Arrival

When I was a child living in the 50s in the UK, always, on our dining room table, was a square bottle of brown sauce that featured a label portraying the Houses of Parliament. If I was not sufficiently in awe by gazing at the seat of government complete with Big Ben, I could spy a small insignia and the words “By Appointment To Her Majesty the Queen”! How thrilling to think that the same bottle was appearing on the Royal table at Breakfast, Lunch, and Tea, just like at home! My vivid imagination pictured Her majesty, in her dressing-gown but wearing her crown, which I assumed that she would never remove, slathering the brown sauce liberally over her sausages. No one would dare 'to tell Her Majesty to go easy, other people at the table needed some sauce, and that the bottle cost money! No, she would just summon the butler and request another bottle. “Plenty more where that came from”, he would reply. In two shakes of a lamb's tail, another bottle would appear on the Royal table. “Your Royal wish is my command”, the butler would say, before clicking his heels and disappearing discreetly. My father would shock me by showing no signs of such patriotic loyalty, referring to the sauce as the Herbert Percival!

A year or so later, I became fixated in studying the back of the bottle, where, like so many of my fellow countrymen, I encountered my first introduction to a foreign language, namely French. If I remember correctly, it ran something like this: Cette sauce de haute qualité est un mélange de fruits orientaux, d'épices et de vinaigre de Malt. Délicieuse avec les viandes chaudes ou froides, poisson, jambon, fromage, hachis et ragôuts. I had to sweat over Collin's Little French dictionary to decipher this, you, Dear Reader, can enter it into your Google translate. Do not expect me to do all the work, I only write the Articles! I have heard rumours of a much inferior sauce being found in London workman's cafes, something called Daddies Sauce. My Father would not have let it past the front door! Just one more example of the lowering of standards to be found “Down South”. You could never trust them Cockneys, as any honest Yorkshireman would tell you. A few other sauces were given cupboard-room but sparingly used. Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, an essential ingredient in a strange alcoholic Cocktail, the naming of which showed dangerously Papish leanings, plus a word which was forbidden in a middle-class Protestant household, such as ours.

Mint Sauce was homemade. Elaine would be sent down the garden to gather the mint that grew under the apple tree, the leaves chopped, a little boiling water added, then left to brew, before the addition of malt vinegar. None of that chemicallooking white stuff in our house! Malt vinegar was the thing, When my father was in an exceptionally good mood, he would nip down to the local fishand-chip shop and return with this treat wrapped in newspaper. The table would be already set, plates warmed, salt and vinegar taking pride of place. None of that poncy lemon is needed. And as for chips and gravy, that was a horror I had never encountered until Fate brought me to these shores. To this day, I remain unreconciled to this gastronomic catastrophe! All that is needed on chips is a good sprinkling of salt, with malt vinegar on the battered fish. It smells so good! It would be even better with a dash of printer ink, but I suppose that's progress. Do not assume that all has displeased me since arriving in Australia. Yes, lemons do have their place, a necessary ingredient in the making of a good Oyster Sauce. Along with Soy sauce, which was new to me, but has since been found to be essential. The Chinese influence? And I am never without a bottle of Sweet Chilli Sauce in my pantry. The Asian influence is something all Aussies should be grateful for.

But what about that most famous sauce of all, I hear you cry. The red stuff, Mr Heinz'es gift to the World, Tomato Sauce, or Ketchup in upper-class circles! I could never tell the difference. I think it depends not only on your strata of society but also on your country of origin. In Australia, I heard, for the first time, the expression, “Pass the Dead Horse”. I had to ask my Australian husband to interpret this. Tomato Sauce, he said. “Sounds like Cockney Rhyming Slang”, I replied. Which was further evidence as to my father’s thoughts re the unreliability of them Southerners. We all know that Australia was populated by the criminal classes, Southerners to a man, bringing with them that distortion of the pure English tongue, as spoken by us good 'onest Yorkshire men.