Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "In that era of processed and frozen foods in the United States, few would have predicted the sophistication and enthusiasm for cooking that exists today..." (more)
Key Phrases: meat glace, crustacean butter, integral sauces, United States, Unthickened Method, Middle Ages (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Back in 1991, when the first edition of Sauces was published, it's as though James Peterson said, "Okay, this is what we know so far. Where do you want to go from here?" The "what we know so far" part started with the Greeks and Romans, moved through the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance, through the 17th and 18th centuries, and right on into time as we know it, time that can be tasted in the sauce.

The "where do you want to go" part continues to evolve, as it always will, but remains just as evident in the way we sauce our creations, both elegant and fundamental. In the second edition of Sauces, released seven years after the first, the "we" has expanded beyond Frenchmen and their disciples, and now includes the broader range of flavors experienced by Italians as pasta sauces, as well as New World cooks and their counterparts in the Middle East and throughout greater Asia. The solid base from which all this grows, however, remains the lessons learned in the French kitchen--and a better kitchen for such lessons has never been developed.

To cook is one thing, to sauce another. The right sauce lifts the right dish to a wholly different plateau of dining than would be the case if the cook didn't bother. This can be a humble pasta sauce created as a perfect balance of ingredients on hand, or a carefully considered sauce the ingredients of which have been developed at the stove over days, not mere hours.

In the sauce can be seen the reflection of the cook. There is no room to hide. In the well-crafted sauce can be found the ultimate expression of simplicity, which leaves even less room to hide. It is James Peterson's great talent that he can draw the home cook and professional cook into his dialogue on sauces, and teach them both how to stay afloat in such shallow waters.

Peterson gives the reader--in close to 600 pages, mind you--the continuum on which sauces have been based in culinary history. He gives the reader the kitchen science that allows sauces to work. He gives the reader the techniques necessary to follow along where many a cook has already whisked up a splendid creation. But most of all, he gives the reader permission to go ahead and be creative, to cut loose with knowledge and technique in hand and discover for oneself the way an inkling of a flavor idea can find its way to a dish and make the combined ingredients lift off the plate. Or not. Finding out what doesn't work can be just as important.

This is a book that can be taken to bed and savored, page by page, sauce by sauce. It is a book that should be on the shelf in any kitchen, professional or homebody alike. It is not a book to ever gather dust and need dusting. --Schuyler Ingle

Review

"...bound to become a culinary icon...Any serious cook will want to own this book." (MostlyFood.co.uk, November 20th 2008) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2nd edition (January 27, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471292753
• ISBN-13: 978-0471292753
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #194,776 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

126 of 127 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cookbook that actually teaches how to cook., November 27, 1998

By	Ronald S. Montefusco (Dothan, AL USA) - See all my reviews

I've been dabbeling in sauces for a number of years in my home kitchen. In my considerable collection of cookbooks none attempt to teach a culinary subject with the thoroughness of this effort. The book assumes a general knowledge of cooking, such as what temperature to roast your chicken at, and focuses on the theory behind what your sauce should do. While the book contains many recipes, they are presented as illustrations of various types of classic sauces. The author encourages the reader to experiment and fine tune their sauce efforts by illustrating the classic techniques and recipes.

In all my years cooking and collecting cookbooks this is the first cookbook that I have read cover to cover. While you can simply peruse the recipes and use the book as a reference it really shines when read in its entirety. If one is really interested in French sauces and the theory and technique behind them, this book is all that will ever be needed on the subject. And if you're wondering what kind of sauce to make with those lamb chops tonight...

93 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtakingly thorough, February 24, 1999

By	Stephen Sykes (Rockville, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Sauces" is a book for professionals and serious home chefs and is the first book I've seen that compares and contrasts both classical and modern sauce-making methods. The author emphasizes the importance of quality stocks in sauce-making and points out that a stock appropriate for older, roux-based techniques is often inappropriate for more modern, reduction techniques. This explains why the stocks formulated in, say, the French Culinary Institute's "Salute to Healthy Cooking" are so much more concentrated than those in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and other classic French cooking texts. Peterson also includes methods for pan-prepared (integral) sauces that offer the professional and home cook alike a rapid way to prepare an impressive array of fine foods.

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily the most important recipe reference for your kitchen, January 28, 2005

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

`Sauces, 2nd Edition ' by leading food teacher and writer James Peterson is high on my list of important, valuable single subject cookbooks which should be in the kitchen library of any serious amateur chef or professional chef in training.

The very first impression is the very large number of named sauces listed in the table of contents. And, it should be no surprise at all that almost every one of these sauces has a French name, even if the sauce is based on a non-French ingredient such as Sauce Hongroise based on paprika and Sauce Porto based on Port (originating in Portugal). Of the chapters covering eighteen different kinds of sauce, only one, the chapter on `Salad Sauces, Vinaigrettes, Salsas, and Relishes' has even the slimmest majority of recipes with a non-French cant, with its large selection of Spanish and New World salsas, south Asian chutneys, Greek mint lamb sauce, and American cranberry sauce.

The book opens with a short history of sauces, which becomes more interesting the more you know about Medieval and Renaissance cooking. The book even gives something missing from books on medieval cooking, the outline of an actual recipe for the ubiquitous verjuice, which was the Medieval and Renaissance source for sour tastes, which could be prepared from either grapes or apples. Just for fun, Peterson gives a few samples of Medieval and Renaissance recipes. The most interesting observation I found for culinary history was the statement that in the Middle Ages, sauces were thickened by pureeing meat, which is not at all surprising, as Medieval nobility looked down on all vegetable products (such as flour?) and preferred animal ingredients and spices in their dishes. The high point of the last three centuries for sauce making was the advent of more broadly based cookbooks for regional and bourgeois cooking and the systemization of classic sauce making by Antonin Careme, the `father of modern French cooking' (See Ian Kelly's biography of Careme, `Cooking for Kings').

After the historical chapter and two better than average chapters on equipment and ingredients come the fifteen (15) chapters of recipes on:

Stocks, glaces, and essences
Liaisons: An Overview
White Sauces for Meat and Vegetables
Brown Sauces
Stock-Based and NonIntegral Fish Sauces
Integral Meat Sauces
Integral Fish and Shellfish Sauces
Crustacean Sauces
Jellies and Chauds-Froids
Hot Emulsified Egg Yolk Sauces
Mayonnaise Based Sauces
Butter Sauces
Salad Sauces, Vinaigrettes, Salsas, and Relishes
Purees and Puree Thickened Sauces
Dessert Sauces

The quality and authority of this book, especially with the added weight of a second enlarged and corrected edition is such that it is much more useful to state why you need this book rather than try to criticize it or find improvements.

First, this book is the very best reference I can think of when you need a sauce and don't remember how to make it or want to improve on the last time you made it. This use is valuable even if you never make any sauces other than vinaigrettes, marinara sauce, gravies, and bechamel sauces for Mac and cheese or creamed chipped beef. This book is my standard reference for all such purposes and it has NEVER let me down! The existence of this book always makes me wonder why restaurant chefs always include a chapter of pantry recipes for stocks and sauces. Except for the really finicky writers such as Judy Rodgers (Zuni Café) and Thomas Keller (French Laundry, Bouchon), Peterson's recipes will be about as good as you will find in any restaurant chef's book. So, you may prefer coming to this book even when an author gives us his version, as this will mean that all your stocks and sauces will be made from a common point of view and a common palate. This book is better than any other source in that it simply has everything you can possibly need.

Second, this book gives excellent recipes for sauce-based dishes, especially for seafood such as lobster, shrimp, salmon, clams, and scallops. For many fish dishes, the sauce is the dish, as cooking the fish is usually no more than the ten minutes it takes to poach, broil, bake, sautee, or fry the little critter(s).

Third, the book is an excellent source when you need alternatives. You need a fancy sauce for lobster, but you don't have time to create a stock from lobster shells and go through all the other steps needed for a good shellfish sauce. If you really need to impress, consider a homemade remoulade or aioli (variations on mayonnaise), which can be done in a few minutes in a food processor with eggs, oil, and a little mustard, plus flavorings.

Fourth, this book is simply the very best source I can think of to enlarge your repertoire of basic dishes and elements of dishes which can be swapped in to change a simple steamed vegetable into an elegant side dish. I am constantly pleased with the power of serendipity, that chance encounter with a great, easy recipe which enables you to cook up a yummy dish without having to consult a cookbook, let alone remember in which book the recipe was. My very first use of this book produced such an encounter when I was looking up the recipe for beurre blanc and discovered beurre citron (lemon butter sauce). This encounter also revealed that there is a considerable mystique connected with beurre blanc, as it is considered difficult to make. As I make it regularly as a dressing for fish, I can assure you that it is relatively easy and worth the small difficulty involved. It is also interesting to learn from this book that beurre blanc was also one of the sharpest weapons of Nouvelle Cuisine in banishing flour based sauces from restaurant sauces. So, with one fell swoop, you can be trendy, healthy, and haute cuisine with a single recipe. Wow!

If you wish to be a serious cook, you need this book!