"Je la redoute, cette sauce. Avec elle on mangerait toujours. La lecture seule de sa recette donne faim."

Baron Brisse: La Petite Cuisine.

The supreme triumph of the French cuisine consists in its sauces; for nothing can so vary the routine of daily cookery as the different combinations of herbs and seasonings that may be utilised by a competent artist as an adjunct and a finish to a dish. King's "Art of Cookery" has admirably versified the mission of the sauce:

As without flattery there were no society, so without sauces there were no gastronomy. Properly prepared, with a thorough understanding of the hygienic nature of flavourings and their harmony with reference to the special viands they are to enhance, a finely composed sauce is a digestive as well as a stimulus to the organs of taste. No better illustration of the qualities of a perfect sauce occurs in the annals of the art than that of Baron Brisse, which refers to sauce bÉarnaise, and La ReyniÈre's comment on anchovy sauce,—"Lorsque cette sauce est bien traitÉe, elle ferait manger un ÉlÉphant. This is La ReyniÈre's recipe, including its proper belongings, as given in the sixth year of the "Almanach":

"The anchovy figures as a stimulant and aperient in a great number of sauces, whose presence imparts to them their principal virtues. Such are the sauces À l'Allemande, À l'anchois, aux cÂpres, etc.; we shall confine ourselves to the recipe of that which bears its name. Anchovy sauce is prepared by first carefully washing the anchovies in vinegar; the bones are then removed, the fish finely minced and placed in a stewpan with a clear coulis[46] of veal and ham, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and fine spices; after heating reduce to the proper consistence and give it the finishing touch. This sauce serves for the roast. The anchovy plays the principal rÔle in the sauce served with roast sirloin of beef and hare À la broche. It is made with their juices and a little bouillon, anchovies coarsely chopped, capers, fine herbs, tarragon, pepper, salt, and vinegar. With this sauce well prepared, one might eat an elephant.

"Anchovy sauce is also employed in several sorts of gravies, and one may say that it is not misplaced in any piquante sauce: for it is in itself an excellent Épigramme. It follows from these remarks that the anchovy is an indispensable adjunct to good cheer. Its body figures admirably for the dÉjeuner and with the hors-d'oeuvres, and its spirit makes itself distinctly felt in all sauces that it permeates. It imparts to them a savour which stimulates the appetite and agreeably captivates the palate."

In the middle ages the office of the saucier, or master sauce-maker, was invested with great importance. A chief functionary in all grand houses, under him were clerks, varlets, and youths termed galopins de saucerie, who stood ever ready to do his bidding. Old woodcuts depict him presiding over his receptacles—as imposing in his dignity as the master-carver himself. Even then the adage held good that the sauce was often worth more than the fish.

Indeed, the sauce is the sonnet of the table, as varied in its forms as the structure of the sonnet itself. The Gaul is its master, and to him belongs the majority of its most pleasing tenses. In the words of the distinguished Marquis de Cussy, who maintained that a good cook can remove your gout as you would remove your gloves,—"Point de sauce, point de salut, point de cuisine; where would we be if the grand sauces, the lesser ones, and the special ones that have rendered the French school illustrious had not been discovered by men of the greatest genius? The life labours of one alone would not have sufficed. What a brilliant ladder to scale, that which, leaving the last round—the sauce pauvre homme—is lost in the clouds with the veloutÉ, the grande and petite espagnole, and the rÉductions!"[47]

Sauce Soubise, sauce d'OrlÉans, sauce d'Uxelles, and sauce À la RÉgence are all credited to great minds of the eighteenth century, so prolific of new culinary discoveries. Through their piquant instrumentality we may in imagination summon the splendours of the Regency and the reign of Louis, surnamed "le Bien-AimÉ," with the brilliant toilets of its gay and pretty women—the high-heeled pointed shoe, the powdered hair, the rouge and beauty-spot, the painted fan and walking-stick of fille, duchesse, and marquise that still look at us from the canvases of Boucher and Watteau. We may see, too, the V-shaped satin corsage, the expansive pannier, the diaphanous robe dÉshabillÉe,—flounced, frilled, flowered, and furbelowed,—the embroidered petticoat and surge of lace and ribband, as fair dame and plumed gallant repair to the suppers of the Palais-Royal and the Parc aux Cerfs, or sit down amid umbrageous glades to the revels of a fÊte champÊtre.

Almost as many varieties of sauces exist as of soups. But these may vary little or largely from their usually accepted names. The cook will tell you, if you are unacquainted with the fact yourself, that by adding to simple melted butter a liberal amount of finely chopped parsley (some ruin the relish with grated nutmeg, a spice which should be used with great discretion), salt and pepper, and a dash of lemon, you have what is termed a maÎtre-d'hÔtel sauce. Add to this finely minced garden-cress, chervil, and a little tarragon and burnet, and you produce a different sauce under the same name. Thus plain onion sauce and sauce Soubise, in each of which the onion forms the dominant chord, may differ equally, and sauce piquante and sauce Robert vary only in their titles and the additional mustard called for by the latter. Sauce poivrade, in like manner, is a sauce piquante with an increased supply of pepper and without the pickled cucumber.

Among the most valuable of all sauces, though employed only cold and served with cold viands, is that which at once suggests what Jules Janin in an inadvertent moment termed the "cardinal of the seas," and that at a luncheon or a late supper possesses a merit distinctively its own. This CarÊme has dealt with at length in his treatise on cold sauces. The origin of the word "mayonnaise," a blending supposed to be the invention of the MarÉchal de Richelieu, has always remained in doubt. Its etymology has been attributed to Mahon, a town of southern France. Yet this supposed derivation is extremely dubious; and as it was also known as "bayonnaise," it might be ascribed equally to Bayonne, famous for its hams, its cheese, and its chocolate, and for having invented the bayonet.[48]

It has been variously termed mahonaise, bayonnaise, mahonnoise, magnonaise, and mayonnaise. But CarÊme, after minutely describing its preparation, from the first drop of oil to its final silky, white, and unctuous cream, denies its accepted derivation, and pronounces it magnonaise, from the verb manier—to stir; as it may be prepared only through the continual stirring it undergoes, which results in a marrowy, velvety, and very appetising sauce, unique of its kind, and bearing no resemblance to others that are obtained only through reductions of the range. Despite this ingenious explanation, the word is still written "mayonnaise"; and while lights shine brilliantly, and champagne sparkles, and the great crawfish, sublimated into salad, receives the encomiums of appreciative guests, the famous chef of the Empire is forgotten, and the chapter of the "Cuisinier Parisien" exists only as a tale that is told.

It may be observed that a good sauce should be perfect in flavour, colour, smell, and consistency. It should be savoury, flowing, and well defined. On the proper liaison, a correct apportionment of the flavourings, a knowledge of the range, and a discriminating palate, supplemented by long experience, depends its triumph. Of course the bain-marie will be readily accessible when the sauce is obliged to wait, the butter will be unexceptionable, and the shallot especially will never be lacking when its virtues are in request. As has been previously stated in the case of numerous other culinary preparations, success depends more upon the practitioner than the formula. It is as difficult, therefore, to describe the subtle chiaroscuro of a perfect sauce as to define the hues that mantle the petals of the rose "BeautÉ Inconstante," or the combined odours hived by a windless night of June.

Comparatively few sauces may suffice for the modest household to supplement the espagnole, or brown sauce, and the veloutÉ, or white sauce, the foundations from which most others are compounded. These two rudimentary sauces, to be well made, should not be greasy, but contain just enough fat, according to the authorities, to present the velvety appearance of a full-blown damask rose. CarÊme devotes twenty-five pages to these "mother sauces" and their two slight modifications, bÉchamel and allemande; while Francatelli points out that although great care and watchful attention are requisite in every branch of cookery, the exercise of these qualities is most essential in the preparation of the grand stock sauces. In the home kitchen these are naturally prepared in an infinitely more simple manner than according to the elaborate recipes of the great professors of the table.

The mistress of the household who would render herself trebly appreciated, and who by ministering to man's palate may the more readily guide, direct, and control his character, should train herself unerringly in the art of compounding appetising and wholesome sauces. To be sure, some of these manipulated by competent masculine hands—but how often slurred by some fatigued or indifferent sous-chef!—may be obtained at one's club or the better-class restaurants. But here in many instances the wine-cellar is apt to be uncertain; while frequent dining out is not to be compared with the sense of comfort of dining at home when the kitchen, even though unpretentious, is carefully administered, the menu varied, the wines perfect of their kind, and where Her Gracious Serenity's address may have conjured some dainty entrÉe whose sauce, sapid and velvety, leaves nothing to be desired. One might tire of this, perchance, with no change for a sixmonth, as one might weary of constant sunshine or a too lavish profusion of tender epithets. Yet it is a desirable condition, nevertheless, to fall back upon; and in the end far the safest for digestion.

And this despite Balzac, who well understood the cuisine no less than the "ComÉdie Humaine,"—that "marriage must necessarily combat a monster who devours everything—daily routine"; or his other definition in the "Physiology of Marriage," a physiological study that was inspired by Savarin's "Physiology of Taste,"—"Pressurez le mariage, il n'en sortira jamais rien que du plaisir pour les garÇons et de l'ennui pour les maris."

The wise woman will have many side-lights in her composition; and in the kitchen her sauces will have many shadings.

Let us toast her in a glass of sparkling St. PÉray, and acknowledge that without her there were no home cuisine and consequently no home life. So closely does the art advocated by the late lamented Mrs. Glasse touch upon the fundamental happiness of mankind; and sauces which render it an art supreme still further accentuate the amenities. It has been said that it is not obligatory for lovely arms and shoulders to be acquainted with rhetoric. However this may obtain—and there are admirers both of shapely shoulders and of the graces of languages, there can be no doubt that charming women who possess a taste for gastronomy which they can put to practical use upon occasion, are an infinitely greater desideratum than whose energies may be centred strictly upon flounces or the study of metaphysics.

With the following sauces, besides the simpler forms of espagnole and veloutÉ, much may be accomplished at home: cream bÉchamel, sauce piquante, sauce bordelaise, maÎtre-d'hÔtel and bÉarnaise, hollandaise, sauce an vin blanc, sauce au beurre noir (plain, or with shallots and parsley added), tomato sauce and its special form À la Richelieu, and, finally, Francatelli's sauce Number 65 for mutton and dark-fleshed game.[49] If, apart from those enumerated, madame be an artist in the fashioning of sauce tartare, the mayonnaise and its shadings, and a plain French salad dressing, all will be lovely sailing. What's sauce for the goose, however, is not necessarily sauce for the gander, and vice versa. Women will prefer the cream bÉchamel, mayonnaise, and Francatelli, and the sterner sex will like them all.

It may not prove entirely without profit if to these be added sauce À la SchÖnberg, which harmonises not only with halibut, flounder, sea-bass, and sole, but with chicken-breasts and white-fleshed game-birds as well, when one desires a change from the usual modes of preparation:

"Sauce À la SchÖnberg. Make a roux of a tablespoon of butter and flour, brown slightly, add two shallots finely minced, and a pint of chicken broth, three tablespoons of tomato sauce, a small bay-leaf, two cloves, some finely minced parsley, a teaspoon of cognac, and a little white wine. Season with salt and pepper, and strain. Then add a half can of mushrooms, slice and brown them in a little butter with a few dice of sweetbreads previously cooked, and, just before removing from the range, the yolk of an egg and a half cup of cream."

The professional chef may possibly criticise it,—mesdames the "'Compleat' Housewives" will discover in it a fragrant note of satisfaction.

Will new sauces continue to be invented? Assuredly; of culinary as well as other novelties there will always be an abundant supply, however bizarre or lacking in excellence compared with the old. But in new dishes it will be new combinations for the most part, varying but little from the classics and those already known, rather than any distinctly novel forms of superior merit, such as have been recently evolved in floriculture, for instance. For the art of cookery is of ancient time, while the evolution of the flower, especially the floral queen, the rose, is comparatively new; and where the one has still untold possibilities, the other has well-nigh attained its full tide of savour and perfection, at least in theory and understanding, if not nearly so often in practice as were to be desired.

An extended disquisition, redolent of truffles and odorous of the herb-garden, might be devoted to the subject of sauces, of which Charles Ranhofer in his recent manual, "The Epicurean," presents two hundred and forty-six. But this were invading the practical domain of the cookery books, and wandering too far from the lines of the subject under consideration—the history and province of Gastronomy.