Horse sauce
Not to be confused with Horseradish.
 Homemade horse sauce | |
| Type | Hot sauce |
|---|---|
| Course | Condiment |
| Place of origin | Akarea |
| Region or state | Gaanglanglataar |
| Associated cuisine | Akarean cuisine, Gaanglanglataaran cuisine |
| Invented | 700 - 800 CE |
| Main ingredients | Chilli peppers, Garlic, Coriander, Molasses, Vinegar |
Horse sauce (Mandarin: 马酱, Ma jiang; Gaanglanglataaran: ᠮᠠ ᠵᠢᠶᠠᠩ ᠃, Ma zhan) is a hot sauce from Gaanglanglataar, Akarea. It is made by crushing Horse's Hoof Chilli, garlic, coriander and molasses into a paste then mixing in vinegar and being left to ferment for at least one year. The resulting sauce has an umami savoury flavour, with high heat and acidity.
Use
In Gaanglanglataaran cuisine horse sauce is generally used as an ingredient in other dishes, particularly soups and stews, marinades and curries as the heat of the sauce is generally considered prohibitive to it being used as a dip or drizzle. However, in contemporary wider Akarean use, it is sometimes used as part of challenges in Akarean food game culture either as the core component of the challenge itself or as a forfeit. It is also sometimes used in sandwiches or burgers, certain cocktails, as well as flavouring for crisps and other snacks.
Origin
Precise origins of horse sauce are unknown. Horse sauce, alongside many other facets of Gaanglanglataaran cuisine and culture, were largely intentionally not recorded as part of efforts to purge undesirable components of Akarean colonial cultures during the Heavenly Cultural Alignment which was ongoing at the time of the sauce's invention. However, word of mouth accounts over the centuries generally suggest that the sauce originated in or around Khyarslagaar, and that the name is a reference to the immense heat of the peppers used; common folklore suggests that the chilli is named after the sauce rather than vice versa.
The name itself is generally understood to be a simile referring to the sudden onset of the heat sensation experienced when tasting the sauce, likening it to being kicked in the mouth by a horse.
Horse semen hoax
In 2011, users on the image board 4chance started a hoax suggesting that Horse sauce is named such because it secretly contains horse semen. They used altered documents from a 2009 incident where Akarean condiment manufacturer Kim Lee Foods, the largest manufacturer of horse sauce for the Fujing region, failed to declare gluten from barley malt vinegar as an allergen on the packaging. 4chance users changed all mentions of gluten and barley malt vinegar in the documents to horse semen, before pretending to expose Kim Lee Foods on 4chance, Blueboard and Feeder. This caused horse sauce to become an internet meme for a brief period, even spawning a viral social media challenge where people unfamiliar with the sauce would attempt to drink it. (When consumed neat in excessive amounts the high acidity typically induces abdominal pains and occasionally causes vomiting.) Some bodybuilders even began to incorporate horse sauce into their diet believing the testosterone and protein content would aid their exercise.
Kim Lee Foods pursued legal action but was unable to find the individuals responsible for the hoax. Despite this, they were otherwise able to recover their reputation and the international reputation of horse sauce following a large social media campaign. Although it is now generally understood that horse sauce does not contain horse semen, "horse sauce" is still sometimes used as a phrase for hidden ingredients or spiked food and drinks.
In popular culture
- In the 1986 movie Nine Minutes to Midnight, the protagonist pours horse sauce into the eyes of a prisoner during an interrogation.
- In the 2000 SuperPlay 2 video game Bad Dog, officer Cheng is seen drinking horse sauce after the Hutong Blaze level as his tongue is so scarred it is "the only thing [he] can taste any more."
- A-pop duo 4's Sauce formed in 2007; their name is a play on horse sauce, and wordplay regarding the heat of the sauce is commonplace in their lyrics. They are now part of Group Tien-Hai Go Go!.
- In 2011, Nathaniel Price, MP for Harschburg-Innerhafen in the Candanadian Parliament tabled a private members' bill that would have banned the import of horse sauce to Candanadium as a "unregulated food or edible substance of dubious safety". The bill was criticized, most prominently by MPs from Hautsing, for banning several staples of Akarean cuisine in addition to horse sauce and led to Price's resignation after overwhelming backlash from his own constituents, mostly Candanadians of Akarean descent. Price later claimed that he had fallen victim to the 4chance hoax regarding horse sauce containing horse semen.
- In 2015, Alpenraumish rapper NK the Creator released a song titled Horse Sauce. The lyrical content describes incorporating horse sauce into lean and feeding it to a homeless man.