It was pleasing to see recent Bangkok Post letters praising that most noble of institutions, HP Sauce. One reader even called it "the best condiment ever produced", although one suspects the French might have something to say about that. Perhaps more realistically, the Daily Mail calls it "a sticky brown liquid".
HP, which once billed itself as "the official sauce of Great Britain", still maintains an aura of "Britishness", even though since 2005 it has been made in the Netherlands and Spain by Heinz, an American company. According to a recent survey, 40% of Britons still think HP is made in the UK.
But at least it originated in Britain. The recipe was developed by Nottingham grocer Frederick Garton, who named it HP after learning it had been spotted in a restaurant at the Houses of Parliament.
The iconic label, featuring Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, may have helped the popularity of the product. HP was also quaintly advertised as a "Husband Pleasing" sauce. It received the ultimate seal of approval in the 1960s when the satirical magazine Private Eye adopted the name HP Sauce for its political column.
Wilson's gravy
One famous personage who was said to be quite partial to HP Sauce was former British prime minister Harold Wilson.
One day his wife Mary told the Sunday Times, "If Harold has a fault, it is that he will drown everything with HP Sauce." In fact he had a few more faults than that, but henceforth the sauce was widely referred to in the 1960s as "Wilson's gravy".
Wilson was quite happy to be linked to the sauce as it boosted his "man of the people" image. However in a banquet speech delivered in 1975 Wilson said he actually preferred Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.
French revision
One curiosity in those days was that part of the label describing the sauce was in French. It began: "Cette sauce de haute qualite est un melange des espice orientaux," which admittedly sounds more impressive than "brown sauce".
The use of French was a bit odd as across the Channel they turned their noses up at English food and France wasn't regarded as a serious market for "Wilson's gravy".
Apparently, using French was a marketing ploy by the HP company to make the English feel like they were consuming something exotic. But in 1984 they dropped the French script, sparking howls of outrage from HP lovers and prompting the following letter to the Times: "Sir: Am I alone among your readers in deploring the loss of that much loved and most piquant of French primers _ the label on the HP Sauce bottle?
"If unfortunate circumstances decreed there was nothing else to read at the breakfast table, one could always turn to the HP Sauce bottle for a little French revision. It will be sadly missed.
"Dr JH Hunter, Frampton-on-Severn, Gloucestershire."
Going for a song
So popular had become the French script on the HP label that in 1969 English comedian Marty Feldman used the words to perform A Song For Sauce Lovers in the passionate style of Jacques Brel. It's on YouTube and quite hilarious, although admittedly just looking at Feldman is enough for most people to crack up _ his bulging eyes are something else.
The sauce also appeared in As Long As I Can, a 1979 song by Gilbert O'Sullivan _ remember him? It includes the immortal lines: "I think it's only fair/to point out that despite its faults/England still has HP Sauce."
They don't write lyrics like that these days.
HP even got a mention in a poem by poet laureate John Betjeman.
Seduced by spice
As a nipper, I preferred tomato ketchup, probably because it was sweeter. But on growing older, the spicier flavour of HP became more appealing. In fact it ended up being sloshed on nearly everything. The standard British meal in those days was rather dull _ meat and two veg _ and required generous lashings of something to liven it up a bit, and HP usually did the trick. And the ingredients, which included exotic things such as dates, molasses and tamarind, certainly added to the appeal.
To get into the spirit of things for today's column, I diligently tucked into a bacon sandwich with healthy lashings of HP. I must say the sauce went down a treat, and so it should at 130 baht a bottle. Of course it is not to everyone's taste and one website refers to it as "vinegary, vile stuff". Sniffing it is also not recommended. However, like the durian, it tastes better than it smells.
Recipe for disaster
When I was first in Thailand it was hard to get HP unless you had access to the American PX. I recall in the early '70s discovering a precious HP bottle in a small shop on Sukhumvit Road, which did not normally stock the product. I felt like I had struck gold. In celebration I indulged in a big fry-up, opened up the bottle and proceeded to pour a dollop on the side of the plate. Alas, "pour" was the operative word, as the sauce had been adulterated with water and the entire contents sloshed all over the plate, totally drowning the meal.
I would never make a TV chef.
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