The Man Bait Mandate

Life, Dec. 18, 1950

Shedd's Old Style Sauce does not sound like your everyday culinary temptress. If only the Sirens had known about Shedd's, they could have really put a crimp in the Odyssey. All they needed to do was put some of this stuff on a little souvlaki and wave it around. Even though Ulysses had his sailors put wax earplugs on and had himself tied to the mast, he would not have been able to resist the Sirens once he got a whiff of Shedd's.

But what was in this incredible concoction? Well, Shedd's Old Style Sauce was a sort of mayo plus horseradish and general tangyness. Over here and  here you can see an early 1960s booklet extolling the Sauce from the same man-pleasing angle.

Uncle Phaedrus, he of the Lost Recipes, has a Shedd's Sauce Clone recipe on his site which involves mayo, horseradish, ketchup and a few ordinary spices. Whatever was in it, you could put it on just about any old thing and disembodied heads would - well, they would gather round and eye the sauce bottle with beaming smiles. Sometimes a dotted line would connect the head with the bottle and then you'd start wishing you'd used French's Mustard instead, wouldn't you. Because at least Hot Dan would eventually get bored and wander off to the next flavorless meal.

It was sold as Aunt Nellie's Old Style Sauce until 2007 but doesn't seem to be available any more. Aunt Nellie must have got tired of all those men she'd caught. Never mind what Uncle Joe thought of them!