Over the weekend we made an interesting colonial American recipe. Its from a chapter for sea captains in Hannah Glasse’s 1770 edition of the Art of Cookery. Called Catchup to last Twenty Years, I suspect it is a proto-Worcestershire sauce, used to enhance the flavor of a wide variety of foods. Its made from anchovies, lots of ginger and shallots, mushrooms, mace, cloves and pepper, brewed into a strong, stale beer. The recipe is interesting to me because it has tenuous roots back to the fish sauces of antiquity – like the Phoenician and Carthaginian garum – although this sauce is not salt-fermented.
Right now the taste of the sauce is extremely fishy with a spicy aftertaste. But it is darkening by the day into a rich ruddy brown. Soon I will put it in the cellar and forget about it for a while to see if the taste improves with age. Stay tuned for updates on its development.
Words and photo of Hannah Glasse recipe by Laura M. Kelley
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