often made with similarly savory mushrooms
and anchovies. Our familiar tomato ketchup is
a sweetened version of salty, vinegary, spicy
tomato preserves. So an English contemporary
of Carême’s, William Kitchiner, includes a
recipe for béchamel in his recipe book, but
also presents “Wow Wow Sauce,” which
contains parsley, pickled cucumbers or
walnuts, butter, flour, broth, vinegar, catsup,
and mustard. These strongly flavored
concoctions were quick and easy to use, and
were evidently enjoyed for their strong
contrast to the flavor of the foods they
accompanied, not for subtle enhancement.
Modern Sauces: Nouvelle
and Post-Nouvelle
The 20th Century: Nouvelle Cuisine Back in
the 18th century, François Marin and his
colleagues described their bouillon-based
cooking as nouvelle cuisine, or the “new