I AM SAUCY! BY LIAM CANNON, POS TECH I am saucy! Now say that in your best Michael Keaton Batman voice. You can put your hands on your hips if you want. The term saucy refers to a person with a bold and lively personality. Culinary sauces can do the same for food, turning your entree into an epicurean masterpiece. Sauce is a French term derived from the Latin salsus, meaning salted, indicating its flavor enhancing capabilities. Sweet and savory sauces are present in almost all cuisines around the world. Some of the oldest known sauces come from the ancient Romans. Mustard, not unlike the condiment we have today, was made by crushing mustard seed and combining it with fermented grapes into a paste. The most popular sauce was garum, a highly pungent liquid made from small fish, like anchovies, mixed with the intestines of larger fish and salt, and fermented in the sun for up to two months. Although the French did not create the first sauces, they were responsible for establishing the principal sauces that all present-day sauciers must master. (As you can probably guess, a saucier is a chef who specializes in sauces.) While the French created hundreds of sauces used globally in one form or another, there are five primary sauces known as “grand” or “mother sauces.” Any sauce derived from one of these is a “daughter,” “secondary,” or “petite” sauce.
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Béchamel—a
white sauce of milk thickened with roux. King Louis XIV’s court chef Francois Pierre de la Varenne (1615-1678) probably created the sauce, honoring the Marquis Louis de Béchamel, a French financier and patron of the arts.
Espagnole—a
brown sauce of reduced stock and tomatoes, thickened with brown roux. For the wedding feast of King Louis XIII of France and Princess Anne Mauricia of Spain, her cooks made a sauce combining France’s brown sauce with Spanish tomatoes.
Velouté—
a blond sauce made by reducing clear stock (from un-roasted bones) and thickening it with a white roux.
Tomate (you say tomato, I say tomate)—a tomato-
based sauce made with pork belly, onions, bay leaves, and spices.
Hollandaise—
a warm emulsion of butter, egg yolks, and lemon juice, originally called sauce Isigny after a town in Normandy known for its creamy butter. During WWI, butter production ceased in France, so it was imported from Holland, hence the name change. Although not an official mother sauce, the honorable mention award goes to…mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil, egg, and vinegar or lemon. When the list of mother sauces was being decided, there was quite a debate whether to include mayonnaise. Everybody loves mayonnaise, so many countries and regions claim to be
