2008 Woodie Awards
Illini Media
WPGU
buzz
Illio
TechnographReal fusion cooking: A Chinese-style sauce made only in Mississippi
By The Associated Press
Posted: 9/16/07 Section: Diversions
|
"My main thing was trying to get a sauce that tasted like roasted Cantonese duck - that type of taste," the 73-year-old native of China says in a booming baritone with a distinctively Southern cadence.
And that blending of cultures has proved hugely popular, despite Lee's unwillingness to market by more than word of mouth.
It's also putting this fading farm town of about 300 people on the culinary map. Recipes and stories featuring the sauce have appeared in regional newspapers and magazines, and Southern Living magazine recently named it an editors' pick.
"It's surprising to me that it's beginning to move fast," says Lee, who has been concocting the sauce from a secret recipe and selling it out of his Lee Hong Co. general store since the early 1980s. "In the past I've just been dealing with local people."
Now he even gets recognized on the street 1 1/2 hours away in Jackson.
"'That's Mr. Hoover, the Hoover Sauce man,'" Lee says he often overhears people say. "It was just a hobby that turned into a working hobby now. I've just been blessed."
Hoover Sauce blends the saltiness of soy sauce with the sweetness of, well ... Lee won't say. Whatever it is, it works magic with chicken and baby back ribs, and he says people drive for miles to get it.
Though he has yet to sell Hoover Sauce online, Lee increasingly finds himself packing up jugs of it to ship to customers around the country and beyond. He's sent it as far west as Hawaii and as far east as France.
"You know, the guy could make a damn fortune if he'd market it," says Billy Ray Adams, a Hoover Sauce customer who uses it on steak, ribs, hamburgers, wings, pork, venison sausage and nearly anything else.
Lee seems about as versatile as his sauce. In a region not known for prosperity or for a tolerance for minorities in the past, he not only has run a successful business in a town where few remain, he also served as the community's mayor and an alderman for many years.
The Daily Illini encourages on-topic discussion through article commenting on its articles and blogs. It is our policy not to delete any comments based upon political or ideological point of view. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are abusive, off-topic or use excessive foul language.
The posting of copyrighted material, including any and all content for which you are not the author, is illegal under Federal intellectual property laws. Such activity will not be tolerated. Comments containing copyrighted material will be removed, and continued violation of copyright law is grounds for being banned completely from commenting on DailyIllini.com.
If you feel any post meets these conditions or merits review, please e-mail our editors at meonline@dailyillini.com.
Be the first to comment on this story