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Tabasco and the British Monarchy
“The Queen [Mother], when she was told that there was no more Tabasco sauce, took the news philosophically.” — F.J. Corbitt — My Twenty Years in Buckingham Palace.
Based in Louisiana on Avery Island, Tabasco sauce has been with us for more than 150 years. Its creator Edmund McIlhenny came to Louisiana to seek his fortune in the banking industry, but the Civil War effectively put an end to that. With the end of his banking career, McIlhenny launched a new venture, a pepper sauce.
Through the good fortune of marriage, McIhenny found himself in possession of Avery Island, a small salt dome surrounded by marshland, that had once been used to grow sugar cane and for the mining of salt when it was discovered. Salt is still mined there today by the Cargill company, 2,000 ft below the surface. The distinctive boom of explosives dislodging it is still audible across the island each night.
During the Civil War, the island’s abundance of salt led it to be the centre of a bitter fight between the Confederate and Union armies. Originally supplying the Confederate army, the Union army would try and fail to take the island. Eventually the waning Confederacy could no longer hold onto it, losing a vital source of preservation for meat and other food stuffs.
Tabasco sauce is made from Tabasco Peppers, which, shockingly, come from Tabasco, a region in the Southwest of Mexico. So, Tabasco is made from Tabasco Peppers from Tabasco, got it? Some sources suggest it might not be that simple though, that Mclhenny’s original peppers came from another region in Central or South America. The truth, unfortunately, has been lost to history, but regardless of their origins, Tabasco peppers make up the only peppers used in the original sauce. They are the only chilli pepper whose fruits aren’t dry, which is what makes Tabasco unique among other pepper sauces and by 1870, this uniqueness had been recognised by the US patent office and McIhenny began selling his Tabasco sauce. Five generations later, his descendants continue to do so.
To make the sauce, peppers are grown on Avery island, picked once they are perfectly ripe, and are sent around the world Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique. Here they will be grown; salt will be added…
