A sauce-first philosophy can simplify your cooking decisions

Welcome to the first session of the sauce seminar

Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

My original concept for “Mother Sauce” was to write a newsletter dedicated entirely to condiments. I would proselytize my cooking gospel: “if you have sauce, you have a meal.” Each issue would feature a different one – ranging from zero-effort to complex – with suggestions for how to use them. The thinking goes: cooking entire meals can be overwhelming; selecting a sauce simplifies the decision-making.

It’s not a new theory. There’s a reason why sauces are one of the first things you’re taught in culinary school. First-year students learn to make the French mother sauces – béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato and hollandaise (and sometimes mayonnaise) – designated by George Auguste Escoffier in his 1903 book, “Le Guide Culinaire.” Technically, Marie-Antoine Carême created the sauce classification system, but Escoffier simplified the list so he gets the credit. These aren’t the only mother sauces, of course. Every cuisine and region has their own version, even if they don’t have a fancy book or Thomas Keller Master Class about them. 

Sauces are the building blocks of cooking. It’s the difference between chicken parmigiana and chicken picatta, between eggs benedict and egg korma. Yes, this is an oversimplification of cooking, but the principle stands: once you’ve mastered a few sauces, you can embellish them, mix them and layer them with other ingredients to create a million different dishes. 

That was the grand idea behind this Substack, to build a glossary of sauces. A sauce-ary, if you will. I’d write about different dressings and their ilk each week and you’d be able to develop your personal mother sauce roster. Eventually you’d become more confident in the kitchen, embellishing your dishes with various toppings and condiments, and never feel uninspired again.

But like a good sauce, this theory is taking some time to develop. So I kept writing about other things while letting the idea simmer in the background. We’re ten issues in and I’m just now testing it out. 

Part of the reason for the delay is that I realized I needed to first define what a sauce is. That’s what we’ll cover today.

After many attempts, here’s the very expansive definition of “sauce” I’ve settled on:

Sauce is any component of a dish that isn’t substantial enough to count as a meal on its own. It’s an adjective, not a subject; an adverb, not a verb. It’s a garnish, a dressing, a condiment, a relish, a pickle, a sprinkle or a drizzle. There are exceptions – yogurt can be a sauce. Cheese can be sauce. Tomatoes, peppers, greens and nuts can be pulverized or reduced to become sauce. Grains are not sauces, though flours can be added to thicken sauces. Proteins can both be in a sauce and part of a sauce, for example ragu or XO sauce. Under certain circumstances, broth can be a sauce. Sauce can be as simple as a dash of Tabasco, as complicated as kimchi. If it adds flavor or dimension and isn’t the main component of a dish, it’s a sauce. 

So that’s it. You’ve officially completed your first session of the sauce seminar. In next week’s issue, I’ll offer my proposal for modern mother sauce classifications. Eventually I’ll get to sussing out some sauces. I still plan to mix in non-condiment recipes and think pieces. So if you come to Mother Sauce solely to read my hot takes, don’t worry those aren’t going anywhere. 

And here are some food news items for dessert…

• 🥞 Pancake mix-up. Walmart pulled its Great Value Pancake and Waffle mix from shelves after fragments of cable were found in some boxes. If you’re more of a traditionalist who prefers syrup with your flapjacks, then Pepsi and IHOP have a new soda flavor for you.

• 👬 Sign of the times. Nothing clever to say here, I just enjoyed this Eater piece about Carlos and Miguel Cevallos, two brothers and veteran sign painters who are experiencing a surge in business after a friend helped them set up an Instagram account early in the pandemic.