Cookery books tell fibs!

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And then we come to the difference between sauce and gravy.

Sauce (As in classic French Sauces) are a mixture of fat, liquid, and a thickening agent (usually a roux in French cooking) A sauce is usually lightly thickened liquid or semi-liquid, and or can be a relish, used to enhance other foods. It is usually not eaten by itself.

Think of the 5 mother sauces, or apple sauce, or even catsup. Prepared mustard is a sauce. Other examples include sweet & sour sauce, Peanut sauce, Mornay Sauce, Salsa, these are all sauces. Sauces can include meat, or meat juices (broth or stock) but don't have to. Sauces can be either sweet, sweet and sour, piquant, or savory.

Gravies always use meat flavor as the base (except for Sunday Gravy), and are thicker than are most sauces. Gravies are also always savory.

DW likes her gravies and sauces thickened with corn starch. I prefer to use a roux with gravies, except for Sunday Gravy, which is thickened with tomato pulp. Then again, I call Sunday Gravy tomato sauce.

Comments, or discussions are welcome.:mrgreen:

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons - where does that leave mint sauce ie just mint, vinegar and a little sugar (eaten with roast lamb )? ;)
 
Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons - where does that leave mint sauce ie just mint, vinegar and a little sugar (eaten with roast lamb )? ;)

If that mint sauce is on my plate, it leaves it in the trash can. I detest the flavor of most mints, except for Oregano, Basil, and such non-minty members of the family.

As for where it goes between gravies and sauces, it's definitely a sauce. The definitions I gave are based on French cookery. There are many sauces made outside of France that are truly wonderful, but don't fit the French format.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
One point that hasn't been made is the intended audience of the cookbook. I have cookbooks (perhaps that is a stretch) that are textbooks used in culinary school. Definitely different audience than the church cookbooks I have or the five ingredients or less cookbooks or 30-minute meal cookbooks. I have one cookbook I purchased just for the photography. Can I duplicate the artistry of how those recipes were plated? Most likely not, but the quality of the photographs was why I bought the book.
 
Sometimes they ask stock photographers to make the dish, take a photograph, submit it to be chosen and then once they pick one, use it in their cookbooks. Maybe the stock photographer didn't do it right in the first place? Yours looks tastier
 
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