Worcestershire sauce

[deltadoc]

There was a long discussion on the fact that many people were suddenly noticing that the USA L&P Worcestershire was tasting sweeter than it used to and definitely not as good.

I found out that Heinz bought them. I called, and they claimed that they hadn't owned L&P long enough to be accountable for a change in flavor.

But I had 8 large bottles of it that I had bought 3-4 months earlier, and everyone of them didn't taste like the 'ol L&P that I've used for 50+ years now.

I found a recipe on a different forum that I use now for Worcestershire. I'd print it here but it would be copyright infringement.

doc

[Smithy]

I found a recipe on a different forum that I use now for Worcestershire.  I'd print it here but it  would be copyright infringement.

doc

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Can you post a link to it?

[melkor]

I'm not aware of a "correct" recipe for Worcestershire sauce. It's not clear (at least from their web site) that fermentation is part of how L&P makes their sauce today, nor is it necessarily required for characteristic flavor.

I'm not sure what the objection is to corn syrup, unless it's an allusion to the dreaded high-fructose corn syrup. Since my recipe calls for dark corn syrup, which is a combination of glucose and cane-sugar molasses, the association is misleading on the surface. Moreover, sugar (sucrose) in the presence of heat and acid would almost certainly invert some proportion of it, yielding fructose (and glucose) anyway. What's the big deal?

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This reply seems a bit harsh. The original poster asked:

I was curious to know if anyone has ever come across a recipe that would allow me to make and ferment my own, substituting sugar for the corn syrup.

Your recipe is neither fermented nor made without corn syrup. The wikipedia entry incidentally begins with:

Worcestershire sauce (IPA: /ˈwʊstə(ɹ)ʃ(ɪ)ə®/ ("wuster-shur" or "wuster-sheer")) is a widely used fermented liquid condiment originally manufactured by Lea & Perrins...

That seems to suggest your recipe makes a perhaps similar tasting, different product.

[Kouign Aman]

So, am I understanding this correctly?

Lea and Perrins invented Worchestershire sauce?

Or were they the first to bottle it?

It never occurred to me that it might be a product of fermentation - like soy sauce. Or that anyone would attempt to copy or reverse engineer it at home. Its always just been there, in the cupboard. A staple. What a fascinating project.

Now I'm going to have to put in an order from my source across the pond. Can you imagine the havoc a bottle of that stuff could wreak on a suitcase? But I want to do a side-by-side taste test, both neat and used in cooking.

[Tess]

Your recipe is neither fermented nor made without corn syrup.  The wikipedia entry incidentally begins with:

Worcestershire sauce (IPA: /ˈwʊstə(ɹ)ʃ(ɪ)ə®/ ("wuster-shur" or "wuster-sheer")) is a widely used fermented liquid condiment originally manufactured by Lea & Perrins...

That's an interesting article.

Often you'll hear that Worcestershire derived directly from (Roman) garum-- I see this article doesn't share that view.

[Jay Francis]

I bought a British L&P today at lunchtime. I can taste a world of difference between it and the American one, the flavor is much more complex. Interesting note, though. According to the British label, there aren't any chili peppers (these are listed in the American version). But the heat from the British Worcestershire sauce sure indicates to me that there are chilis. It just doesn't taste like the same heat one would get from black pepper. Well, it could be white pepper but I'm not sure. I have a gut feeling that there are chilis in the British one, too, just not listed. At any rate, white pepper is not listed either.

The British sauce, I've been glugging out of it all day, is really delicious. I am now addicted.

Edited August 27, 2007 by Jay Francis (log)

[Adam Balic]

So, am I understanding this correctly?

Lea and Perrins invented Worchestershire sauce?

Or were they the first to bottle it?

It never occurred to me that it might be a product of fermentation - like soy sauce. Or that anyone would attempt to copy or reverse engineer it at home. Its always just been there, in the cupboard. A staple. What a fascinating project.

Now I'm going to have to put in an order from my source across the pond. Can you imagine the havoc a bottle of that stuff could wreak on a suitcase? But I want to do a side-by-side taste test, both neat and used in cooking.

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The Wikipedia entry must have been made by a North American or Australian, I have never heard a British person say "Worcestershire" sauce, only "Worcester" sauce. The British made version lists "malt vinegar" I wonder if this is used in the USA version?

Lea and Perrins made the first "Worcestershire sauce" as they were based in Worcester, but it is one of many similar sauces that were popular at the period. Contact with Asia seems to have stimulated an interest in soy and ketchup (not a tomato sauce at this period) savoury sauces and producing similar sauces became a fashionable thing to do, a bit like how many people now have a special BBQ sauce.

These sauces and Roman/Greek garum are seperated by over a thousand years. They were not the same sort of product at all and unlikely to have tasted similar but in the way that they were used there was some overlap.

"Fermentation" implies bacterial action, I'm not sure that this is part of the process, but who knows.

[JAZ]

If you're interested in trying a US product that's made without HF corn syrup, you might try the new Tabasco brand worcestershire (ingredients: vinegar, molasses, water, cured anchovies, soy sauce, Tabasco pepper sauce, tamarinds, salt, onion, garlic, spices, sugar and natural flavoring). I ran across it today for the first time and picked up a bottle. Unfortunately, I'm out of Lea and Perrins, so I'll have to wait to do a taste comparison, but by itself and at first taste, it seems similar -- just a bit hotter. When I taste them side by side, I'll report back.

[deltadoc]

It never occurred to me that it might be a product of fermentation

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I can remember about, maybe, 30 years ago, that L&P Worcestershire had right on the label, "Aged 2 years".

I don't rightly recall when I stopped seeing that on the label, but I believe it was somewhere around the 1980's.

doc

[jackal10]

According to http://www.splishme.com/ its a prcess of maturing rather than fermenation. I guess more a chemical and oxidation process than a biological one.

[eskay]

As an aside, when my sister and I were young, we used to call Worcestershire sauce 'rooster sauce' cause it was easier to say But it's something that's completely fallen out of my kitchen vocabulary...I haven't had it in ages. Maybe I'll pick some up this winter.

[SundaySous]

I'm really glad this topic came up. After not cooking seriously for a good ten years I've taken it up again. It never dawned on me they changed the product. I thought it was me and old age or something.

I would of never thought of making my own.

And looking at my recently purchased bottle it says "Aged in wooden casks for 18 months."

[abooja]

I've been lurking for a while now, and finally saw fit to comment.

My boyfriend has severe food allergies, including allergies to corn, nuts, seeds, beans and all associated oils and extracts. Cooking for him has been quite a challenge, but I've managed using substitutions and plain old trickery. Worcestershire sauce was a problem for a long while because every version I could find contained corn syrup, like just about everything else in the supermarket these days. (Not for long, as I'm hoping the ethanol-related corn demand will cause food manufacturers to switch back to good old sugar.) I finally found that the Whole Foods 365 brand of Worcestershire does not contain corn syrup, so we've been using that ever since. Never having tasted any version on its own, I can't say exactly how it compares to the original, but it hasn't made anyone sick yet. (How's that for a product endorsement?)

BTW, I LOVE this place! I read the entire anti-dinner thread while at work the other day and was tittering uncontrollably throughout.

-- Lisa

Edited August 28, 2007 by abooja (log)

[Smithy]

I've been lurking for a while now, and finally saw fit to comment.

My boyfriend has severe food allergies, including allergies to corn, nuts, seeds, beans and all associated oils and extracts.  Cooking for him has been quite a challenge, but I've managed using substitutions and plain old trickery.  Worcestershire sauce was a problem for a long while because every version I could find contained corn syrup, like just about everything else in the supermarket these days.  (Not for long, as I'm hoping the ethanol-related corn demand will cause food manufacturers to switch back to good old sugar.)  I finally found that the Whole Foods 365 brand of Worcestershire does not contain corn syrup, so we've been using that ever since.  Never having tasted any version on its own, I can't say exactly how it compares to the original, but it hasn't made anyone sick yet.  (How's that for a product endorsement?)

BTW, I LOVE this place!  I read the entire anti-dinner thread while at work the other day and was tittering uncontrollably throughout. 

-- Lisa

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Great comment, abooja. Thanks for coming out of lurk mode, and welcome to eGullet!

[abooja]

Thanks very much for the welcome, Smithy!

[Smithy]

So...how about White Wine Worcestershire sauce? Is that strictly a Yank invention? I'd never heard of it until about 10 years ago. A couple of years ago they stopped calling it White Wine Worcestershire Sauce and started calling it Worcestershire Sauce for Chicken ("the Rooster Booster") instead. Lea & Perrins markets it as well.

Does anyone else here use it? My husband and I are always on about what a particular sauce needs. His flavor preferences run a bit sweeter than mine, and he'll often grab the White "woozy" (thanks, Anne) where I might have gone for the regular, or for something entirely unrelated. I must admit, though, that a pork steak drizzled with this particular sauce and then grilled can be pretty darned good.

[Dante]

Hmmm...the bottle of Annie's Naturals Worcestershire I have here has...

Water

Apple Cider Vinegar

Molasses

Soy Sauce

Sugar

Tamarind

Sea Salt

Chicory Root Extract

Corn Starch

Xanthan gum

Garlic

Shallots

Cloves

Chili powder

all but water, sea salt, chicory and xanthan listed as organic ingredients

Sincerely,

Dante

[JAZ]

I finally had a chance to taste the Tabasco and L&P side by side. Tasted alone, the Tabasco is (as I mentioned above) hotter, but it's also deeper tasing -- more rounded, I guess -- than the L&P. The L&P didn't taste sweeter, despite the high fructose corn syrup. It actually tasted brighter, more acidic.

When I mixed them with Clamato, the differences were much less obvious, although still there.

The biggest difference was actually in texture. The Tabasco is much more viscous. The only time I can see this making a big difference is in a glaze, or for basting over a burger, where you might want more viscosity.

[nickrey]

I was searching for recipes for BBQ sauce and came across this forum.

Intriguingly, it doesn't seem to have the story of how Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire sauce came about.

This is a quote from the company web site:

"The story of Lea & Perrins^® famous Worcestershire Sauce begins in the early 1800s, in the county of Worcester. Returning home from his travels in Bengal, Lord Sandys, a nobleman of the area, was eager to duplicate a recipe he'd acquired. On Lord Sandys's request, two chemists—John Lea and William Perrins made up the first batch of the sauce.

Lea and Perrins were not impressed with their initial results. The pair found the taste unpalatable, and simply left the jars in their cellar to gather dust. A few years later, they stumbled across them and decided to taste the contents again. To their delight, the aging process had turned it into a delicious, savory sauce."

From there, the sauce took off.

[David A. Goldfarb]

My father used to make a BBQ sauce that was mainly Worcestershire sauce and butter, maybe with a few other things like garlic, a little brown sugar, and I'm not sure what else, but interestingly, no tomato products. I make it like that occasionally.

[ojisan]

Update: no more High FructoseCorn Syrup

My old bottle of Lea & Perrins (expiration date 11/06) has the following ingredients:

vinegar; molasses; high fructose corn syrup; anchovies; water; onions; salt; garlic; tamarind extract; cloves; natural flavorings; chili pepper extract; hydrolyzed soy and corn protein.

My new bottle (expiration date 4/2013) boasts "All Natural" on the label and has the following:

distilled white vinegar; molasses; water; sugar; onions; anchovies; salt; garlic; cloves; tamarind extract; natural flavorings; chili pepper extract.

It was a surprise to find that something is now "better" than it used to be.

[Ufimizm]

I make this about once a year. I love this recipe Nola Cuisine Worcestershire Sauce

[Jan Virtanen]

I have a UK bottle and the ingredients are

Malt Vinegar (from Barley), Spirit vinegar, Molasses, Sugar, Salt, Anchovies, Tamarind extract, Onions, Garlic, Spice, Flavouring

Interesting. It has no wheat. I have been looking for gluten free Worcestershire Sauce. I can only find Heinz here but it has wheat

[Jan Virtanen]

Worcestershire Sauce has anjovis extract. I bet the anjovis part is fermented like nam pla.

[liuzhou]

On 2/18/2023 at 12:46 AM, lindag said:

Don't you just love to hear people grapple with 'Worcestershire'?

 

Strangely enough, Worcestershire sauce was taken on board in a big way in Shanghai back in the 1930s and is still part of Chinese cuisine to the extent that both the original and a Chinese clone are widely available. Rather sensibly, they generally just sinified Lea and Perrins which they could approximate in Chinese characters. The full name used is 李派林喼汁 (lǐ pài lín jié zhī) which is used to mean 'Lea and Perrin's ketchup' but is pretty meaningless, really. The name must have been dreamt up in Hong Kong as that 喼 (jié) character only exists in Hong Kong; not in Mandarin, the majority language.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by liuzhou (log)