Tabasco, Its Romantic History

TABASCO ITS ROMANTIC HISTORY ~

~~~~tad~& And 75 Recipes from the Famous Tabasco Collection

Tabasca-The 'iVay It Began

1

To Bring You Tabasco

4

Recipes and Helpful Hints.

10

Appetizers

12

Entrees

15

Hints for Using Tabasca

17

Seafoods .

20

Sauces and Dressings.

24

Specialites

29

Avery Island

33

Copyright 196 1 Mc ilhenny Company , Avery Island , La. Printed in U. S. A.

IN 1848, at the conclusion of the Mexican War, quite a few of our victorious h'oops remained in Mexico to seek their fortunes. One of these is now known to history only by his last name-Gleason. He worked his way south from Mexico City where he found conditions to his liking, so he settled and stayed there for five years. Then love of home prevailed, and the ex-soldier sailed back to the United States. Landing in New Orleans, he met Mr. Edmund McIlhenny and gave him some pepper seeds from southern Mexico, which he said would produce a pepper pod of especially fine flavor and color. Mr. McIlhenny was a lover of well-seasoned food, and immediately planted these choice pepper seeds. Later, some of the resulting plants were taken to the family plantation on Avery Island, Louisiana, and grown in the kitchen garden for household use. Edmund McIlhenny began experimenting with condiments made from the peppers, and soon the family and friends were enjoying the results of these excursions into the realm of culinary seasoning. But again war played a part in the development of Tabasco as we know it today . . . . . . the War between the States. Mr. McIlhenny took a prominent part in supporting the Southern cause. Eventually, southern Louisiana was captured by

Union forces under General Banks, and the family was banished from the state. Leaving the gracious plantation home on Avery Island, the Averys and the McIlhennys traveled by wagon train to south central Texas, where they remained until peace was proclaimed. After the war, they found home a vastly different place from the prosperous island empire they had left. Homes . . . sugarhouses ... saltworks burned to the ground; the family fortune gone. Indeed, these Southerners had money for only the barest necessities, and few of those. But love of fine food does not surrender easily. Even though the fare on the family table was reduced to stark simplicity, Edmund McIlhenny determined it should never suffer for lack of flavor. Surviving war, invasion, burnings- there still grew on Avery Island a number of pepper plants grown from the seeds presented Mr. McIlhenny by the ex-soldier Gleason upon his return from Mexico. Using these peppers, Mr. McIlhenny continued his experiments with seasonings and developed a pungent sauce to bring added flavor to the simple foods available in the family kitchen. This sauce was destined to become the traditional southern Louisiana flavor. Among those who tried it was General Hazzard, Federal Administrator for south Louisiana. A warm friendship grew between the two men, and General Hazzard persuaded Mr. McIlhenny to give him several bottles of the sauce for family and friends in the north. General Hazzard's brother, Mr. E. C. Hazzard of New York, was head of the largest wholesale grocery house in the United States. He immediately realized that here was a Havor destined for fame far beyond the neighborhood of the Avery Island plantation. Soon Mr. Hazzard arranged with Mr. McIlhenny to make and pack a quantity of the sauce, and ship it by steamboat from New Orleans to New York, to be distributed by his company. 2

Thus began the marketing of a famous product which no longer could be referred to simply as "that wonderful sauce Mr. McIlhenny makes." A name was now needed and a fanciful title was selected-TABASCO. (Editor's Note: The word TABASCO has been used as the exclusive trademark for the pepper sauce made by McIlhenny Company since 1868 and is registered in the U. S. Patent Office. No other product has the right to use the word TABASCO unless licensed by the McIlhenny Company.) \iVithin four years, the fame of Tabasco had spread from A very Island to New York, and on to Europe. The first foreign agency of Tabasco was established in Soho Square in London. From there, the fame of Tabasco became worldwide, and before long it could be found in every civilized country of the world . . . and some that were not so civilized. In fact, when Lord Kitchener submitted his report to the British Government on the conquest of Khartoum, h e stated that Tabasco was found further in the d esert than any other modern food product. (Editor's Note: In the early days of Tabasco the peppers from which it is made were not known as a distinct variety. However, the unusually fine flavor and color of the sauce they produced indicated that perhaps here was something new and different. In 1888, Dr. E. L. Sturtevant, a botanist of Geneva, New York, described a new variety of pepper from a specimen received from Mr. McIlhenny. Appropriately enough, he adopted the name of the sauce produced from these peppers by Edmund McIlhenny under the trademark TABASCO. Dr. Sturtevant's description of tabasco pepper is depOSited with the St. Louis Botanical Gardens and is part of their herbarium records .) Such a success story must have a reason. And you will be interested to read about that reason-the way Tabasco is made.

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