We were digging around in a drawer that holds a very unsorted accumulation of recipes and like items on paper of various sorts – newspaper clippings, mimeograph sheets, typewritten, hand printed, scrawled remnants of various descriptions.  I found this the other day:

I’m pretty sure I wrote that out myself in the early 1970s.  Mrs J vaguely recalls it as being “Buck’s BBQ sauce”.  As best as I can piece together the history Buck was an instructor/VIP in a program I was enrolled in during that period.  I decided to make it.

I didn’t want a half gallon of the stuff so I divided the ingredients by four and ended with just over two cups, including some additional vinegar I decided to add to the original recipe.

There were no directions with the ingredient list, but the flour and the “oleo” shouted roux to me.  A roux is usually equal parts of butter and flour but the math didn’t work that way so right off the bat I had to make a call.  I went with 3 T each of butter and flour.  The roux cooked for a minute, then the 1 cup each of vinegar and water went in.  I used cider vinegar but no reason another vinegar couldn’t substitute.  Splenda subbed for the sugar, and I added a good pinch of kosher salt.

This was simmering merrily away when I tried to sort what one quarter of “1 oz.” of cayenne came to.  Finally just went by taste.  I think one tablespoon was close to what wound up in there.  On a whim I added several teaspoons of sweet paprika for the additional color, and I poured in another half cup or so of sweetened rice vinegar just because I like rice vinegar and the potion seemed a tad thick.

I gave it a taste test tonight:

I liked it.