THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501240075
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
Thirty years ago, Katherine Ashman often served son Tim Ashman and the rest of the family a charcoal-grilled London broil that had been marinated in a special sauce made from an old family recipe.
Today, the Ashmans are still eating London broil smothered in that special sauce, and so are thousands of families across the region. The sweet-sour tomato and molasses sauce has a reputation that has spread well beyond the confines of the Ashman household.
That's because London Broil Sauce was the catalyst for a family business, Ashman Manufacturing and Distributing, and the sauce continues to be one of the company's most successful products.
These days Katherine and Tim Ashman cook up not only their own family recipes, but family favorites of other individuals just like the Ashmans. ``Home grown is one of the things we love,'' Tim Ashman said.
The small business in Owls Creek Commerce Center off Birdneck Road mixes, bottles and wholesales sauces, dressings and salsas from places as far away as Georgia. However, Virginia Beach appears to be a sauce maker's mecca, providing a good fourth of Ashman wares.
``Virginia Beach is a hot bed of products,'' Tim Ashman said.
And like the London Broil Sauce, other home-grown Virginia Beach sauces, manufactured and produced by Ashman, have become known well beyond the city limits. Colorful thumb tacks on a United States map on the wall pin-point locations up and down the East Coast where Ashman products are distributed, the majority of them in Virginia.
In all, the company manufactures and distributes 35 products for 18 individuals and restaurants. Ashman and his mother run the company from an office that is permeated with the tantalizing aroma of vinegar and spices.
On manufacturing days, vinegary, spicy smells even fill the air in the parking lot. One day recently a hint of barbecue sauce was wafting around the building. Inside a pungent, eye-watering, mouth-watering scent of hot, hot peppers and tomatoes was everywhere.
No wonder. That was the day for bottling Uncle Spunkey's Mega Blast barbecue sauce. Mega Blast, only for the truly hardy, is the hottest of four barbecue sauces that Ashman makes up for Uncle Spunkey's, a Virginia Beach business. Before the day was out, around 65 cases of a dozen bottles each of Mega Blast would be ready for shipping to grocery and specialty stores.
Ashman also brings to the consumer, via grocery and specialty stores, several sauces and dressings that may be familiar to those who like to eat out. ``We also love it when something comes from a restaurant because it's already tested,'' Ashman said.
Among such tried and true sauces is San Antonio Sam's Salsa, a favorite of patrons of San Antonio Sam's Ice House Cafe on Norfolk Avenue.
Before Ashman brought Hog Heaven Soeee Sauce to market, barbecue aficionados had already put their stamp of approval on the sauce served up at North Landing Grocery, the popular barbecue stop down below the municipal center.
The company now is introducing two sauces from the Magnolia Cafe on Colley Avenue in Norfolk. They are Magnolia Steak Sauce and Magnolia Flippin' and Dippin' Sauce.
A high-speed mixer, shaped like a giant milkshake blender, blends ingredients. A 60-gallon stainless steel processing pot cooks up the barbecue sauces, salsas and salad dressings. There are automatic filling machines for wet and dry mixtures, like herb blends. Other equipment puts protective seals on jars and labels them.
Fresh ingredients such as peppers, onions and garlic, come direct to Ashman, already-chopped, pre-measured and sealed in giant-size bags. They purchase 100-pound containers of ingredients such as mustard oil and ketchup.
Since there is no kitchen in the traditional sense, the Ashmans' research and development take place where the whole business started in the first place - in the family kitchen. They already have produced a house tuna sauce developed at home. Now they are beginning to experiment on one another with a salad sprinkle.
``We play at home,'' Tim Ashman said. ``All our `R' and `D' goes on at home. We all love to cook.''
P.S. Three instruments used in Colonial times - glass armonica, hurdy-gurdy and violin - will be featured in musical programs Saturday at the Francis Land House. A children's program of dance tunes and street cries begins at 3 p.m. Admission is $3. An evening concert starts at 7 p.m. and admission is $6. Call 340-1732 for reservations. Thirty years ago, Katherine Ashman often served son Tim Ashman and the rest of the family a charcoal-grilled London broil that had been marinated in a special sauce made from an old family recipe. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Katherine Ashman and her son, Tim, manufacture and distribute
their own family recipe sauces, and those of other individuals and
restaurants.
Photos by
PETER D. SUNDBERG
by CNB