The Secret Ingredient Is …

Posted on 23/05/2016 Updated on 23/05/2016

Here’s a sentence that not many people can say. “I have a job that I enjoy.”

Yes, you heard right. I actually enjoy my job. Okay so there are days when I could quite happily walk out, catch a bus to the coast and stare into nothingness and forget about work for month, but doesn’t everyone and there are of course times that I have not enjoyed work. Things may have gone wrong or some people may have rubbed me the wrong way, but the fact remains, I do enjoy my job.

It doesn’t take a genius to do what I do. I just make Worcestershire Sauce. The authentic , original and best. It’s a job that I am proud of and seems to get me some kind of respect in the city. I am not sure why mixing together a shed load of raw ingredients, leaving to mature and cooking them in a pre-determined fashion should result in me being thought of as anything other than an employee of a multinational billion pound company (Kraft-Heinz) but the people of Worcester seem to have a soft spot for the sauce.

It is kind of cool to know that there is a little bit of me in every corner of the world (Not literally. That would be bad.) I often get sent photos of bottles of Worcester sauce from friends on holiday. Pictures of the famous orange labeled bottle in Hawaii, Perth, Iceland, South Africa, America, Germany. It sounds sad and pathetic but I get a warm feeling when I know that every single bottle of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce has been made, at some point, in some way, by me. I’ve either prepared it, made it, cooked it (quite often, all three) or in some rare cases, bottled it. I have even been asked to sign a few bottles in the past…which was weird.

Devilishly handsomely guy on the right, three other people I work with and some guy called Jamie.

Being one of only a small handful of people who actually make the sauce can cause a bit of a problem. When people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I make Lea and Perrins Sauce, they almost always say “Oh, so you know the secret ingredient!?”
I have many replies for this.

The secret ingredient is Love. (Sweet huh!)
Yes, it’s blood, sweat and tears (Sounds a bit unhygienic)
Yes, but I can’t tell you. Sorry. (true, but boring)
No, The secret ingredient is delivered every Wednesday and Sunday by a man on horseback at the stroke of midnight in a sealed black box that only the descendants of either Mr Lea or Mr Perrin are allowed to open. (It doesn’t. That’s a lie)
Hmmm well it’s more of a special procedure that’s been passed down from generation to generation. (closer to the truth)
Yes, and I could tell you but would then have to kill you. (I wouldn’t. I would just probably lose my job, and be locked up.)
Yes, now shut up and leave me alone. (This is only in my head some of the time)