A REPROACH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20308, 6 January 1936, Page 12

A REPROACH

ENGLAND’S SINGLE SAUCE England has long suffered under the reproach that she was a country of a single sauce the said solitary sauce being the white preparation of flour, milk, and water—which, flavoured accordingly to its appointed dish, fish flesh, vegetable, or sweet, played the role of maid of all work in the national cuisine (states the London “Daily Telegraph”). Specialists in the higher cookery which does not observe frontier limits knew better. The renowned M. Escoffier, whose name is written large in the history of modern cookery, recognised what he called the leading sauces and the small sauces, and went so far as to divide the small sauces into three groups, one of which is known officially as the English sauces. And the English sauces represent no mean contribution to good fare. The cold ones include mint with the lamb, horseradish with the beef, and Cumberland with the venison, and the hot ones apple, egg. celery, cranberry, fennel—and B read sauce.

Simple sounding sauce as this lastnamed one is. its part inwcookery is a distinguished one. It is the chosen associate of the aristocratic pheasant, the epicurean grouse, the well-beloved partridge. It is in attendance on the roast fowl, and the festive turkey. Old-fashioned English cooks coupled it with the grilled cutlet, and in many parts of the countryside bread sauce and sausages are table mates.

Although it is a sauce of seemingly simple order, the ingredients varying little, the results achieved by the cook differ to an amazing degree. Everyone has encountered the unattractive little mound of pale greyish matter which often masquerades as bread sauce, and some at least have enjoyed the delicious creamy preparation, well flavoured and of even texture, that the cook who has a way with bread sauce serves with her roast game and fowl.

Method, it would seem, is the secret. M. Escoffier, for example, when he presided over the preparations for Victorian and Edwardian banquets, preferred to add fresh white breadcrumbs in the proportion of three ounces to t pint of boiling milk with a little sauce, a small onion punctured with a clove, and an ounce of butter. After cocking gently for fifteen minutes the onion was removed, the sauce made smooth by whisking, and finished off by the addition of cream. Francatelli, who laid down cookery law in an earlier Victorian day, chose to mix a tablespoon of cream with half a pint of milk and bring this to boiling point with the breadcrumbs—two ounces, a small onion, and salt and some peppercorns, stirring these ingredients over the flame (fire in his day) until it had ’-oiled for ten minutes. Onirn and peppercorns were removed and half an ounce of fresh butter worked in.