Which small fish is listed among the main ingredients of Worcestershire sauce?
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Anchovies
Anchovies are listed among the main ingredients of Worcestershire sauce, alongside malt and spirit vinegar. It is a fermented condiment, which is why anchovy-free vegetarian and vegan versions exist for those who avoid fish.
Company lore says the first batch was so strong it was left in a cellar, and only when tasted again some 18 months later had it mellowed enough to sell.
The sauce was invented in the first half of the 19th century by two Worcester pharmacists, John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins, who went on to form Lea & Perrins. The brand was commercialised in 1837 and the first bottles went on public sale in 1838. Early packaging said the sauce came 'from the recipe of a nobleman in the county', and the company has claimed that Lord Sandys, a former Governor of Bengal, found it in India in the 1830s. The story does not hold up well: no Lord Sandys was ever Governor of Bengal, and there is no record of any Sandys visiting India. The use of fish is far older than the brand. Fermented fish sauces such as garum date back to antiquity, and English recipes of the 17th century already combined anchovies with other ingredients in sauces, typically intended to go on fish. In 1897 manufacture moved from the Broad Street pharmacy to a factory on Midland Road in Worcester.
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