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Mumbo Sauce


DaRiv18

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I recently bought a bottle of Captial City's original mumbo sauce.  Haven't tried it yet.  I wonder if there is anyone who feels strongly about this signature sauce of DC, or if anyone has any interesting historical observations.  Seems that this local product with old roots deserves a dedicated thread.  Too bad Kenan hasn't posted much yet I would love to hear the comprehensive history.  So allow my to start this crossword puzzle, and hopefully one of youse guys can help finish it!  :D

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I don't know anything about Kenan but I predate him by a bit...

In 1962 my first job was as a food clerk at the Safeway on 14th just south of U street. Wings and Things was directly across the street. Their signature "dish" (this was a carry out where nearby places had bullet proof glass-signature seems like the wrong word to describe what most people bought) was chicken wings with Mumbo sauce. There was another Wings and Things near the Howard but I believe the 14th street location opened first.

I've read stories on the internet about Mumbo sauce and Chicago but somehow this is one dish that I really believe started in D. C. (I also swear it was called "Mambo" not Mumbo...) In '62 the place had already been open for at least several years so it must date to the late '50's.

Fish sandwiches predate chicken wings with Mumbo sauce and I would make the serious argument that this-not half smokes or chicken wings with Mumbo sauce-were D. C.'s home grown contribution to the Roadfood Hall of Fame. With all due respect to Ben Chili Bowl: Benny's on Maine Avenue. In the '40's.

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Mumbo sauce is becoming quite the fad lately, remaining at stalwarts such as Yum's, Mayflower, and other decidedly non-trendy places, but creeping into places such as The Hamilton, Quench, even The Corcoran. I'm also quite certain that I've seen it at a restaurant (none of the above) in the past week also because I remember chuckling to myself when I did, but doggone it I can't remember where it was (maybe Epic Smokehouse?)

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I don't know anything about Kenan but I predate him by a bit...

In 1962 my first job was as a food clerk at the Safeway on 14th just south of U street. Wings and Things was directly across the street. Their signature "dish" (this was a carry out where nearby places had bullet proof glass-signature seems like the wrong word to describe what most people bought) was chicken wings with Mumbo sauce. There was another Wings and Things near the Howard but I believe the 14th street location opened first.

I've read stories on the internet about Mumbo sauce and Chicago but somehow this is one dish that I really believe started in D. C. (I also swear it was called "Mambo" not Mumbo...) In '62 the place had already been open for at least several years so it must date to the late '50's.

Fish sandwiches predate chicken wings with Mumbo sauce and I would make the serious argument that this-not half smokes or chicken wings with Mumbo sauce-were D. C.'s home grown contribution to the Roadfood Hall of Fame. With all due respect to Ben Chili Bowl: Benny's on Maine Avenue. In the '40's.

I have written on the subject of "mumbo" or "mambo" sauce (the spellings are interchangable), and have served it at home on chicken wings to much appreciation of my guests, here in North Carolina. I always keep some of my homemade version in the fridge. My wife's son is a working chef and when he tried it at our house last Christmas it he couldn't get enough of the stuff and even put it on salad if memory serves.

It is a curious thing, combining sweet and sour with just enough hot (and NO SALT) to make for a tremendous depth of flavor.

While in my past life I had something to do with the notion that the half-smoke is Washington's signature dish, since then I have developed a keen appreciation for mumbo sauce, and am fully prepared to place it alongside the half-smoke as Washington's joint contributions to the culinary arts (dive division). BTW that guy in Chicago is a fraud, IMO. He got it in DC. That said, the roots of the sauce are quite obscure, and probably lost forever.

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the recipes I have seen call for ketchup and "hot sauce"--both of which contain salt.

OK, no *additional* salt, and since the other ingredients account for a large proportion the sauce, the resulting product is in fact low in salt. I would bet one could use straight tomato sauce (salt free) in place of ketchup and wind up with a good mumbo sauce, but I haven't tried. I'll do that.

I specifically mentioned the no (added) salt aspect because it is important to the flavor -- adding salt changes it, and not for the better, as many recipes correctly point out.

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OK, no *additional* salt, and since the other ingredients account for a large proportion the sauce, the resulting product is in fact low in salt. I would bet one could use straight tomato sauce (salt free) in place of ketchup and wind up with a good mumbo sauce, but I haven't tried. I'll do that.

I specifically mentioned the no (added) salt aspect because it is important to the flavor -- adding salt changes it, and not for the better, as many recipes correctly point out.

Not sure that I'd agree about the ketchup/salt-free tomato sauce switch, since ketchup itself is a sweet-sour condiment. You'd need to add more sugar and vinegar. And I'm a bit puzzled by your implied negativity toward salt. While sweetness and acidity in appropriate proportions are pleasing to the palate, inadequate levels of salt generally leave things tasting flat.

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Not sure that I'd agree about the ketchup/salt-free tomato sauce switch, since ketchup itself is a sweet-sour condiment. You'd need to add more sugar and vinegar. And I'm a bit puzzled by your implied negativity toward salt. While sweetness and acidity in appropriate proportions are pleasing to the palate, inadequate levels of salt generally leave things tasting flat.

I'm the least negative person you're likely to find when it comes to salt. Heck I put fish sauce in just about everything I make (I just added a generous splash to my super-bowl day guacamole). But with mumbo sauce there is somethimg about saltiness that affects the flavor, and not in a good way. Anyway, usually one uses it on things like fried chicken wings that have been pretty well salted in the first place.

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I don't know anything about Kenan but I predate him by a bit...

In 1962 my first job was as a food clerk at the Safeway on 14th just south of U street. Wings and Things was directly across the street. Their signature "dish" (this was a carry out where nearby places had bullet proof glass-signature seems like the wrong word to describe what most people bought) was chicken wings with Mumbo sauce. There was another Wings and Things near the Howard but I believe the 14th street location opened first.

I've read stories on the internet about Mumbo sauce and Chicago but somehow this is one dish that I really believe started in D. C. (I also swear it was called "Mambo" not Mumbo...) In '62 the place had already been open for at least several years so it must date to the late '50's.

Fish sandwiches predate chicken wings with Mumbo sauce and I would make the serious argument that this-not half smokes or chicken wings with Mumbo sauce-were D. C.'s home grown contribution to the Roadfood Hall of Fame. With all due respect to Ben Chili Bowl: Benny's on Maine Avenue. In the '40's.

I didn't make the above statement up:  Wings and Things had "Mumbo" or "Mambo" sauce 51 years ago on 14th street one block south of U.  If D. C. "stole" this why did Chicago wait more than a half Century to do something about it?

But let's take this a step farther:  my mother worked at the original Hot Shoppes at 14th and Park Road starting in the '30's and my stepfather was a chef at the Statler Hilton dating to the mid '40's.  Both remember Mumbo or Mambo sauce.  First time I ever had it at Wings and Things was because of them around '61 or '62 on 14th street.  But I think Benny's had it on the docks in S. W. dating back into the early '50's.  Mumbo/Mambo sauce was not a big secret-a number of places had it.  This could be tracked down because a man named Boyd owned Benny's in the '40's and '50's and then moved the carryout to 12th and H where he changed the name to Boyd's.  At some point he moved Boyd's to literally where Horace and Dickey is today.  While he no longer owns Horace and Dickey if he or his family are still alive they could help detail the history of Mumbo/Mambo sauce in the '40's predating the Chicago contentions.

These are good leads worth at least a phone call from an attorney.  You can contact me at my private e-mail which is wwthrills@aol.com

I'm glad to help in any way I can.

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I didn't make the above statement up:  Wings and Things had "Mumbo" or "Mambo" sauce 51 years ago on 14th street one block south of U.  If D. C. "stole" this why did Chicago wait more than a half Century to do something about it?

But let's take this a step farther:  my mother worked at the original Hot Shoppes at 14th and Park Road starting in the '30's and my stepfather was a chef at the Statler Hilton dating to the mid '40's.  Both remember Mumbo or Mambo sauce.  First time I ever had it at Wings and Things was because of them around '61 or '62 on 14th street.  But I think Benny's had it on the docks in S. W. dating back into the early '50's.  Mumbo/Mambo sauce was not a big secret-a number of places had it.  This could be tracked down because a man named Boyd owned Benny's in the '40's and '50's and then moved the carryout to 12th and H where he changed the name to Boyd's.  At some point he moved Boyd's to literally where Horace and Dickey is today.  While he no longer owns Horace and Dickey if he or his family are still alive they could help detail the history of Mumbo/Mambo sauce in the '40's predating the Chicago contentions.

These are good leads worth at least a phone call from an attorney.  You can contact me at my private e-mail which is wwthrills@aol.com

I'm glad to help in any way I can.

I believe the Chicago mambo sauce connection may revolve around a guy named John Young, who claims to have been the inventor of "wings" in Buffalo, but using mambo sauce not Buffalo-style hot sauce.  He had a restaurant serving wings with mambo sauce in Buffalo in the 60's, also called Wings 'n Things, then moved to Chicago in 1970.  Calvin Trillin wrote a story in the New Yorker about Buffalo wings in 1980, met Young (who by then had returned to Buffalo), and mentions a few sketchy facts about him.  Click

Having done some research on Buffalo wings and mambo sauce over the years, I have reluctantly concluded, like Trillin, that the true origins of both are lost and not likely ever to be definitively unearthed.  But my best wishes to those who can carry the torch further.

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I don't know anything about Kenan but I predate him by a bit...

In 1962 my first job was as a food clerk at the Safeway on 14th just south of U street. Wings and Things was directly across the street. Their signature "dish" (this was a carry out where nearby places had bullet proof glass-signature seems like the wrong word to describe what most people bought) was chicken wings with Mumbo sauce. There was another Wings and Things near the Howard but I believe the 14th street location opened first.

I've read stories on the internet about Mumbo sauce and Chicago but somehow this is one dish that I really believe started in D. C. (I also swear it was called "Mambo" not Mumbo...) In '62 the place had already been open for at least several years so it must date to the late '50's.

Fish sandwiches predate chicken wings with Mumbo sauce and I would make the serious argument that this-not half smokes or chicken wings with Mumbo sauce-were D. C.'s home grown contribution to the Roadfood Hall of Fame. With all due respect to Ben Chili Bowl: Benny's on Maine Avenue. In the '40's.

John, thank you for the fascinating piece from Calvin Trillin from 1980.  I must note this comment in it: " He said that chicken wings in mambo sauce became his specialty in the middle sixties, and that he even registered the name of his restaurant, John Young's Wings 'n Things, at the county courthouse before moving to Illinois, in 1970."

Unless I am losing my mind (and I may be) the carryout on 14th street in 1962 was called Wings and Things.  And, it featured Mambo sauce.  Of course at my advanced age I am liable to confuse many things; in fact I am actually doing well to remember many things, let alone a few things.  Great read.  One of his best pieces. Thank you for sharing.

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