Brown sauce is the thin, glossy, dark-brown British table sauce — the national counterpart to ketchup — built on a tangy-sweet-spicy chord of tomato and dates or apples soured with vinegar, deepened with tamarind and molasses, and warmed with a blend of spices. Best known through the HP brand, it is the classic condiment for the "full English" breakfast, bacon and sausage sandwiches, and fried and grilled meats, prized for a sharper, more savoury and more aromatic bite than the sweeter, purely tomato ketchup it sits beside on the café table.