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Harvey's, or Camp Vinegar
Mince a clove of garlic very finely. Add six chopped anchovies, a quarter of an ounce of cayenne, three table-spoonfuls of Indian soy, and three of mushroom or walnut ketchup. Put these into a quart of the best vinegar, and let them soak for about a month, shaking them frequently. Strain through muslin, and bottle for use. The probable cost will be 1s. per pint. One dessert-spoonful may be added to a pint of sauce or gravy.
This is a steeped condiment rather than a cooked sauce, so the only real technique is patience and a clean bottle. A few of the measurements and ingredient names need translating.
- The imperial quartCassell's quart is 40 fluid ounces, about 1.2 US quarts or 1.14 litres. Use a 1.2-litre jar with room to shake, not a filled-to-the-brim bottle.
- A quarter of an ounce of cayenneAbout 7 grams, or roughly 1 to 1.5 level tablespoons of ground cayenne, which is a great deal by modern habits. Victorian cayenne was frequently adulterated, so its actual heat is hard to compare with a modern jar; start with 2 to 3 teaspoons if you want a sauce you can pour freely.
- Indian soyNineteenth-century "soy" or "India soy" is soy sauce, then imported and treated as an exotic seasoning. A dark, naturally brewed soy is the closest match.
- Mushroom or walnut ketchupNeither is tomato ketchup. Both are thin, dark, salty steeped liquors; mushroom ketchup is still sold by British brands, and walnut ketchup turns up from specialist makers. Worcestershire sauce is the nearest supermarket stand-in, though it is sharper and sweeter.
- AnchoviesUse salt-packed or oil-packed fillets, drained and chopped. Over the month they soften and largely break down in the vinegar; whatever solid residue is left gets caught in the muslin.
- The month of steepingThis is not optional soaking time. The vinegar has to break the anchovy down and pull the garlic and cayenne into solution, and shaking every day or two keeps the cayenne from caking on the bottom.
- Straining and keepingStrain through doubled muslin, then again if it is cloudy, and bottle in sterilised glass with a non-corroding cap. The acidity and salt make it very stable; kept cool and dark it will hold for a year or more, though the cayenne fades.
- Yield and useYou will get a little under a quart, so four smallish bottles. A dessertspoonful to a pint of gravy is about 2 teaspoons, and that is the right order of magnitude: it is a seasoning, not a marinade. It also works in a dozen or two drops in a dressing or on grilled fish.
- The shilling a pintThe costing is a fixture of Cassell's and reflects the price of good vinegar and imported soy in Victorian Britain, not any modern figure.
Harvey's Sauce was one of the great commercial condiments of Georgian and Victorian Britain, sold in tall bottles by Lazenby's and generally traced to an eighteenth-century innkeeper named Harvey, though the story is traditional rather than documented. "Camp vinegar" is the same family of thing under a plainer name: a strong, keeping seasoning that travelled well, needed no cold storage and could lift a dull gravy or a plate of cold meat anywhere. It belongs to the era's store-cupboard logic, where a cook laid down flavourings months in advance rather than buying them. The anchovy-plus-soy-plus-mushroom-ketchup combination runs parallel to Worcestershire sauce, and it is the reason so many nineteenth-century British sauces taste of concentrated savoury depth from fermented fish.