Before the pandemic hit, I had never even so much as heard “mother sauce” or “daughter sauce.” Certainly, I had heard “my mother’s sauce” which is not what is meant by the terms. In this case, however, “mother/daughter” refers to a kind of hierarchy. The French define the five most fundamental—or is it six? We’ll answer that later—sauces as the “mother sauces.” These five sauces are the cornerstones of French cuisine as defined by Escoffier and Carême, two French chefs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who were both, in their time, called “the chef of the kings and the king of the chefs.” Escoffier and Carême were so good at their craft, so instrumental in making cooking what it is today that, in all likelihood, there have never been any chefs who have even come close to their influence.
I learned all this from Alex and his 12-part “Mother Sauces” series viewable on YouTube. This series of blog posts will be shorter—only 8 posts—including this one, one for each of the five “traditional” mother sauces, one for the mother sauce unfairly left out, and one explaining why one of the traditional five is actually an impostor. This last one will be a summary of Alex’s research; I cannot take credit for the research, as here I am merely a reporter. I finally feel confident enough in my knowledge of these sauces that, over several months, I have written these articles and they’re finally all ready to be shared with the world.
I have been in the kitchen since I was a toddler: at first, I just watched. I remember having a little purple and green stool that we kept in the kitchen from which I could pay attention. At first, that was my space to just watch, but as I grew a little older, that was my little spot from where I could help my mom cook. I got older, and I started copying my mom’s recipes, or, more often, playing the part of the “sous-chef” to her “chef-de-cuisine.” COVID brought about a change in our home kitchen. I went from a “line cook” or “sous” to the chef in the family. I had more work in the kitchen, but that also meant more time to hone my techniques, develop my own recipes, and turn food into one of the many ways to express love for my family.
Here’s where Alex comes in. I watched his series, and I realized I had never made 3 of the 5—or, really, 4 of the 6—mother sauces at the beginning of my time leading my family’s kitchen, and even fewer of the daughters (since each mother has several daughters). My mom’s family, going back a few generations, were in Italy. Even a hundred-plus years removed from living in Italy, our family’s palette is still very Italian. Classic Italian cuisine uses tomatoes everywhere. There we go: one mother sauce. We don’t have it as often as we used to, but we do sometimes have dishes cooked with béchamel. Watching Alex made me realize those were the only two sauces I had ever worked with. So, I made it my mission to work with all of them.
This next series of posts will first go through each of the five (six) sauces and explain how to make each of them. Every chef should know all of these sauces. They are, after all, the foundation of classical cooking. The last post in this series will address what Alex called his “thesis-level revelation” and, at least in the small corner of the internet in which I have a presence, correct the record, and hopefully make some progress at rectifying a century-old mistake.
This series will cover, in this order, my recipes for béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomate, hollandaise, mayonnaise, and, finally, I’ll explain Alex’s “thesis-level” revelation regarding the last two.
In the series, Alex goes to visit Chef-de-Cuisine Christian LeSquer (***) at the Hotel George V in Paris and at the Chef’s home, learning how to build great sauces from Chef LeSquer and from Executive Chef Romain Mauduit. Chef Le Squer tasks his Executive Chef with teaching Alex how to build sauces, and, at one point, the three of them gather at Chef Le Squer’s house, and the two professionals—the ultimate authority and someone who works immediately under him at a 3-star restaurant in Paris—give a sauce Alex prepares following their advice a very solid 2-stars.
I learned all this from Alex and his 12-part “Mother Sauces” series viewable on YouTube. This series of blog posts will be shorter—only 8 posts—including this one, one for each of the five “traditional” mother sauces, one for the mother sauce unfairly left out, and one explaining why one of the traditional five is actually an impostor. This last one will be a summary of Alex’s research; I cannot take credit for the research, as here I am merely a reporter. I finally feel confident enough in my knowledge of these sauces that, over several months, I have written these articles and they’re finally all ready to be shared with the world.
I have been in the kitchen since I was a toddler: at first, I just watched. I remember having a little purple and green stool that we kept in the kitchen from which I could pay attention. At first, that was my space to just watch, but as I grew a little older, that was my little spot from where I could help my mom cook. I got older, and I started copying my mom’s recipes, or, more often, playing the part of the “sous-chef” to her “chef-de-cuisine.” COVID brought about a change in our home kitchen. I went from a “line cook” or “sous” to the chef in the family. I had more work in the kitchen, but that also meant more time to hone my techniques, develop my own recipes, and turn food into one of the many ways to express love for my family.
Here’s where Alex comes in. I watched his series, and I realized I had never made 3 of the 5—or, really, 4 of the 6—mother sauces at the beginning of my time leading my family’s kitchen, and even fewer of the daughters (since each mother has several daughters). My mom’s family, going back a few generations, were in Italy. Even a hundred-plus years removed from living in Italy, our family’s palette is still very Italian. Classic Italian cuisine uses tomatoes everywhere. There we go: one mother sauce. We don’t have it as often as we used to, but we do sometimes have dishes cooked with béchamel. Watching Alex made me realize those were the only two sauces I had ever worked with. So, I made it my mission to work with all of them.
This next series of posts will first go through each of the five (six) sauces and explain how to make each of them. Every chef should know all of these sauces. They are, after all, the foundation of classical cooking. The last post in this series will address what Alex called his “thesis-level revelation” and, at least in the small corner of the internet in which I have a presence, correct the record, and hopefully make some progress at rectifying a century-old mistake.
This series will cover, in this order, my recipes for béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomate, hollandaise, mayonnaise, and, finally, I’ll explain Alex’s “thesis-level” revelation regarding the last two.
In the series, Alex goes to visit Chef-de-Cuisine Christian LeSquer (***) at the Hotel George V in Paris and at the Chef’s home, learning how to build great sauces from Chef LeSquer and from Executive Chef Romain Mauduit. Chef Le Squer tasks his Executive Chef with teaching Alex how to build sauces, and, at one point, the three of them gather at Chef Le Squer’s house, and the two professionals—the ultimate authority and someone who works immediately under him at a 3-star restaurant in Paris—give a sauce Alex prepares following their advice a very solid 2-stars.
Chef Le Squer and Chef Mauduit remind Alex that, at their core, every good chef must be a good saucier first. Sauce-making is a lost art in the Western home kitchen, and I want to bring it back, one blog post at a time.
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