Condiments According to an 18th-century
bon mot attributed to Domenico Caracciolli,
with implicit contrast to France: “England has
sixty religions and one sauce” — that one
sauce being melted butter! And the sharp-
toothed Alberto Denti di Pirajno begins the
chapter on sauces in his Educated Gastronome
(Venice, 1950) with these pointed sentences:
Doctor Johnson defined a sauce as
something which is eaten with food in
order to improve its flavor. It would be
difficult to believe that a man of the
intelligence and culture of Dr. Johnson...
had expressed himself in these terms, if we
did not know that Dr. Johnson was English.
Even today his compatriots, incapable of
giving any flavor to their food, call on
sauces to furnish their dishes that which
their dishes do not have. This explains the
sauces, the jellies and prepared extracts,
the bottled sauces, the chutneys, the