substantial soups — and other prepared
dishes. The French soupe was the equivalent
of the English sop, a flavorful liquid imbuing
a piece or pieces of bread. A number of
manuscripts divide their recipes into
categories: there are uncooked sauces, cooked
sauces, sauces in which to cook meat, and
others with which to serve meats, thin and
thick potages, and so on. And the English
word gravy appears, derived apparently but
mysteriously from the French grané. The
latter, whose name derives from the Latin
granatus, “made with grains, grainy,” was a
kind of stew made with meat and meat juices,
and not a separate mixture of spices and
liquid.
French Sauces from the 17th Century
In the recipe books of La Varenne and
Pierre de Lune, we can find a hollandaise-
like “fragrant sauce,” the cream-like
emulsion still called beurre blanc or