Mumbo sauce is the orangey-red, sticky, spicy blood that runs through the veins of D.C. Aside from national monuments, go-go music, muggy weather and Metro delays, almost nothing is as synonymous with the District. So when McDonald’s announced it would be launching its own limited-time “mambo sauce” on Oct. 9, DMV residents took to the internet en masse to voice their abundant, conflicted feelings. Mumbo sauce love runs so deep, especially as it pertains to D.C.’s Black culture and Asian carryout restaurants, that I decided it was time to hear from the experts. I spoke to four mumbo sauce aficionados for their takes on the McMambo news and the meaning of mumbo.
Our experts:
Arsha Jones, CEO and co-owner of Capital City Mambo Sauce.
Rahman “Rock” Harper, local chef and owner of Queen Mother’s Kitchen, a fried chicken restaurant in Arlington.
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Larry McLeod (also known as Big Schlim on Instagram), a social media content creator and DMV food critic.
Don J. Wynn Sr., a 51-year-old entrepreneur, lifelong DMV resident and mumbo sauce lover.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Describe mumbo sauce to me as if I’ve just landed from another planet.
Jones: Mumbo sauce is a standard wing sauce here in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It’s sweet, it’s sticky, it’s savory.
Harper: It’s a sweet, spicy, flavorful condiment, like a tomato sauce-based condiment, that, around here, we put on everything.
McLeod: It might have a little bit of ketchup in it. There’s sour, but not like sweet-and-sour sauce; it’s totally different from that. And there’s a kick to it … but the sweetness kind of overrides the heat.
What was your reaction when you heard that McDonald’s is introducing a mumbo sauce-inspired dip?
Wynn: Growing up in the District of Columbia, all my life I knew it was only a matter of time before one of the big companies took mumbo sauce and decided to make it something global and make big money off of it.
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Jones: You know, I believe that food brings us together. If this partnership allows people from across the United States to have visibility into Washington, D.C., and the culture we have here, it’s a great thing.
Harper: I’ve seen mumbo sauce introduced by other corporate entities before — I think KFC did one — so it doesn’t surprise me. D.C. culture — particularly Black food culture — is beautiful and robust, and it doesn’t surprise me when corporations decide that they want to do a version of it. What was exciting about it … was that [local] chef Jerome Grant was a part of bringing this into their lexicon. I think he’s a talented chef and he represents his food and his culture very well.
Share this articleShareMcLeod: Almost disbelief! Because that’s a huge thing for mumbo sauce. … That was D.C.’s thing, so I’m in shock that [McDonald’s] has it, and I want to try it.
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What does mumbo sauce mean to D.C.?
Harper: It means different things to different people. Some people call it “mambo.” Some people call it “mumbo.” I think it just depends on who you ask. I don’t think there’s one right way or one wrong way. The carryouts are where mumbo sauce is defined. If you talk to anyone that’s from D.C., they will tell you their favorite place that has their favorite mumbo sauce.
McLeod: Every city has their staple food. In New York, you got your pizza. Mumbo sauce is our staple food. You’re not an official Washingtonian until you have mumbo sauce.
Wynn: It kind of goes hand in hand with D.C. go-go. It’s something that is only made here. And it’s not anywhere else; no other Asian carryout outside of the DMV even knows about it. When I first moved to Baltimore, I guess 20 years ago, the first time I went in there and I asked if they had mumbo sauce, the people looked at me like they didn’t know what I was talking about. … I spent time in Connecticut. I spent time in California. And the one thing that I learned is if I got on a plane tomorrow and went to the District, I could get some chicken wings with mumbo sauce. The flavor, the taste, licking the sauce off your hands — it all reminded you of your childhood and took you back to D.C.
Jones: It has such a connection to the community because it was part of the subculture of our area for so long. I’ve said this many times in many different platforms, that this sauce is a legacy. It’s a legacy of our culture, of our community. And as the demographics of Washington, D.C., start to change, people are finding it even more important to hold near and dear to their hearts what was an original product from Washington, D.C. — and, honestly, I love it.
What are some of your favorite dishes to put mumbo sauce on?
Wynn: Chicken was the staple. Some people would put it on their fried rice. I know a person that would put it on her lo mein sometimes. So everybody had a different use for it.
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Jones: I am a Washington native, and so that means I specifically only use mumbo sauce on chicken. However, my kids absolutely love it on anything. They eat it on fries. They eat it on hot dogs, and hamburgers and chicken nuggets and shrimp and salmon and baked chicken and pork tenderloins.
Harper: You got to have it on your chicken wings and your fries. At Queen Mother’s, my restaurant in Arlington, it goes great on fried chicken sandwiches. We like to put it on our crinkle-cut duck fat fries, too.
McLeod: They have to be the right kind of fries. Usually, the crinkle-cut fries are the best thing to put mumbo sauce on because they stay crispy. You douse your food in mumbo sauce, you got to eat it pretty quick. It’s going to get soggy quickly.
What do you think the eating public should know as McDonald’s prepares to introduce mumbo/mambo sauce to the nation?
Jones: Mumbo sauce will create a lot of conversation. But that conversation stems from an emotional connection to this. What you have is people who just love not only this sauce, but where they were born and raised. Even though this is a sauce that we’re talking about, we’re also indirectly talking about a community of people. I’m hoping that those people and their voices and their opinions don’t get lost in this conversation because it’s really about them.
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Harper: Any time a corporation gets ahold of something that people on the ground built, my eyebrow goes up. But this is America, and corporations are going to do what corporations do. On one hand, it’s good that people will ask about mumbo and they’ll get introduced to it. Maybe people can find out more how it was created. In a certain regard, it’s good that they can shine a light on Black culture and Black food.
McLeod: Please give us our credit in D.C. for mumbo sauce. Even though it’s spelled “mambo” sauce, I need them to know that it’s originally called mumbo sauce. Because if you come to D.C. and say “I want some ‘mambo’ sauce,” we’re going to be upset. I need the rest of the country to know what it’s really called, and I just need them to give us our props!
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