TABASCO: An Illustrated History

About this book

TABASCO: An Illustrated History is the first and only book about the McIlhenny family and company based on previously untapped documents in the McIlhenny Company Archives. This chronicle examines the origin of TABASCO sauce from its post-Civil War creation on Avery Island Louisiana to its evolution into the "gold standard" of pepper sauces and a global culinary icon. It also examines the often stranger-than-fiction stories that are inexorably bound up with the rise of TABASCO--Edmund McIlhennys creation of the sauce in the midst of Reconstruction-era economic ruin; John Avery McIlhennys adventures in Theodore Roosevelts Rough Riders volunteer cavalry regiment; Edward Avery McIlhennys explorations in the unforgiving Arctic; and Walter S. McIlhennys amazing heroics in World War II which eventually secured him the rank of brigadier general even as he modernized his family business and ensured its success into the late Twentieth century. In addition to the central narrative TABASCO: An Illustrated History contains numerous detailed sidebars as well as over a dozen historical recipes selected from handwritten McIlhenny family cookbooks and other archival sources. This book boasts hundreds of fascinating photographs both in color and black-and-white many of which are previously unpublished.