and the something on your neck?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard For years I thought I heard that song.
Speaker 1: You guys know I love hip hop, And for years
Speaker 1: I thought he was saying, I've got the eggnog beep
Speaker 1: that makes you sweat your neck. Who ha, I've got
Speaker 1: you all in check. And I was like, man, New
Speaker 1: York slaying is crazy. What does that mean?
Speaker 2: I thought, Also, it means that that's actually quite good.
Speaker 2: I beat like eggnog, make that.
Speaker 1: Pretty good?
Speaker 2: Them eggs to get that nog sounds so absolutely dirty,
Speaker 2: like we're going to get flagged in our internal.
Speaker 1: We only use whole eggs. Okay, last it has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with today's episode, but uh, you guys, true story.
Speaker 1: For a long time as well, I thought he was
Speaker 1: saying I got you all in check like the country
Speaker 1: of Chechia, like c z e h and I'm of.
Speaker 2: You in my mind in check at all times.
Speaker 1: What is like, Okay, Buster, if you're listening, Man, we're
Speaker 1: big fans. I've been bullying with me as always is
Speaker 1: the one and only the man, myth legend, mister Noel Brown.
Speaker 2: No you think you want Buster on the show? Oh man,
Speaker 2: he's that's a big dude right there. Man, Man, he
Speaker 2: got he got, he got swollen. He was always kind
Speaker 2: of swollen, but he seems to have gotten swoller late
Speaker 2: in life.
Speaker 1: Over a time. Yeah. And uh and gosh, you can't
Speaker 1: you can't mess with the rhymes. Uh. He's got a
Speaker 1: sort of secret sauce. We could say segue. Uh, Noel,
Speaker 1: you are on the road and Uh, I hope if
Speaker 1: I had a little horse.
Speaker 2: It's because it's early for me and my brain because
Speaker 2: I've been on the West Coast long enough where i
Speaker 2: have finally just finally adapted to West Coast brain, only
Speaker 2: to have to adapt back to East Coast brain immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We were we were talking off air, and I
Speaker 1: was I always saying like, oh man, I've been there.
Speaker 1: The time zones are weird. Uh, but we have uh,
Speaker 1: we have a continuing mission which is to explore ridiculous
Speaker 1: history and we want to start today's episode with a
Speaker 1: big thanks to a good friend of of ours, mister
Speaker 1: Brenton Smith from Station sixteen.
Speaker 2: Of course, Brenton, by the way, a missive Dare we
Speaker 2: say a mandate? Dare we say it is our charge
Speaker 2: to explore ridiculous history?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, check this out, Noel, So you and I
Speaker 1: know Brenton, I would say pretty well at this point,
Speaker 1: I was astonished to find that he actually listens to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous time.
Speaker 2: Every time I hear that anyone listens to the show,
Speaker 2: I'm astonished, right.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that he has to hang out with
Speaker 1: us on a regular basis in person as we make
Speaker 1: a bunch of weird sketch comedy and other.
Speaker 2: Videos, sometimes with you wigged out and costumed out as
Speaker 2: George Washington traveling through time.
Speaker 1: Hey, and you as the you, as the person who
Speaker 1: introduces that poor guy to things like virtual reality or escalators.
Speaker 1: I'm the straight man.
Speaker 2: It's this catch, but it's fine if you haven't seen those.
Speaker 2: By the way, check out the stuff they don't want
Speaker 2: you to know social media channels of note, and you
Speaker 2: can see them.
Speaker 1: It's basically become an ongoing series.
Speaker 2: But Brenton fine, fond of Fine Whiskey's ball caps and
Speaker 2: apparently sauce history. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he asked us. He said, you guys, you know,
Speaker 1: I listened to the show, and also I like what
Speaker 1: you're doing with these condiments. But why have you never
Speaker 1: talked about Worcestershire. Worcestershire.
Speaker 2: See, that's going to become an ongoing thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's just so many ways to make a meal out
Speaker 2: of that. Sometimes I like to go wor You we go, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Sometimes I like to shorten it to Wooster because we
Speaker 2: know how that goes. What is it, though, Ben? What
Speaker 2: is this brown juice of the Gods?
Speaker 1: Hang on, I'm writing down the number of times that
Speaker 1: we're saying this name. Okay, so we're already at like
Speaker 1: four or five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So most of us
Speaker 1: who enjoy cooking will use this sauce Worces this year,
Speaker 1: and we often, at least here in the US and
Speaker 1: probably in England, we often buy it in a grocery
Speaker 1: store with like a paper wrapping around it. The Lee
Speaker 1: in Parents bottle. Yeah you remember those?
Speaker 2: You know It's true, Ben, And I've got to say,
Speaker 2: in my mind, Lee and Parents is the only one
Speaker 2: that exists, though I know there are other pretenders to
Speaker 2: the throne.
Speaker 1: And it's a very interesting throne indeed, because we're most
Speaker 1: all of us are familiar with the sauce, know it
Speaker 1: and love it. But if we just straight up describe
Speaker 1: the ingredients and the flavor, it would make even the
Speaker 1: most articulate person sound absolutely bonkers. Luckily we are not
Speaker 1: the most articulate people. Well we're articulately bonkers at least.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a weird one, right, because there's nothing
Speaker 2: else quite like it. It has some soy sauce vibes,
Speaker 2: you know, it has some if you ever had like
Speaker 2: liquid aminos, you know, something like that, or even what's
Speaker 2: the other one MSG kind of vibes. But yet none
Speaker 2: of those things and all of those things. It's it's
Speaker 2: sort of a mystical brown liquid. Yeah, it's still not
Speaker 2: quite all all the stuff we described as like part
Speaker 2: of Worcestershire, but not quite the thing entire. So look,
Speaker 2: we will throughout this episode use alternate pronunciations. You might
Speaker 2: hear worcestershre Worcestershire or what'd you say worcesters Shire. I
Speaker 2: liked Worcestershire, which I know is wrong. It's just fun
Speaker 2: to say. It makes me feel like I'm tasting it
Speaker 2: as I say it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. I like that form and function,
Speaker 1: just like morocket taut us. You know, folks, if you
Speaker 1: think the pronunciation is ridiculous, just wait till you hear
Speaker 1: the origin story. Before we get to that, though, we
Speaker 1: got to break down the flavor. Man, how would you
Speaker 1: describe wors the shure sauce?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was, I was kind of beginning to because
Speaker 2: I was trying to think of it. It's sort of
Speaker 2: like a state of mind more than it even is
Speaker 2: like a specifical flavor, right Florida.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh yeah.
Speaker 2: Because I mean it has it's the tang and the
Speaker 2: salts of something that we might recognize as like a
Speaker 2: soy sauce, but then it has the it reveals these
Speaker 2: other almost sweet and sour, a tiny bit of subtle
Speaker 2: kind of floral notes or something. It really is just
Speaker 2: it tas what does it taste like?
Speaker 1: It tastes like, Yeah, there's a there's a central brightness respectively.
Speaker 1: It's that floral bit that I was trying to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are layers to it. And with so
Speaker 1: much going on palette wise, it's kind of surprising that
Speaker 1: we would put it in so many different dishes. I mean,
Speaker 1: we use it all the time.
Speaker 2: Can we just start off off the rip saying that,
Speaker 2: I think we're all pretty big fans of the stuff.
Speaker 2: This is not the time where we rag on Wooster
Speaker 2: higher sauce as a flavor. More just kind of maybe
Speaker 2: lampoon the history of it a little bit and kind
Speaker 2: of bring some things into the light. But boy, there's
Speaker 2: nothing like it. When that's what you want, there's nothing
Speaker 2: else you can to reach for, whether it be a soup,
Speaker 2: a braise, perhaps even a saute. Yeah, yeah, just so,
Speaker 2: And we want to go to Aleah Hoyt. Writing for
Speaker 2: How Stuff Works, she interviewed Seamus Mullet, chef at the
Speaker 2: Institute of Culinary Education, and he has one of the
Speaker 2: best descriptions of this. He says, Worcestershire sauce is kind
Speaker 2: of a flavor amplifier, right. It makes things deeper, it
Speaker 2: makes things more savory. It's like the hip kids call
Speaker 2: it oomammy ooh mommy.
Speaker 1: You know it's true, and we love that.
Speaker 2: It really is sort of what do they that they
Speaker 2: say that there's like acid, heat, salt, and then the zumammy.
Speaker 2: It was just sort of like an additional you know,
Speaker 2: taste sense almost the way things hit your palate.
Speaker 1: It's mushrooms, you know. That's the thing about your sauce.
Speaker 2: It really has a mushroomy kind of flavor to it
Speaker 2: as well to me anyway. But yeah, I'm sorry, that's right.
Speaker 2: It's the fifth taste, right, umammy.
Speaker 1: After salty, sweet, bitter, and sour, And I.
Speaker 2: Said acid heat and all of that, but those are
Speaker 2: kind of the chefy ways of describing those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Often umami is described as deliciousness and Chef Mullen.
Speaker 1: Chef Mullen argues that umami brings out natural flavorings in food,
Speaker 1: so he says it makes steak taste more steak, like
Speaker 1: mushrooms more mushroomy, you know. Oh. We also we've got
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to our friends Annie Lord
Speaker 1: and Andrew over it. Save. Yeah, they've got a cool
Speaker 1: history of umami. It wasn't really a Western thing until
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds thanks to an astonishing chemist and
Speaker 1: professor named Kikune Ikeda something to do with msg in
Speaker 1: that tale, I believe, right, Yes, sir, you are correct. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was. He isolated this isolated glutamate and created
Speaker 1: monosodium glue toamate.
Speaker 2: M ST, which it's a bad rap. Weirdly, we talked
Speaker 2: about this in our History of Chinese Restaurants. MSG sort
Speaker 2: of got unfairly maligned in sort of a weird racist
Speaker 2: kind of slander campaign against Chinese restaurants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he noticed even back when it was popularizing this,
Speaker 1: he said, Okay, what I'll call what I'll call umami,
Speaker 1: it really is signaling. Glutamate is signaling the presence of protein,
Speaker 1: and human beings evolved to hunt protein. Right.
Speaker 2: Even in the Shefe type shows, they refer to the
Speaker 2: big old slab of you know, main course, you know
Speaker 2: goodness on your plate as your protein, whether it be
Speaker 2: you know, beast or tofu.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah, whether it be tofurky or ribs. I mean. Also,
Speaker 1: we were interested to learn you can taste glue tomate
Speaker 1: if you're a human at concentration six and sixteen times
Speaker 1: lower than sugar or salt. That is interesting. What does
Speaker 1: it taste like? Just a dash will do it? It
Speaker 1: tastes delicious? Yeah, okay, this is deliciousness.
Speaker 2: We're still talking about here, Okay, got it. So, without
Speaker 2: going too too far into the food science of it all,
Speaker 2: if you want a deeper dive onto that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: definitely please do check out Savor. We ought to point
Speaker 2: out that a lot of savory foods which might be
Speaker 2: considered umami rich, they need time to steep in those
Speaker 2: flavors you know, low, slow and low, you know, or
Speaker 2: a nice braize in its own juices of like a
Speaker 2: pork loin or whatever it might be. Those things have
Speaker 2: to really kind of set in and that does take
Speaker 2: time and care.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking with MPR of Flavored chemist named Ariel Johnson said,
Speaker 1: a lot of umami esque or omamy rich foods are
Speaker 1: fermented or slow cooked, like you said, like a bone
Speaker 1: broth or kimchi, and it can take weeks, right kim
Speaker 1: I mean like for some of these things, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, kimchi started by burying this stuff. So we'll
Speaker 1: see why this point about age is important about fermentation
Speaker 1: because we know there is ancient history. One of humanity's
Speaker 1: oldest condiments is garam and it had umami before people
Speaker 1: use the word of mommy, it's a fermented fish sauce,
Speaker 1: a precursor to Catsup Yeah, which later became Ketchup Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Worcestershire probably isn't a direct descendant of Garhm, but
Speaker 1: the flavor profiles have a lot in common. Fish sauces
Speaker 1: were a staple in East Asian cooking for millennia, basically a.
Speaker 2: Staple in both of our fridges as well.
Speaker 1: Ben Oh, yes, sir, Yeah, you gotta have you gotta
Speaker 1: have your sauces. You know, it's funny. I didn't think
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's been a while since we did the episode
Speaker 2: on Ketchup, But Worcestershire Sauce as we know it today
Speaker 2: really really is kind of the next evolution of that
Speaker 2: Garum that was considered to be the precursor to Ketchup.
Speaker 2: But modern day Ketchup doesn't resemble either of these things
Speaker 2: at all. But Worcester Sauce really is kind of that
Speaker 2: thing that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's carrying the torch. We don't know whether the
Speaker 1: original Worcestershire bros. Were trying to copy an existing variation,
Speaker 1: like if they had a sample of it. But our
Speaker 1: story starts with three guys. There are two of them.
Speaker 1: John Wheeley Lee spelled l Ea and William Henry parents,
Speaker 1: this chemist holy In parents.
Speaker 2: They started a business in eighteen twenty three in we're okay,
Speaker 2: would this be woolster?
Speaker 1: I think it's a wooster. I think it's a wooster.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, it's one of those things where you've
Speaker 2: got Leicester but it's spelled Leicester. We've talked about this
Speaker 2: in England, so would not it follow logically that Worcester
Speaker 2: would be woolster.
Speaker 1: It's english Man. There are no rules, really.
Speaker 2: And why have the shire on a place that already
Speaker 2: is the name of basically a shire. Why not just
Speaker 2: call it Worcester Sauce or Worcester Sauce anyway, we'll probably
Speaker 2: get to that, but guess that's where they were operating
Speaker 2: out of a little pharmacy on the high Street, which
Speaker 2: was Broad Street, and they made tons of stuff. They
Speaker 2: were doing lots of experimentation, many of which were with flavor.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They also went on to make a hair regrowth
Speaker 1: tonic spoiler that spoiler it doesn't work, but try it
Speaker 1: and soup. I don't know what to tell you. They
Speaker 1: also quite possibly create a fable about their own fabled sauce,
Speaker 1: So maybe I love it fable fabled, yeah, meta fable.
Speaker 1: So maybe we can we can share the origin story
Speaker 1: as they put it, and we'll learn about the third
Speaker 1: character in the tail.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna nip this in the butd real quick, guys,
Speaker 2: and see what the Internet says as to how we
Speaker 2: should pronounce the name of this sauce. Not you gonna
Speaker 2: change the way I pronounce it necessarily, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 1: Oh we've got some tangents on that too. Man.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I'm excited to get to that. But it
Speaker 2: says here a shy see, I can't.
Speaker 1: Even do it.
Speaker 2: Woos to sure, woos to shure it's a wu it
Speaker 2: really is wu ha.
Speaker 1: Wu stuff uh. And then sure sure, So when you
Speaker 1: get to the end of it, you're just saying, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: I like Wooster Wooster, Sure sure Shyre in there, but
Speaker 2: sure Shire enough.
Speaker 1: Huh. That was a transition right there.
Speaker 2: They did, in fact, you know, dabble in sorcery, sorcery
Speaker 2: and sorcery sort of what do you call it, ben,
Speaker 2: when you when you transmute things into other things, alchemy,
Speaker 2: flavor alchemy.
Speaker 1: There we go. I like that, I'm a flavor alchemist.
Speaker 2: H and they had, at least on the early versions
Speaker 2: of this this fabled sauce a little bit of a tagline, right,
Speaker 2: how did that read?
Speaker 1: Oh? They put out an ad shortly after they began sauce. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it says, quote, the Worcestershire sauce is prepared by
Speaker 1: us from the favorite recipe of a nobleman of acknowledged gout,
Speaker 1: which back then was not a bad thing, having good
Speaker 1: taste acknowledged good isn't. Don't you get gouts from eating
Speaker 1: too many rich foods? Yes?
Speaker 2: I love language, It's so fun.
Speaker 1: Let's terrifying.
Speaker 2: Too much poulted meat from all that good taste and
Speaker 2: makes you have a foot swellow And this was likely
Speaker 2: referring to the nobleman in question, Lord Marcus Sandy's of
Speaker 2: the third Baron Sandy's, who had grown accustomed to kind
Speaker 2: of a garam like fish sauce that he had learned
Speaker 2: about and kind of gotten a taste for while governing
Speaker 2: a brawl in Bengal. I can see a real colonizer,
Speaker 2: this fella.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, let's picture this moment with this story. So,
Speaker 1: an aristocrat returns to England from abroad and colonial India,
Speaker 1: and he just cannot find his favorite condiment. I just
Speaker 1: can't find my favorite condiments right, And he doesn't have
Speaker 1: any physical samples, probably because he likes the stuff so
Speaker 1: much he already ate it all. So picture him, like
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin in all these recording sessions, we can picture
Speaker 1: the baron. He's waving his hands around, he's just throwing
Speaker 1: words out and he's describing through speech. In comparison alone,
Speaker 1: his experienced tasting fish sauce, and he might have been like,
Speaker 1: well it's.
Speaker 2: Sweet, oh I see so perhaps perhaps molasses large.
Speaker 1: Sort of parents, the sort of sour ah so tamarinds.
Speaker 1: Perhaps what indeed have fish eat somewhere.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're gonna need to workshop this one for a while.
Speaker 1: Ago like what we have to exercise empathy with Leah parents.
Speaker 1: They got this crazy rich dude who is like, let
Speaker 1: me just give you the vibes.
Speaker 2: There should be a tagline the rich We get things
Speaker 2: done because you know, they've got the money to throw
Speaker 2: around and the influence, and usually when they want a thing,
Speaker 2: people kind of listen, and that tends to a times
Speaker 2: only benefit the rich. But sometimes, Ben, sometimes you get
Speaker 2: the trickle down of sauce that benefits the world.
Speaker 1: Here's my question.
Speaker 2: Was there any threats of hunged, drawn and quartered involved
Speaker 2: in this?
Speaker 1: You never know, You never never know. You never.
Speaker 2: History is written by the victors, and these guys seem
Speaker 2: to have done well by themselves because their name still
Speaker 2: is emblazoned on the sauce.
Speaker 1: Right. So they go back to this baron and they say, Okay,
Speaker 1: based on your somewhat unhinged conversation, we have taken all
Speaker 1: of the like flavor notes that you told us about.
Speaker 1: We put them into this weird sort of mixtape and
Speaker 1: here you go. We're not sure exactly what they handed him,
Speaker 1: but the original thing probably had. Well. Do you want
Speaker 1: to just read the list of ingredients?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not gonna lie Vivin. I initially saw
Speaker 2: this list and I'm like, okay, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: we don't have proportions here, but we've got barley malt
Speaker 2: vin spirit vinegar, which I imagine is mean barley matt.
Speaker 1: Would be a darker vinegar.
Speaker 2: Spirit vinegar would be a little bit more of maybe
Speaker 2: a bitter clear vinegar. Yeah, molasses, you know, and sugar
Speaker 2: and salt, anchovies, tamar and extract challice, which were later
Speaker 2: replaced by onions, garlic.
Speaker 1: I hate this one though.
Speaker 2: Man, I hate spices be so condescen It's like, come on, man,
Speaker 2: which one h And also, of course flavor.
Speaker 1: Rings even weirder. Probably probably some something citrual, probably like
Speaker 1: lemons of some sort, like lemon juice sort. So why
Speaker 1: not just say lemon lemons.
Speaker 2: You said molasses, you said tamar and extract. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: certainly is a proprietary formula, despite the fact that we
Speaker 2: do see other versions of them. There's going to be
Speaker 2: pretty significant flavor differences. It's it's it's not exactly codified, right.
Speaker 2: It sounds like we both I think thought this sounds okay,
Speaker 2: that sounds you get behind that, except for the obfuscation
Speaker 2: of the spices and flavorings. But apparently the first batch
Speaker 2: was quite bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was gonna say, who knows, it sounds eclectic,
Speaker 1: but maybe it tasted awesome. It did not spoil. This
Speaker 1: stuff was gross. And before we get to the plot
Speaker 1: holes in that official kind of origin story, we know
Speaker 1: for sure that leam Perrin's first crack at their Fishy
Speaker 1: Sauce in eighteen thirty five was a swing in a miss.
Speaker 1: Even the company itself later described that first pilot batch
Speaker 1: as completely unpalatable, but they had some cost fallacy. They
Speaker 1: spent so much time and money making barrels of this
Speaker 1: stuff that was basically wet garbage juice.
Speaker 2: Why would they have done that? Why wouldn't they have
Speaker 2: a market tested at first before they made massive.
Speaker 1: Scale of it. I mean they probably they were trying
Speaker 1: to do the thing where you have a problem and
Speaker 1: you keep adding to it, like in cooking. You know,
Speaker 1: it's much easier to add a flavor than it is
Speaker 1: to subtract a flavor. Sure, so I think they were
Speaker 1: just like, hey, maybe this is going to be the one.
Speaker 1: Maybe we need more molasses, or maybe we need more anchovies.
Speaker 1: It didn't work, and they they didn't throw it away
Speaker 1: because they had a sub cost. So instead they took
Speaker 1: the barrels of this test condiment and they hid it
Speaker 1: away in the basement of their pharmacy and just sort
Speaker 1: of like wash their hands of it.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, this does sound a little apocryphal, but
Speaker 2: let me guess we heard about this in a recent
Speaker 2: story too, about a thing and maybe it was Rome.
Speaker 2: What was it, ben? It was like some century men
Speaker 2: had some like some material they stuck away because they
Speaker 2: kind of forgot about it and then it fermented and
Speaker 2: it was really good. Oh no, I'm sorry, I know
Speaker 2: what it was. I looked at a mine. This was
Speaker 2: not a ridiculous history moment. It is a a thing
Speaker 2: in Japan that is basically fermented soybeans and it's called knock.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, it's it's it looks like sticky, cheesy kind
Speaker 2: of beanstoea nato.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was featured in that show Showgun, where like these
Speaker 2: women are eating it and they're kind of the you know,
Speaker 2: black Black Moore or whatever the hell's name is.
Speaker 1: He asks what that is.
Speaker 2: He wants to try it, and they tell him it's
Speaker 2: not really for you, it's not something you'll be into,
Speaker 2: and he, you know, insists and he eats it and
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, this is this. It tastes like spoiled
Speaker 2: cheese or something. Right, but that kind of thing where
Speaker 2: it's like ah, and they tucked it away. That The
Speaker 2: story behind that was that there was some you know,
Speaker 2: invading you know, group of soldiers that had their soybeans
Speaker 2: stowed away and they forgot about them or they let
Speaker 2: them basically, they wrapped them in some wet something or
Speaker 2: other and then they fermented and became this NATO and
Speaker 2: the General or whatever got a taste for it, and
Speaker 2: next thing, you know, this is a staple food of Japan.
Speaker 1: I have eaten so many strange things, and I will say,
Speaker 1: I know this is sometimes a controversial opinion. NATO, to
Speaker 1: me has always answered a question that I never thought
Speaker 1: to ask, which is like, have you ever smelled a
Speaker 1: diaper and thought, what if I could just eat that
Speaker 1: for breakfast? Yeah? You know, yeah, I mean apparently, what's it?
Speaker 2: Durian tastes real nice but smells like dirty diapers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I hope I was sort of on the right track.
Speaker 2: But what happened with these barrels of this concoction that
Speaker 2: they kind of shoved in the basement forgot about.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely on the right track more than a year past.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until at least eighteen months later that someone
Speaker 1: opens the door, you know, to the basement of the pharmacy.
Speaker 1: They walk down the stairs and they see these barrels,
Speaker 1: and they try the sauce or time. Maybe they were
Speaker 1: thinking I could finally throw it away, but lo and behold,
Speaker 1: this once wet garbage juice is now amazing, Like the
Speaker 1: fermentation fixed it.
Speaker 2: You can't really plan for that, so, I mean you can,
Speaker 2: but a lot of times it starts from these happy accidents,
Speaker 2: like with the NATO, right, I mean again, you would
Speaker 2: maybe argue that that was an unhappy accident, and.
Speaker 1: That's totally fine.
Speaker 2: Some people do seem to really love it, whether it's
Speaker 2: a taste you develop or whatever. Even in Japan, I
Speaker 2: think there's like a certainly a percentage of the population
Speaker 2: that can't stand the stuff. But awesome, man, I'm really
Speaker 2: happy and really cool if true, really cool if true.
Speaker 2: You know, this is a world changing condiment. It's definitely
Speaker 2: an England changing condiment. You can put it on darn
Speaker 2: near everything. And lets be honest, not to be a
Speaker 2: negative Nelson, but British cuisine at the time could really
Speaker 2: use the help. Yeah for sure. Obviously, again, apocryphal or not,
Speaker 2: it does take time fermentation whatever, whether it be braising
Speaker 2: or like long slow cooks or actual fermentation, which is
Speaker 2: a chemical process to make flavors like what we're talking about,
Speaker 2: the umami type of flavor. But if you have a
Speaker 2: sauce like this, it almost gives you a shortcut. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point and they're also Worcestershire
Speaker 1: is a runaway hit because people are buying a story
Speaker 1: as much as they're buying a sauce. There's this mysterious
Speaker 1: origin tale of a nobleman haunted by memories of this
Speaker 1: sauce from foreign shores. There's another mystery because the first
Speaker 1: consumers don't know what is in this. They just think
Speaker 1: it's tasty. That's a heck of a trust fall. They
Speaker 1: don't care.
Speaker 2: You know, who cares, Especially in those days. It certainly
Speaker 2: wasn't the era of I need you know, listed ingredients
Speaker 2: and nutritional facts and calorie counting government regulation. Right of course,
Speaker 2: there was no There was no food and drug administration.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We were coasting on a wing and a prayer and
Speaker 2: a tasty sauce.
Speaker 1: Which is thankful that lady fingers don't have actual women's
Speaker 1: fingers in them that we know of, that we know
Speaker 1: of up to a certain point. There's a percentage of
Speaker 1: fingers allowed anyway. Yeah, you're absolutely right, dude. The ingredients
Speaker 1: of the original leam Perrin's Worcestershire sauce, they were like
Speaker 1: the Coca Cola secret recipe of the time. For decades,
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a conspiracy afoot because you
Speaker 1: can find a pharmacy catalog from their lab on Broad
Speaker 1: Street and was dated to eighteen twenty three. We knew
Speaker 1: that tamarind and anchovies were definitely in there, but it
Speaker 1: would take until like two thousand and nine for the
Speaker 1: world to get a closer look at the actual story
Speaker 1: and the actual ingredients. And maybe that's where we go
Speaker 1: to the real story. Uh, Noel, I think we've we've
Speaker 1: teased it pretty well. How do we know that this
Speaker 1: Baron Sandy thing is maybe a little embellished.
Speaker 2: Well, i'll tell.
Speaker 1: You, Ben, we'll tell you. Actually, we'll do it together
Speaker 1: as always. Uh.
Speaker 2: There may have been a nobleman, you know, in the
Speaker 2: mix who was waving his arms around wildly and describing
Speaker 2: these flavors that he had savored back in his time abroad. Uh,
Speaker 2: but it probably wasn't the guy we described.
Speaker 1: Who was what was his name again, Ben.
Speaker 2: Sandy Baron, But it was, it was, It was a
Speaker 2: whole like, oh, Lord, Marcus Sandy, the third baron Sandy's
Speaker 2: I don't even understand what that means. The third Baron,
Speaker 2: Baron of Sandy's Press. Anyway, his name is Marcus Sandy's
Speaker 2: and we we think it probably likely was it him.
Speaker 2: According to a memo written by Lee and Parn's accountant
Speaker 2: and archivist Brian Keoh in nineteen ninety seven, Lord Sandy's
Speaker 2: apparently never governed in Bengal or ever even traveled to India, Oh, extating.
Speaker 1: So it remains a mystery that as to who actually
Speaker 1: was this apocryphal aristocrat who commissioned the first Worcestershire sauce
Speaker 1: and the note here we're getting a lot of the
Speaker 1: true story from our friends over at food republic dot com.
Speaker 1: An excellent article by Andrew Housman called the Bizarre story
Speaker 1: behind the invention of Worcestershire Sauce.
Speaker 2: You can almost call him like a what do you
Speaker 2: call it, a sauce patron, you know, a patron of
Speaker 2: sauce instead of the arts of a benefactor. Exactly, Yes,
Speaker 2: a sauce benefactor. As I love this, so we are
Speaker 2: we do, have, of course, as is often the case
Speaker 2: in you know, old stuff, competing versions of the story.
Speaker 2: In eighteen eighty four, in the New York Times paper
Speaker 2: of notes, It's been around for a long time, they
Speaker 2: claimed that Sandy's wife wanted Lee in parents to recreate
Speaker 2: a curry powder, which they then converted into sauce form
Speaker 2: rather than like a powder, which is, you know, basically
Speaker 2: just a blend of spices.
Speaker 1: All right, So a mysterious aristocrat returning from abroad, or
Speaker 1: you're working with your working with your colleague and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I know we got other stuff to do, but my
Speaker 1: wife really wants this curry powder. I mean, take it
Speaker 1: from what take it for what it is. We cannot
Speaker 1: argue with the results. Worcestershire rips. Dude, it is amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I mean there's there's just nothing like it.
Speaker 2: Like I said, when I hear the be like an
Speaker 2: ad for Lean parents, but when I want that certain
Speaker 2: flavor in my roast, I reach for Leon parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we know we mentioned two thousand and nine, right,
Speaker 1: So shout out again to the archivist Brian Keo who
Speaker 1: found notes dating back to the mid eighteen hundreds that
Speaker 1: list different, let's say, different things they tried to add
Speaker 1: in those barrels, so like cloves, different vinegars, pickles, ascetic acid.
Speaker 2: Mmmm.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's just that that got the cable soup.
Speaker 1: I love it now.
Speaker 2: It is yum acetic acid peppers, essence of lemons.
Speaker 1: Some of these things probably.
Speaker 2: Are what would be under that catch all of flavorings,
Speaker 2: flavorings and spices. Yeah, those are some of the original ingredients,
Speaker 2: and of course this changed as the chemist evolved the recipe.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing we talked about today at the
Speaker 2: top of the show. How in my mind I think
Speaker 2: when I can't well, I don't want that certain extra
Speaker 2: something I reads for Leeann Parents because in my mind
Speaker 2: that is the quintessential, quintessential Worcester. There's just nothing else
Speaker 2: like it that will quite do the trick for me.
Speaker 2: But I have certainly gotten alternatives in the past and
Speaker 2: they're fine, and there might even be you know, if
Speaker 2: you really thought about it, you could almost treat it
Speaker 2: like different hot sauces, where depending on which brand you
Speaker 2: go with, you might get a different little kick.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Ben, what is your what's your experience.
Speaker 2: Been with non Leean parents worcesters pretty similar?
Speaker 1: You know. There are brown sauces that are a little
Speaker 1: bit heavier, like hybrids of you know, H and P
Speaker 1: sauces kind of or HP sauce is kind of like
Speaker 1: a hybrid of Worcestershire and ketchup. But maybe it maybe
Speaker 1: it's the expectation or the nostalgia of lim parents because
Speaker 1: I associated with steakhouses, you know, I associated with dashing
Speaker 1: it into crock pots and slow cooking and prime ribs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So I don't know, it's it's
Speaker 1: crazy because we've got to talk about these different varieties.
Speaker 1: We have mentioned this to each other a little bit
Speaker 1: off air. It turns out the reason lim Parens is
Speaker 1: not monopolistic, they're actually owned by Kraft. Heinds now is
Speaker 1: that Worcestershire sauce became a generic term. In eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: the English High Court said, you lot don't own a
Speaker 1: trademark for the name woulceare absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Because for me it's the name of a town. It's
Speaker 2: like Gene Simmons trying to trademark the rock and roll fingers,
Speaker 2: like he can't. Turned out that he did try to
Speaker 2: do that apparent. Oh wow, it's just out in the
Speaker 2: ether at this point. Guys, you can't. Can can you
Speaker 2: trademark a song?
Speaker 1: Well? Yes you can?
Speaker 2: Can you trademark a breeze?
Speaker 1: You know? No you can't. Yeah, I mean we can
Speaker 1: collectively say, what's this shirt. However you got here, We're
Speaker 1: glad you made it to the plate. You ridiculous, amazing sauce.
Speaker 1: One thing, oh, we should mention the iconic like paper
Speaker 1: wrapping that comes from that comes from shipping to the US.
Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty nine, a family in New York, the
Speaker 1: Duncan family, starts importing this and the problem was the
Speaker 1: bottles were breaking in transit on the ship, right, so
Speaker 1: they wrapped it in that paper. And it's so iconic.
Speaker 1: You know, if you go to the grocery store today
Speaker 1: you look at this monopoly of sauces. The one that's
Speaker 1: wrapped in paper is interesting. Right. Again, like to the
Speaker 1: earlier point, there's something that feels almost secretive about it,
Speaker 1: like you can't see this sauce, dude, And I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: It really does remind me.
Speaker 2: And not that you like figure out a formula by
Speaker 2: gazing into the sauce. But there's a synthesizer company from
Speaker 2: Japan called Roland who made this really awesome analog cynthesizer
Speaker 2: in the eighties called the Juno, and they notoriously would
Speaker 2: break because they took the circuits, the pieces that actually
Speaker 2: made the sound, and they coated them in this polyurethane
Speaker 2: thing because they didn't want people to be able to
Speaker 2: see the circuit design coming across the assembly lines. They
Speaker 2: were worried about industrial espionage, but that ended up actually
Speaker 2: biting them in the butt because it caused the things
Speaker 2: to notoriously malfunction. So whenever you get one of the
Speaker 2: repair people, will you know, soak them in acetone and
Speaker 2: get rid of that that coating.
Speaker 1: So you're not wrong. Man. That's really really interesting in
Speaker 1: terms of one of those I do, I do mention
Speaker 1: it to me when you first got one. Does it work?
Speaker 1: It does work, It works beautifully.
Speaker 2: And I got it serviced by a guy who did
Speaker 2: that very thing, literally took all the voice chips out
Speaker 2: and soaked them in acetone and now it's like new.
Speaker 2: But Ben, I gotta say, I was wondering about alternatives
Speaker 2: to lean pair. I found a great article on the
Speaker 2: Daily Meal listing thirteen best Worcestershire sauce brands that you
Speaker 2: can buy, and I had no idea.
Speaker 1: There's a couple like.
Speaker 2: One Barrel Bourbon Barrel aged one from Bourbon Barrel Foods
Speaker 2: looks good, and there was one that's organic and vegan
Speaker 2: by Wizard the company called Wizard, two very different data
Speaker 2: points on the spectrum of mush. And then you've got Annie's,
Speaker 2: of course, which you'll maybe know from their expensive Macardi
Speaker 2: and cheese boxes, right Bunnies. But the one that interested
Speaker 2: me the most and I thought was really unusual, especially
Speaker 2: per our hot sauce conversation, Crystal, who makes you know
Speaker 2: that pure Louisiana hot sauce?
Speaker 1: They make a Worcestershire sauce. Okay, I'm in. I want
Speaker 1: to try it. I want to try them all.
Speaker 2: I really want to broaden my Worcestershire horizons.
Speaker 1: For our buddy Brenton Nol. What's the name of that
Speaker 1: bourbon Worcestershire Again, it.
Speaker 2: Is just called bourbon barrel aged from bourbon barrel foods.
Speaker 2: But if that one exists, I kind of imagine there's
Speaker 2: like a niche, kind of bespoke world of Worcestershire sauces,
Speaker 2: just like there is for hot sauce. But this one
Speaker 2: is literally it's called bourbon barrel aged by bourbon barrel foods.
Speaker 1: That's for you. That's for you, mister Smith. We also,
Speaker 1: it turns out we are not the only folks who
Speaker 1: have had fun trying to pronounce the name of this sauce.
Speaker 1: It was interesting learn. Twenty twenty one, lim Parents announced
Speaker 1: a marketing campaign called Speak Your Sauce And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: the little you know, the little paper that has the
Speaker 1: lim Perrens Worcestershire sauce or whatever on there, they took
Speaker 1: out the word worcesters and they put in just a
Speaker 1: blank and air quotes or quotation marks, because you know
Speaker 1: you're reading it, not speaking it. And they said this
Speaker 1: was a limited edition. They said, with how we'd Speak
Speaker 1: your Sauce bottles, we're officially embracing this struggle and celebrating
Speaker 1: all the different pronunciations because anyway you Worcestershire works for us.
Speaker 1: I don't love that they turned it into a verb.
Speaker 1: But what I speak your truth, speak your sauce. Oh boy, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you're right. It must be a speaker truth thing,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to pronounce it any particular way.
Speaker 1: Most people these days will know what you mean. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, guys, I am kind of pooped
Speaker 1: from saying Worcestershire over and over again. I shan't speak.
Speaker 1: It's the game counting this sentence. We have said the
Speaker 1: word Worcestersher well over thirty two times.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think that's respectable. Frankly, I don't think.
Speaker 1: We overdid it. Do you guys want to hear my
Speaker 1: take on sauce? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I can't have it because of the condition yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the condition.
Speaker 2: Well maybe we can, maybe we can tap the scientific
Speaker 2: community to make a condition say version of this fabled sauce.
Speaker 2: And I had one more to add that I think
Speaker 2: Brandon would also like. There is a company called Bear
Speaker 2: and Burton's and they make something called Wu Sauce, and
Speaker 2: it looks like it comes in a couple.
Speaker 1: Of different varieties.
Speaker 2: One of them is like a traditional America American Worcester,
Speaker 2: and the other one is called fire Shire, which would
Speaker 2: presumably be a spicy Worcestershire sauce.
Speaker 1: And it's apparently a very new brand.
Speaker 2: During the middle of the global pandemic, two fishermen this
Speaker 2: also sounds apocryphal, named Bear and Burton found themselves out
Speaker 2: of work with too much dime on their hands. They
Speaker 2: began experimenting with Nana's w sauce and the brand quickly
Speaker 2: took off.
Speaker 1: So now our count has to change. Now we've said
Speaker 1: it well over thirty two times. Worcestershire. Worcestershire. The word
Speaker 1: is haunting me, just like that mysterious sauce haunted some
Speaker 1: apocryphal British nobleman centuries ago.
Speaker 2: Can also get it in powder form, by the way,
Speaker 2: we didn't put that out. You can get it like
Speaker 2: in a spice blend packet kind of form.
Speaker 1: I love this stuff, man. I know, uh, you're on
Speaker 1: the road, but when you get back in our fair
Speaker 1: metropolis of Atlanta, we all got to get together. Let's
Speaker 1: let's go grab some food somewhere. Every time we do
Speaker 1: an episode, I get so hungry, almost grilling time, buddy,
Speaker 1: and nothing goes with it. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: haven't even talked about steak sauce because that's such a
Speaker 1: catch all, massive ball of wax there. But I like
Speaker 1: just a little bit of Worcester harsh sauce add to
Speaker 1: the count with my steak. Yeah, as a condiment, not
Speaker 1: just as a cooking implement. It's like a little dipping.
Speaker 1: I like a little little dipper, a little dipper, a
Speaker 1: little a zoo and uh, Avoi, folks, We're got you.
Speaker 1: Avois folks, becazo tight to you as well, we hope
Speaker 1: this finds you Guten tog uh yeah, yes, big vig.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed his bang and bop. Thanks also
Speaker 1: to our pal Brenton Smith. Brenton, we hope we did
Speaker 1: your proud huge Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this theme.
Speaker 2: Christopherrosiotis Eves Jeff cos Here in Spirit, the Quizitor, the
Speaker 2: Puzzler Man. I was eating Canter's Deli yesterday and UH
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, and I had a callback to a
Speaker 2: breakfast that AJ is the Puzzler and I had at
Speaker 2: Barney Greengrass in in the Upper West Side of New York,
Speaker 2: where we ordered a lock scrambled egg situation and I
Speaker 2: tried it at cancers and I say, AJ, it was.
Speaker 1: It was pretty on points.
Speaker 2: It's pretty on point, but nothing can match the memory
Speaker 2: of eating that breakfast with you.
Speaker 1: Shout out yeah, Shout out to A J Bahamas Jacobs.
Speaker 1: If you were listening, AJ, be well aware we might
Speaker 1: see you sooner than you think.
Speaker 2: Yes, we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.