HP Sauce is a glorious thing. The French may have their five, gastronomic Mother Sauces but we in this sceptered isle have HP and that’s what counts. Because nobody wants a pool of hollandaise with their Full English.
It first appeared on our dining tables in the late nineteenth century and has since grown to account for three-quarters of sales in our brown sauce market. Its story begins in 1884, when a Nottingham grocer, Frederick Gibson Garton invented the sauce in his pickling factory in New Basford (later also the home of Cussons Imperial Leather soap). It was a classic culinary product of Empire, with tomatoes, tamarind, dates, molasses and soy amongst its ingredients. Then it was simply a case of blending these ‘most delicious oriental fruits and spices with a suitable proportion of pure malt vinegar’ and voilà.
Garton trademarked his tasty concoction in 1890 as ‘The Banquet Sauce’. Lofty ambitions perhaps, but why not?
Garton trademarked his tasty concoction in 1890 as ‘The Banquet Sauce’.
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