On a visit to Sheffield, a city famous for its steel, outdoor enthusiasm, The Full Monty, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Mckee and The Arctic Monkeys, you would probably discover another of its (possibly less known) contributions to national glory and possibly its greatest legacy.
The table top condiment, Henderson’s Relish.
Locally the colloquial term is “Hendo’s”.
Although a possibly more accurate reference would be “Endo’s”.
Yorkshire folk, not renowned for being thriftless, are generally economical with letters, often finding the letter ‘H’ to be an extravagance and preferring to keep their words as short as possible (eg: “owt” – anything, “nowt” – nothing, “t” – the).
It’s been a fundamental weapon in my dry-store quiver, for most of my cooking years and is the background symphony of many a Sheffield meal.
If you’ve never tried it, to give it some context, its closest colleague is Worcestershire sauce, yet the two are distinctly different. In many ways it’s like using a badminton racket as the context to explain what a tennis racket is. There are clear similarities but if Rafael Nadal tried his best serve with a badminton racket, even I would be willing to take a punt at returning it.
I use it to help build out the base flavour in most tomato based dishes and it’s arguably a better ingredient for lifting a Bloody Mary along with Tabasco (another great ingredient) than the default option. It can give a white sauce that ‘je ne sais quois?”, the final finish to a rarebit (fancy cheese on toast) and is the ultimate gravy enhancer.
Not surprisingly it’s also the condiment of choice for a Yorkshire pudding (roast dinner optional).
When you get interested in food and start becoming more academically curious about the subject, an early awakening might be learning that there is actually a fifth enigmatic taste called umami.
It’s been a long time since I was at school but I can vaguely remember the lesson being taught about taste receptors. A massive picture of a tongue highlighted with the different taste zones of salty, sweet, sour and bitter.
In these earlier years the elephant in the room was a significant section in the middle of the tongue that apparently, didn’t taste anything at all. Admittedly this was still the era when second hand smoke and lead infused petrol fumes were considered benign, so a claim of only four key tastes was one of the less crucial scientific blind spots.
It wasn’t until 1990 that Umami was recognised as the official fifth taste, despite the Japanese suspecting it was a thing since the early 1900s and probably a fair bit longer until it found its way into the school syllabus.
Not wanting to bore people with the science of umami, at its simplest its just a kind of tastiness. It’s the experience of a full satisfying savoury flavour picked up by the central regions of the tongue.
As you dig into cultural cuisines, there are often recurring ingredients, high in umami, that manage to frequently creep into everyday meals, or find their way to be one of those indispensable elements of a laid table.
Across Europe cheeses, tomatoes and cured meats are rich in umami and play a leading role throughout cuisines from Spain, to Italy (where Parmesan is the Lionel Messi of team umami). Heading further north into the more challenging climates of long dark winters and umami can be found in extensive cured and fermented ingredients, created to meet the challenge of the limited growing seasons and a long shelf life.
Shifting into Asia, Indian cuisine also leverages tomatoes, synergistically combined with roasted onions and layers of spice. Further east we have ingredients like the infamous MSG, miso paste, soy sauce, gochujang, fish sauce, shrimp paste, bonito flakes, oyster sauce, kimchi or dried shiitake mushrooms.
Across South America we have exotic dried chillis and pastes, dried meats and Mole sauce, over to Africa and into the Middle East we have the complex and varied pastes like Harissa, Urfa chilli paste and Chermoula, which often leverage a combination of ingredients to create an umami effect.
A truly universal condiment with an especially engineered umami profile and globally consumed, is of course the transcendent cultural phenomenon know as Tomato Ketchup.
It seems almost everyone has their national umami treasure, or at least, a well established umami toolkit.
In the UK it’s unfortunate that probably one of our most prominent umami creations is Marmite, a spread so polarising that it defined its marketing slogan “Love it or Hate it” and if it was ever declared a culinary national treasure, we could possibly find ourselves in civil war.
For the record I’m not a lover.
However we are fortunate that locally in Sheffield we can lay claim to our own contribution to national cuisine which although less broadly known, is a strong contender on the stage of global flavour enhancers.
Hendo’s packs a whollop of savoury flavour and stands proud next to the dining table royalty of salt and pepper, across homes and businesses alike. Adding to its CV is suitable for Vegans, which its closest rival Worcestershire sauce can’t claim and suitable for gluten sufferers too, so it isn’t just the meat pie clan that get to indulge in its delights.
The Henderson’s Relish label has become an iconic emblem of Sheffield culture and a local culinary tradition, especially around classic feeds like pie, Sunday roast or fish and chips. The kitchen cupboard of any Sheffield home just isn’t complete without it.
If you’ve never tried it, I suggest you treat yourself and go get yourself a bottle.
