5 Mother Sauces
Five Mother Sauces
Throughout the history of cuisine; sauces have been used as a basis for many regional styles of cuisine. A sauce is defined as a liquid or semi-solid food served on or in the process of preparing other foods. Sauces are created to accompany other foods and make them look, smell, and taste better. They are easily digested and nutritionally beneficial. Sauces are not served by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, aromas, and visual appeals to a finished dish. Today there are many different compound or small sauces that can be seen worldwide, however these small sauces are linked to and are derived from the five classified mother sauces. Two French chefs that contributed to the creation of these fundamental sauces are, Marie-Antoine Crème; who was responsible for classifying the sauces into recognizable procedures, and Aguste Escoffier who refined the classified sauces into “Families” that are still recognized today. Careme was known as the king of cooks and the cook of kings. This is because famous French diplomats, and royalty such as, Prince de Talleyrand, King George the IV & Tsar Alexander of Russia. He worked his way up from a middle class cook to a well known respected chef. Careme was a master of French, Grande cuisine which was regional to his home in Paris. He was one of the first chefs to create dishes that used architecture in his presentation to visually please the eye. He was known to be the first chef to standardize the use of a roux for a thickening agent in the sauces. Careme was responsible for creating a system that classified four of the five mother sauces. These include: Allemande- stock with egg yolk & lemon juice, Béchamel- flour and milk, Espagnole - brown stock; and Veloute — white stock. These four foundation sauces were called grandes sauces. Two of them have a record of two hundred years behind them prior to Careme; they are the "béchamel" and the "mayonnaise". They have lasted so long, not only because they
Throughout the history of cuisine; sauces have been used as a basis for many regional styles of cuisine. A sauce is defined as a liquid or semi-solid food served on or in the process of preparing other foods. Sauces are created to accompany other foods and make them look, smell, and taste better. They are easily digested and nutritionally beneficial. Sauces are not served by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, aromas, and visual appeals to a finished dish. Today there are many different compound or small sauces that can be seen worldwide, however these small sauces are linked to and are derived from the five classified mother sauces. Two French chefs that contributed to the creation of these fundamental sauces are, Marie-Antoine Crème; who was responsible for classifying the sauces into recognizable procedures, and Aguste Escoffier who refined the classified sauces into “Families” that are still recognized today. Careme was known as the king of cooks and the cook of kings. This is because famous French diplomats, and royalty such as, Prince de Talleyrand, King George the IV & Tsar Alexander of Russia. He worked his way up from a middle class cook to a well known respected chef. Careme was a master of French, Grande cuisine which was regional to his home in Paris. He was one of the first chefs to create dishes that used architecture in his presentation to visually please the eye. He was known to be the first chef to standardize the use of a roux for a thickening agent in the sauces. Careme was responsible for creating a system that classified four of the five mother sauces. These include: Allemande- stock with egg yolk & lemon juice, Béchamel- flour and milk, Espagnole - brown stock; and Veloute — white stock. These four foundation sauces were called grandes sauces. Two of them have a record of two hundred years behind them prior to Careme; they are the "béchamel" and the "mayonnaise". They have lasted so long, not only because they
Cited: E.S.Dallas (1877), Kettner 's Book of the Table, Dullau and Co., London, digitized by Google, retrieved 2008 Lebensky, Sarah R. 2011 On Cooking: a textbook of culinary fundamentals / Sarah R. Lebensky, Allen M. Hause, Priscilla A. Martel. 5th Edition ISBN 0-13-715576-x(978-0-13-717556-7) Linda Stradley, Sauces - History of Sauces, 1997. http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/SauceHistory.htm