Wait until people find out about the Confederate link

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Brief History Of How Tabasco Became The Military’s Favorite Condiment


Tear open any MRE and you’ll find a vacuumed-sealed meal, utensils, coffee, gum, salt, pepper, and sugar. But the holy grail — the thing that truly ties the processed food together and makes guzzling down that packaged, bland cuisine bearable — is that little packet of red hot fury: Tabasco.

But how did the ubiquitous hot sauce become the savior of the MRE and, in turn, the American GI? Surprisingly, Tabasco traces it roots all the way back to the Civil War.

Forced to flee New Orleans in 1863, Confederate banker Edmund McIlhenny moved to his in-laws plantation on Avery Island in Louisiana in 1868, where he planted seeds of the pleasantly spicy Capsicum frutescens peppers. A year later, he distributed 658 bottles of his sauce — called “Tabasco” after the Mexican Indian word meaning either “place where the soil is humid” or “place of the coral or oyster shell” according to the product’s history — around New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, charging a dollar for each. In 1870, he patented Tabasco.

The recipe varied over the years as Tabasco became a mainstay in the region, but it wasn’t until McIlhenny’s great-grandson Walter became CEO of the family business in 1949 that the fiery sauce would formally make its way into the hands of American GIs. The younger McIlhenny joined the Virginia National Guard in 1931 and transferred to the Marine Corps in 1935, fighting in the Pacific during World War II and attaining the rank of brigadier general in the reserves by the time he finished his military career in 1959 — and it was his experience with the bland food contained in the C-ration in the field during World War II that put Tabasco on the military’s map.

When he took control of the McIlhenny Company, Walter began exploring ways to create a ration-sized Tabasco bottle, and in 1966, he finally found a way to unofficially break into the military market: The company put out a pocket C-ration cookbook called No Food Is Too Good for the Man Up Front, perfect for the standard American GI kit — and with it, the popular two-ounce bottle of Tabasco was born, wrapped neatly within the cookbook itself.


The jar, swaddled in special waterproof camouflage packaging was perfectly sized to be sent to soldiers in Vietnam, as ads suggested, for just a dollar. “For your man overseas,” reads one promotion in a 1967 issue of the Pittsburgh Press.

Tabasco proved essential for troops on long deployments overseas, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, helping them cope with intolerable rations — and, in turn, boosting morale.

“There’s no better way to enhance the taste bud feedback of military rations than with hot sauce,” wrote Army veteran Scott Gourley in 2014 on the armed forces’ penchant for the spicy stuff. “In fact, it has become a critical accompaniment to a broad range of military rations.”

Even the Army brass took notice. When the C-ration was eventually replaced by the Meal, Combat, Individual ration in 1958, the cuisine hardly changed in terms of flavor and variety — and Tabasco remained a staple for service members hoping to overcome the blandness of the food for decades after.

“Your product has always been in demand by troops in the field,” wrote legendary Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf in a 1991 letter to the McIlhenny Company. “I have enjoyed spicing up my own rations with your pepper sauce for many years.”

The modern-day MRE was introduced in 1983, and nine years later, the Department of Defense finally made the decision to include 1/8 ounce glass bottles of Tabasco as part of the kit.

“Tabasco has a very humanistic appeal with the war fighter,” Jeremy Whitsitt, who works with the DOD Combat Feeding Program at Natick Research Development Center told Epicurious. “The one comment we always get is, whatever you change or take out, don’t ever take out our Tabasco sauce.”

Now, MREs are equipped with ketchup-esque packets of hot sauce, but you can be sure that regardless of the packaging, one of the best parts of the MRE is the Tabasco. Because without it, your chili-mac is basically just, chilly macaroni…

http://taskandpurpose.com/mre-...-favorite-condiment/

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Originally posted by lkdr1989:

The modern-day MRE was introduced in 1983, and nine years later, the Department of Defense finally made the decision to include 1/8 ounce glass bottles of Tabasco as part of the kit.

They were putting them in there long before 1992. We had them in the 80s. Used to love those little bitty bottles. They were great with the spaghetti.

When our brigade would go out for three weeks the mess hall would have all the tobacco bottle disappear. While I didn't love the stuff I found it wise to bring a bottle along. It would get shared out about halfway through the exercise.

You couldn't eat 80's era chicken a-la-king without it, easpcially cold. It was cold chicken paste, but with Tabasco it was spicy, tolerable paste.

A dollar a bottle way back when must have been outrageously expensive.

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Originally posted by Orguss:
A dollar a bottle way back when must have been outrageously expensive.

Not too outrageous. $1 in 1967 dollars is roughly $7.30 in today's dollars.

Figure ~$2 for the bottle of Tabasco and ~$5 for the cookbook, and that sounds about right.

And 1869, when McIlhenny was selling dollar bottles?

Ah. Thought you were referring to the Vietnam-era "No Food Is Too Good for the Man Up Front" kit that was being sold for a dollar.

The 1869 $1 bottles were a bit pricey, at ~$18 in 2017 dollars.

Doesn't say how big the 1869 bottles were, though... $18 will get you about 36 ounces (or roughly 1 liter) today.

I've been thinking about riding to Avery Island. Last time we were there they were remodeling the plant. It's a pretty place

Love Tabasco sauce. I was curious about the antique bottle.



http://www.alcademics.com/2012...co-pepper-sauce.html

I was on Avery Island many years ago. It is a fun place, and interesting to read about all of it's history. I keep plenty of the original Tabasco sauce around, as it is illegal to eat Cajun food without it.

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Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:

The modern-day MRE was introduced in 1983, and nine years later, the Department of Defense finally made the decision to include 1/8 ounce glass bottles of Tabasco as part of the kit.

They were putting them in there long before 1992. We had them in the 80s. Used to love those little bitty bottles. They were great with the spaghetti.

Yep. I was eating MRE's in the Army in 1992 that were dated 1987 or 1988 and they all had the mini Tabasco bottles. I wonder if the writer is confusing these with the flameless heater which were issued separately for a long time then started coming with the actual MRE around the mid-90's.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
You couldn't eat 80's era chicken a-la-king without it, easpcially cold. It was cold chicken paste, but with Tabasco it was spicy, tolerable paste.

I have fond memories of eating a quasi-frozen package of chicken a-la-king (squeezing the chunk up to my face) through the driver's hatch of my one one three with one hand while driving with the other hand, all on icy roads in Bavaria. Looking back, I might have been out of my mind, but hey, I was 19 and hungry.

Tabasco was the only way to make some of those things bearable....

I've never tried Tabasco, but after reading these stories, I put it on the shopping list so I can try it on an omelet Thursday night.

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Originally posted by newtoSig765:
I've never tried Tabasco, but after reading these stories, I put it on the shopping list so I can try it on an omelet Thursday night.

Wow...Never ?

Your gonna like it.

You can also thank a Confederate veteran for inventing the Coca Cola you wash the Tabasco down with.

Confederate Coca-Cola

By Brion McClanahan on Jul 8, 2014
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j s pemberton

Today (July 8) is Lt. Col. John Stith Pemberton’s birthday. While not as important to the Confederacy as John C. Pemberton, John Stith Pemberton contributed more to American culture and to the image of the New South than virtually any man who donned the gray during the War for Southern Independence.

Pemberton studied medicine at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon and was graduated in 1850 at the age of 19. Five years later he established a pharmacy in Columbus, Georgia, then a bustling industrial town at the fall-line on the Chattahoochee River. By 1860, his lab on Broad Street contained over $35,000 in equipment and he marketed his business as a company dedicated to “manufacturing all the pharmaceutical and chemical preparations used in the arts and sciences.” This included perfume. The ladies of Columbus loved to buy his aromatic concoctions.

Then the War came. Pemberton did not march out with the Columbus Guards in 1861. Only a handful of those men came home. He spent the War like many residents in Columbus, contributing to the War effort through industry. Columbus was the second most important industrial city in the South and manufactured everything from uniforms, rain cloth, boots, and buttons, to munitions, bagging, barrels, and iron, including the unfinished Confederate ram the C.S.S. Jackson.

This was not lost on the Union army. Columbus was targeted by the Yankees in the final months of the War as part of their total war strategy. General James Harrison Wilson hammered through Alabama in 1865, leaving behind a swath of destruction that rivaled that of Sherman’s march to and from the sea in Georgia and South Carolina.

On April 16, 1865 (Easter Sunday), the Union Army appeared on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee. All able bodied men (and boys) in Alabama (modern day Phenix City) and Columbus readied to defend the city. Pemberton was a lieutenant colonel in the Third Georgia Cavalry Battalion (Home Guard) and bravely faced the occupying army the night of the battle. He was slashed across the chest in the action and almost died from his wounds. Columbus was burned the next day, and like Columbia, South Carolina, after the city surrendered.

Pemberton spent the next year recovering from his wounds, and in the process he became addicted to opium. He put his pharmacy to work looking to find a way to ease his pain without the drug. By 1866, he had produced a product he later called Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, an alcoholic drink that probably contained a trace of cocaine.

When Pemberton moved to Atlanta in 1870, he brought his medicinal recipe with him and marketed it as a cure for several ailments, but in particular as a cure for opium addition. Again, upper class women became his primary customers. Laudanum was a commonly prescribed drug in the nineteenth century for headaches and was highly addictive. Pemberton’s French Wine Coca promised relief without the painful withdraw symptoms of opiates. Pemberton’s career had taken off. He became a trustee of the Atlanta Medical College, later Emory University School of Medicine, and had a business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that manufactured and marketed his pharmaceuticals.

When Atlanta went dry in the 1880s, Pemberton was forced to find an alternative to his alcoholic product. While mixing a batch one day he stumbled upon what later became known as Coca-Cola, a mix of the coca syrup (absent the cocaine) and carbonated water. Coca-cola the soft drink was born, but the formula had not changed much since Pemberton first mixed it in Columbus in 1866 as a suffering Confederate veteran.

Pemberton believed that his new non-alcoholic drink–what he marketed as the “ideal temperance drink”–would eventually become a “national drink,” and so in 1887 he incorporated the Coca-Cola Company and let his only son Charles, also an opium addict, run the company. Pemberton died less than a year later of stomach cancer, broke and still helplessly addicted to opium. Just before he died, however, his son persuaded him to sell the company to Asa Chandler for $550. Chandler later made millions on the drink, as did Ernest Woodruff, a businessman from Pemberton’s final resting place, Columbus, GA. Pemberton’s son also later died from complications related to opium addiction without a dime to show from his father’s formula.

Yet, without the War and the Battle of Columbus in 1865, the world may never have been introduced to Coca-Cola, or by default RC Cola and Ne-hi, both invented by Columbus grocer Claud Hatcher after he refused to pay high prices for Coke syrup. Perhaps more than any other drink, Coke and cola beverages are synonymous with the South and originated with Southern ingenuity (Pepsi was developed in North Carolina). So, the next time you tip a glass of your favorite carbonated cola drink, remember that Yankees didn’t invent any of them and what is now considered an “American” drink originated in the South. Such is the case with most of the so-called “American” cultural icons.

LINK

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Originally posted by PR64:

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Originally posted by newtoSig765:
I've never tried Tabasco, but after reading these stories, I put it on the shopping list so I can try it on an omelet Thursday night.

Wow...Never ?

Your gonna like it.

I am not fond of the regular stuff, but they have Smoked Tabasco at Chipotles. It's delicious with my burritos. . .

I prefer Crystal or Texas Pete, but Tabasco will do in pinch. And it's essential on MREs IMO.

I would send packages to one on my Sergeants deployed to Iraq a few times. one thing that went in every package was a large bottle of it. I thought he said they removed them from the MRE's in the mid 90's.

quote:

Originally posted by newtoSig765:
I've never tried Tabasco, but after reading these stories, I put it on the shopping list so I can try it on an omelet Thursday night.

Just make sure you don't get any on the grill while frying hamburgers or other food. It will vaporize and run you out of the room.