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How to know and love H P Sauce

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H P Sauce- the king of sauces.

H P Sauce- don't you just love it? Or maybe you hate it? Or maybe you've no idea what H P Sauce is? H P sauce is a very British sauce, but people around the world have grown to love H P sauce. HP sauce is at it's best on sausages and steaks. In the winter months, a great dollop of HP sauce makes sausage and mash just so tasty. They say to "write about things you love"- I love HP sauce and after reading this, I hope you'll love HP sauce too.
H P sauce was invented by a grocer called Frederick Gibson Garten in Nottingham, in the UK in the 1870s using ingredients that were imported into the UK from the British Empire .
H P Sauce included ingredients pretty exotic at the time, such as tamarind, dates and molasses. Garten registered the name HP Sauce in 1895, claiming that Houses of Parliament ( home of the UK government) had started serving it. He had the brilliant idea of decorating the bottle with the famous picture of the Houses of Parliament.
A nearby vinegar manufacturer Edwin Samson Moore bought both the H P sauce recipe and the H P sauce brand in 1903 for £150, and relaunched HP sauce as part of a new company, which later developed into the HP Food company.
H P sauce is my #1 favorite condiment!
H P sauce has long been the favorite of the brown sauces in the UK and Canada.
If you live in the USA, and if you haven't tried H P sauce, it is now easy to buy on Amazon!
Here is some more information on H P sauce, why I love H P sauce, and how to use H P sauce!

Buy your H P Sauce at Amazon

Yes, Amazon stocks H P sauce

Buy some H P sauce now from Amazon.
Add HP sauce to casseroles and stews for extra flavor.
H P Sauce, 15-Ounce Plastic Bottles (Pack of 4)

H P Sauce, 15-Ounce Plastic Bottles (Pack of 4)

Amazon Price: $19.99 (as of 06/01/2012)Buy Now

The iconic H P sauce bottle ( well, actually , it's plastic, not the original glass, but everything else is the same)

H P , the king of brown sauces.

H P was always on the table when I was a child.

"Brown Sauce"- not a name to thrill the taste buds!
However, growing up in England in the 1950s and early 1960, food was pretty dull. Following the rationing and shortages of the war, we had a very simple "meat and 2 veg" diet. H P sauce brightened up our everyday meals.
My mother was a good cook, but raw materials were very limited.
Tuesday would be egg and chips ( fries in the US) with H P sauce. Thursday was sausage and mash- with H P sauce.( H P sauce is great with Cumberland sausage
H P sauce starred with the Bacon Buttie ( hot bacon sandwich) , and with all full English cooked breakfasts.
We had H P sauce with cold ham and salad, H P sauce was added to traditional Lancashire hot pot , stews and casseroles.
There was another brown sauce called "Daddies Sauce", but this was not a patch on the H P sauce.
Now that summer's on it's way, why not try HP sauce with your steaks, sausages and grills? It's a great sauce for the BBQ.

H P Sauce in the news!

Well, in the 1913 newspapers!

Here is an advert for H P sauce from 1913. H P sauce was actually quite expensive, and regarded as a new, upmarket addition to a meal.
Advert Players H P Sauce Pebeco Purgen Old Print 1914

Advert Players H P Sauce Pebeco Purgen Old Print 1914

Amazon Price: $25.73 (as of 06/01/2012)Buy Now

Adverts from before the first world war for cigarettes and HP sauce. You can buy this old treasure from Amazon.

Is HP sauce in the News?

HP sauce controversy!

If the press has been writing about HP sauce you'll find their words of wisdom here.
Golden Wonder ties with Heinz to launch Tomato Ketchup and HP sauce flavours
Golden Wonder has teamed up with Heinz to launch Heinz Tomato Ketchup and HP Sauce flavour crisps in 32.5g bags, priced at 39p. According to Golden Wonder, further special edition flavours will be introduced to the range throughout the year.
Social mobility: the perils of the up escalator
It's like Ken Barlow in the first episode of Coronation Street, cringing at the bottle of HP sauce on the table: trainee teachers don't do brown sauce. The gains of social mobility have, personally speaking, outweighed the costs, and will continue to ...
Museum expert takes nostalgic look back at historic advertising in talk
The company has designed and produced imagery for firms such as Cadbury's Chocolate, HP Sauce and Kunzle cakes. There will also be a look at some of the striking posters created for firms further afield, including Quaker Oats and Star Lager of Nigeria.
Corporate raider checks in with IHG
His campaign for efficiencies at Heinz, in which he berated executives for everything from the bad design of ketchup packets to inefficient operations, was blamed for the closure of that company's HP Sauce factory in Birmingham.
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H P Sauce on the web

Great links to H P sauce websites, lots of tips and recipes

H P Sauce is all over the internet! So to speak!
Please keep H P Sauce away from your computer- or you might find H P sauce literally all over the internet
Sorry, I'm being a bit silly here, but if you take a look at these websites you might get in the silly mood too.
Recipes! Tips! Use H P for your BBQ! Add H P to salad dressings! Put H P on your curries and casseroles!
Love H P ? Check out these sites.
H P UK Sauce Weekend Pleasure website
H P sauce in the UK has a really great website- Spamalot features highly at the moment- HP sauce have a special edition bottle out to celebrate the Monty Python based Musical.
Lots of other HP stuff here! Take a look.
The Canadian H P Sauce website
This is another totally brilliant H P sauce website.The Canadian H P sauce website has lots of great tips, recipes, information and fun!
Brown Sauce.org
Brown Sauce is a really great blog for all lovers of brown sauce. HP sauce stars on the brown sauce blog.
It's a fun blog- take a look!
The writer of this blog has actually contacted my and left a message here!
HP sauce on Wikipedia
As you would expect, Wiki has all the info about HP sauce you need to know.

Have you decided to go for H P sauce? Here's a BIG bottle

H P Sauce for your BBQ?

If you haven't tried H P Sauce yet, why not try it for your next BBQ? It's much nicer than other "brown sauces", including the favorite US steak sauce ( in my opinion!) HP makes a great barbecue sauce.HP sauce is great on ribs, chicken, steak, pork- all sorts of meat, especially grilled meat or barbecue meat is improved by a dollop of H P sauce
Hp Catering 4 Liters

Hp Catering 4 Liters

Amazon Price: $79.95 (as of 06/01/2012)Buy Now

A big bottle of H P sauce to see you through a few BBQs now that summer is here.

The H P sauce bottle in French! Strange but true.

Many people's first contact with the French language was reading the H P sauce bottle!

For much of the 20th century, for reasons that seem unknown, one side of the HP sauce bottle was written in French!

"Cette sauce de premier
choix possède les plus
hautes qualités digestives.

C'est un assortiment de
fruits d'Orient, d'épices et
de Vinaigre de 'Malt' pur.

Elle est absolument pure,
appétissante et délicieuse
avec les viandes chaudes
ou froides:

POISSON,
JAMBON,
FROMAGE,
SALADE, &c,

et pour relever le goût des
SOUPES,
HACHIS,
RAGOÛTS, &c." ( please take a look at the YouTube video below for the classic song of this text by Marty Feldman)

There must be many people of my age for whom this was the first contact with French! When this was eventually removed in the 1980, many letters were sent to the letter page of The Times Newspaper ( today it would be on Twitter) . Here is an example-
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 that 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.

Marty Feldman sings French- la sauce H P !

If you have never seen this classic spoof take a look now.

Monty Fellman was a brilliant comic, sadly no longer with us.
Here, he takes the French text from the side of the H P Sauce bottle, and sings it in the classic mournful French style favored by Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel.
Marty Feldman still makes me laugh, and this song is so absurd- I just love it. Please listen!
Marty_Feldman_A_Song_for_Sauce_Lovers-Aznavour_parody.flv
by schneidergott | video info

15 ratings | 4,381 views
curated content from YouTube

H P Sauce- get the Apron!

UK HP sauce lovers can buy H P Sauce aprons

H.P. Sauce Goes With Bacon - Retro Cotton Apron


A must for your summer BBQ cooking.
STOP PRESS- now in the U.S. too- see below!

Who loves H P Sauce?

The British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, claimed to love HP sauce, and in the 1960s and 1970s, H P sauce became known as "Wilson's Gravy"
Tom Hanks and Mike Tyson are said to be HP fans, as is Sam Mendes, who worked it into one of his movies.
Chef Jamie Oliver also apparently loves it, though he doesn't actually advertise HP sauce.
H P Sauce has the label "by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen" Lots of traditional items have been awarded the "by appointment" accolade. We're not sure if the Queen and Prince Philip use H P sauce themselves, but suely it would be popular amongst the Royals with a hearty British Breakfast?
Poet Laureate John Betjeman mentions H P sauce in one of his poems-
I pledge her in non-alcoholic wine
And give the HP Sauce another shake.
- John Betjeman, from Collected Poems (1958).
Sadly, this iconic British sauce had been through many changes of ownership in recent years. The original factory in Birmingham, UK has closed, and H P is now owned by Heinz, and made in the Netherlands.
H P sausage goes really well with sausages- especially my personal favorite Cumberland Sausage

H P sauce- do you care ?

Love H P , hate H P , don't care about H P ?

H P Sauce- what do you think?

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H P sauce and other sauces on Squidoo

Here are some of my favorite sauce lenses

If you know of a great sauce lens ( must come in bottles- not home made !) please let me know.
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I love H P sauce on a bacon butty

Bacon butties were made for H P sauce

Here are some great lenses about the bacon butty- bacon sandwich.
Do you use H P sauce or Ketchup, or mayber mustard on your bacon butty? Take a look at these lenes and join the debate!
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Buy your barbecue sauces from ebay for great bargains

Let ebay help make your barbecue great

HP sauce for your barbecue? If you don't to use HP sauce ( why not!?) you can pick up some great barbecue sauces on ebay.
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H P Sauce- a great sauce-what do you think?

Please leave me your H P sauce thoughts.

I hope that you take the time to check out the HP links, and to watch the H P song by Marty Feldman.
H P sauce doesn't take itself too seriously- neither does this lens!

  • alex89 May 4, 2012 @ 3:41 pm | delete
    I just had a steak sandwich with HP on it for breakfast, I use it instead of ketchup on most things, and its fantastic with eggs and bacon or sausage :)
  • HPharry Apr 18, 2012 @ 4:30 pm | delete
    Great work, sharing the HP sauce legend with the world! Try www.redorbrown.co.uk for more sauce thoughts!
  • Adrijan Feb 16, 2012 @ 5:58 am | delete
    Super lens tnx
  • CDT Oct 18, 2011 @ 11:08 am | delete
    Wonderful stuff!
  • fanfreluche Oct 16, 2011 @ 2:51 am | delete
    Regarding the French language on the bottle: it was for the French-Canadian market. In Canada all product sold must have bilingual text. And the word Hachis is typically French Canadian, not French from France. I think that after 1980, what might have happen is that HP had its sauce packaged in Canada instead of sending its bottle directly. Blessed.
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Mmmm H P sauce . I love it!
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H P sauce was invented just 20 years after Wordsworth... more »

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Here's the book for HP sauce fans 

The HP sauce cook book

The HP Sauce Cookbook (Storecupboard series)

The HP Sauce Cookbook (Storecupboard series)

by: Paul Hartley

Amazon Price: $4.82 (as of 06/01/2012)Buy Now

This wonderful book gives you great recipes for using the legendary HP sauce.

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H P sauce is a very British sauce 

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