What are the basic MOTHER sauces?

[jennyema]

Originally Posted by jasonr

I felt the same way about law school. Even now, I have to wonder whether or not my skills as a lawyer would be any different today without law school. I'm still not sure about the answer..

I agree in the sense that in some ways law school is merely a barrier to entry. BUT... Law school teaches you a lot more than practical lawyering skills (mine didn't really even do that). I can't imagine not having gone to LS.

Originally Posted by jasonr

My dream would be to run away to France and go to culinary school. I might even do it one day if I get bored of being a lawyer. ..

Me too. In fact I tried to do both a few years back, but there were too many conflicts. Still take evening and weekend classes though.

[jasonr]

I agree in the sense that in some ways law school is merely a barrier to entry. BUT... Law school teaches you a lot more than practical lawyering skills (mine didn't really even do that). I can't imagine not having gone to LS.

I guess I sort of agree, even though I have done my best to forget law school :)

I don't think I'd feel the same way about culinary school. I think it would be very practical to have actual classes with actual chefs teaching you how to do things. Law school is all theory, but by its very nature, I would think culinary school would have to have a significant practical element.

[ironchef]

Originally Posted by Baketech

Is a sofrito considered a sauce? If so, where does it fit into the picture?

A sofrito can be a sauce, but it is thought of as more of a base for other things.

[jpinmaryland]

Hello RouxBurns: You asked about an internet source for sauces, here are two that are pretty good. There is another one that attempts to list all of the minor sauces made from the mother sauces. I will try to track that down, but in the meantime these ones providde a start:

Sauce Recipes For Chicken Beef or Fish

History of Sauces, History of Mayonnaise, History of Béchamel Sauce, history of Hollandaise Sauce

[chefnaterock]

"It was the 19-th century French chef Antonin Careme who evolved an intricate methodology by which hundreds of derivative sauces were classified under one of four 'mother sauces': Those are: Espagnole (brown stock based), Veloute (white stock based), Bechamel (milk-based [or cream based]), and Allemande (egg enriched veloute). " Food Lover's Companion, 4th ed., Barrons Educational Series, Inc.: 2007 (p. 603). Later was added the fifth group of emulsified sauces, e.g. hollandaise, mayonaise, and vinagrettes.

I have also read somewhere that tomato sauces have also been added. You are getting a myriad of different answers, I hope my citation helps.

[Glorie]

This is very helpful! Thank you!! :o)

[GhettoRacingKid]

Wow this thread made my culinary head spin.

I would like to just throw in that in the last what ever amount of years there is alot of grey areas in jsut about everything. With all the sharing of information, techniques, ingredints, and so on and so forth things have changed and the culinary world will never be how it used to be where this is this and that is that.

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Though the world is constantly evolving, and changing, with sharing of, and access to more and more culinary information, the 5 Mother Sauces are still valid. They form the basis of a host of derivative sauces and are an important knowledge base. For even though there are great many sauces now available to all of us, the techniques for making the French sauces, and the small sauces that come from them, are used to make virtually all sauces, be it a sweet and sour sauce, which could be described as a veloute' based sauce as it is often made from chicken broth, with various starches and flavors added, to ketchup, which is in fact, a tomato based sauce, again with added seasonings and sugar (corn syrup). The Asian sauces and gravies are often starchy sauces built from stocks and broths.

The main difference I see in today's sauces is that corn starch, arrow root starch, tapioca, and similar products are often used in place of a roux as the thickening agent. But then again, flour slurries were used before cornstarch was readily available too.

Learn the Mother Sauces, and the various sauces made from them, and you will have the techniques for most of the world's great sauces.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North