Halford Leicestershire Table Sauce

Halford Leicestershire Table Sauce, also Halford sauce or Leicestershire sauce, was once as common a condiment in the United States as ketchup is today. The product was similar to Worcestershire sauce, with some recipes of the time using it interchangeably.

Bottled in England, this sauce was imported to the United States via Boston. While the company producing it went out of business, because of its previously ubiquitous status in the late 19th century, its bottles are still considered collectable today.

From an article in Donahoe's Magazine, January 1878:

This celebrated sauce, which has been advertised in our MAGAZINE for some time, is manufactured by Mr. William Halford, who was born in Leicester, the borough town of Leicestershire, England. In 1857 he came to Nova Scotia as Comptroller of the household of His Excellency the Earl of Mulgrave, now Marquis of Normandy, who was commissioned by the Queen Lieutenant Governor of that Province. The Earl had a recipe for a table-relish. The recipe was that of the far-famed “ Raby Hunt Sauce," which the duke of Cleveland (a distant relative of our president), at Raby Castle, the duke’s county seat, on occasion of the “meets " or assemblages of huntsmen and hounds (frequent during the season), caused to be used as a delicacy. To the earl of Mulgrave, now, by his father's death, Marquis of Normandy, the duke of Cleveland gave the recipe, and he, previous to leaving Nova Scotia for England to take his father‘s seat in the House of Lords, gave it to Mr. Halford. These explanations relative to the origin of the Halford Leicestershire Table Sauce are given to distinguish it from the many worthless articles vended, purporting to be relishes or sauces once owned or patronized by English noblemen. Mr. H. has always maintained that what is sauce for the goose is good for the gander.