Subject: Wow Wow Sauce

From: [email-masked] (Joel Polowin)
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 17:51:58 GMT

The library finally turned up an original source for the Wow Wow Sauce
recipe.  The modern version I reported earlier was not so much incorrect
as incomplete and vague.  Here's the original:

>From _Enquire Within Upon Everything_, 26th ed., by Robert Kemp Philp;
Houlston and Wright, London, 1865.

Pg. 285:

   2005. Wow Wow Sauce.-- Chop parsley leaves fine; take two or three
   pickled cucumbers, or walnuts, and divide into small squares, and set
   them by in readiness; put into a saucepan butter as big as an egg;
   when it is melted, stir into it a tablespoonful of fine flour, and
   half a pint of the broth of the beef; add a tablespoonful of vinegar,
   one of mushroom ketchup, or port wine, or both, and a teaspoonful of
   made mustard; simmer together till it is as thick as you wish, put
   in the parsley and pickles to get warm, and pour it over the beef, or
   send it up in a sauce-tureen.  This is excellent for stewed or boiled
   beef.

_Enquire Within ..._ does not give a recipe for "mushroom ketchup".
It does, however, have a recipe for stewed mushrooms, and also the
following in its section on sauces:

Pg. 282:

   1981. Essence of Mushroom.-- This delicate relish is made by sprinkling
   a little salt over either flap or button mushrooms;-- three hours
   after, mash them,-- next day strain off the liquor that will flow
   from them, put it into a stewpan, and boil it till it is reduced one
   half.  It will not keep long, but is preferable to any of the ketchups
   containing spice, &c., to preserve them, which overpowers the flavour
   of the mushrooms.  An artificial mushroom bed will supply these all
   the year round.

The instructions near the beginning of the book for distinguishing safe
mushrooms from poisonous ones are rather interesting and, I suspect,
not too reliable.  I know that there are some poisonous mushrooms out
there that do *not* have a bitter flavour...

Joel
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