Making WORCESTERSHIRE Sauce Something We Can Say in Michigan

Let me start this off by saying, that I AM A HUGE FAN of Worcestershire Sauce. Without it, my favorite snack of all time would be a giant bowl of cereal covered in butter and Lawry's Seasoning Salt.

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I'm referring to Chex Mix baby! Delicious, savory, and, when made with enough Worcestershire sauce, full of divine little flavor nuggets that baked while soaking in the good stuff. I would go through bottles of Worcestershire after learning how to make my own Chex Mix at the age of 12. That said, a few decades later, I still couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to pronounce it! I do enjoy watching other folks from Michigan try to say it.

How the History of Worcestershire Sauce Will Help Michiganders Say Worcestershire

The easiest way to pronounce Worcestershire is to stop trying to say it as it reads and understand where it came from. In 1883, in Worcester, England, a couple of pharmacists perfected a new sauce on put it on their shelves. English refer to their county as 'shire', so John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins (yup, that Lea and Perrins, who eventually sold to Heinz) dubbed their creation Worcester-shire Sauce.

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So, how does that help your Michigan mouth wrap around Worcestershire sauce? You see, the 'rces' is silent, making it Wo-ster-shire Sauce, BUT...that's not how the British say 'shire' (yeah, Lord of the Rings lied to us).

When saying 'shire', think 'shir' or 'sure'. So put that all together and, written out for proper Michigander pronunciation, the word should read Wo-ster-sure Sauce. The British have a slightly different way of saying it as well, but I still can't get past the way they say 'sauce' (see below).

For the record, the official Chex Mix recipe calls for just 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce, but I double it. Yeah, I know how it's made, I don't care.