I’ve been struggling with a cold lately, and although I don’t like taking medications, I finally relented last night after a few nights of little sleep. I chose the medication which I thought would make me the most drowsy - the one which informs the user not to operate any heavy machinery after taking it. “No chance of that!” I thought, and took one at about 11:00pm. Shortly after, I slipped into bed and was soon fast asleep.

Sometime later in the night, I began to have some fantastic dreams - all featuring HP sauce (and quite innocently so, I should add)! :-O I won’t go into any more detail than they did give me a few (more) ideas for the site. The more I thought about the dreams however, the harder it was NOT to think about them. It reminded me of days where I’d be studying for an exam until late at night only to struggle for hours trying to get to sleep - and then lying there, trying hard to think about anything other than what I’d spent all evening trying so hard to get into my head in the first place. In the end, I woke up in the dark at about 2:30am with one of our cats purring loudly beside me…

With with camera in hand, I headed back to the shop yesterday to investigate this mystery bottle of sauce. I walked straight to the isle I’d been to the day before, hoped no one was looking at me on the security cameras, or those HUGE round mirrors located in the upper reaches of each corner. I took out my camera and snapped a series of pictures of this “Pride of the World” mystery sauce.

With the deed done, I picked up a bottle and took it up to the front where the woman I’d spoken to the day before was pricing some items. “Ahh, you came back!” she said with a smile “..have you tried that butter chicken packet you purchased yesterday?”. “Erm, not yet” I said, trying not to look suspicious with my dust covered bottle of sauce in one hand, camera in the other. The man behind the till took the bottle, actually rubbed the lid down with the sleeve of his shirt to see the price label better and rung it up. Odd they didn’t charge me any tax on it. confused look

Back in the car, I gave the bottle a more thorough going over, and it quickly became apparent that this sauce has very little to do with HP - other than attempting to be a copy-cat at least…

The House of Parliament I had remembered seeing the day before turned out to be what looks like a cathedral of sorts. Turning the bottle to see the right side shows the ingredients listed in French. On the left the ingredients in English are displayed with “SHAKE WELL” underneath. That explains it being separated like it is! Below that is U.K./Prepared For/Trademark of TRITAP FOOD BROKERS.

Now had I looked at all this properly when I was at the store the first time, I probably would’ve left it there. Still my attempts to google for anything that remotely looks or describes this product has so far come up short. I half expected to find mention of another brand of sauce which is most likely very common in the UK, but nothing. A search for TRITAP FOOD BROKERS lists a few hits, one of which has nothing more than the company name and a phone number. Another hit tells of the www.tritap.com domain name as having expired.

I did do a brief search for HP Sauce on ebay which revealed just how little I really know of the history of the stuff. Several people list very very old bottles dating back (in some cases) over 100 years. So much for my theory that HP introduced a sauce to Canada only some 30 years ago under another label.

Still, what’s up with this oddball sauce? If you recognise the label, please use the contact form and bring me up to speed on this! Thanks

At lunch hour today, a co-worker and I went for cheap Chinese buffet at a restaurant located about 10 minutes away from us. It’s not a place we normally frequent, but it works well when the preferred Chinese restaurant up the road is closed - as it is every Wednesday it turns out.

Next to the Chinese buffet is a small Indian grocery/video store. Ever since I first spotted the place, I’ve wanted to venture in and have a look around, and I’m reminded of this every time I end up at this Chinese restaurant. It inevitably turns out however that I’m either with people who don’t necessarily want to go in, or I’ve have simply forgot about the place until I’m well on my way back to work. Today I wanted to change that, and managed to convince my (somewhat reluctant) co-worker to come with me. I won’t mention his name here - protect the innocent and all that.

We ventured in, and the place is packed to the rafters. One side of the room is shelved with various food items, the other with thousands of video titles. Browsing through the first food isle, we both ask the question “I wonder if they have any HP Sauce in here? And if they do, perhaps they stock the curry variety??”. This particular variety has so far not been spotted “in the wild” on local grocery store shelves. It turns out at the end of the isle, there were 4 bottles which caught my eye.

The bottle looks like a traditional glass HP Sauce bottle and on it is the familiar British House of Parliament. It wasn’t labelled “HP Sauce” rather it read “#1 UK Steak Sauce”. Around the neck of the bottle was a Union Jack and it had a white plastic twist off cap. On the side of the label it was marked being imported into Canada and the french on the bottom of the label also helps to confirm that it was in fact made for the Canadian market. The bottle itself was covered in a layer of dust, and on closer inspection, the contents inside had separated! How long do you think it takes for HP Sauce to separate like this? 30 years? That’s how old I’m guessing this stuff is… The fact it’s on the shelf of a Indian food/video store is also intriguing. Oh yes, the price was marked at $1.99.

Could these bottles represent the first introduction of HP Sauce to Canada? Could that be why it’s labelled as the “#1 UK Steak Sauce” as an introduction to a then “new market”? Unfortunately I didn’t bring one back with me and I’m now kicking myself for it! It’d be easy to look on the side of the bottle to determine if in fact this product came from HP Foods. sigh

Tomorrow I’ll go back and I’ll pick up at least one bottle. In the mean time, it’s googling time…

I’ve received a lot of great feedback on the “ski sauce” picture lately, most of it sounding much like “awwww, isn’t it cuuuuute…”. It is indeed, thanks again Nelson!

Rumour has it there are more pictures on their way from those traveling abroad - so stay tuned!

In the past 3 days I’ve made 2 more of those 7 layer caseroles. The HP Sauce flows like water at ours lately. lol

Back to things non site related.

After some googling for that rollerskating movie, I’ve pretty much convinced myself the movie in question is called “Roller Boogie” from 1979. Even if this doesn’t turn out to be the movie in question, I just love the synopsis as given by www.movietome.com:

“Terry Barkley is a rich Beverly Hills teen who is ignored by her parents and bored with her status as a “musical genius.” She’s on her way to Juilliard, but all she wants to do is have fun. So, along with her snobby friend Lana, Terry decides to take up roller skating to disco music at Venice Beach. This is where she meets Bobby James, a whiz on wheels who steals her heart. Of course, Terry’s parents are appalled that she would be romantically interested in a “common” person. But Terry is feisty, and she and Bobby soon join forces to win a big Roller Boogie contest. However, they must first save everybody’s favorite roller rink, Jammer’s, from destruction by Thatcher, an evil corporate goon. He wants to knock down Jammer’s and build a mini-mall. So the kids band together, all the while flailing around on skates, and try to stop Thatcher and his gang from buying out Jammer and ruining their chances at the big boogie contest.”

My search for an actual physical copy of the movie has been so far unsuccessful however. So far I’ve searched 2 large video rental stores and embarrassed myself in customer line-ups when asking the clerk “Do you have the 70’s movie ‘Roller Boogie’?” which inevitably leads to giggles from someone! Mental note - in future, say it clearly, plainly and calmly as possible the first time around, repeating the question doesn’t help matters….