[Sca-cooks] Sauce Foyot

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Gorgeous Muiredach:
><SNIP a good explanation of Bearnaise>
>>Is there another, significantly different, version, that is
>>still Bearnaise sauce?
>
>You know Master A, I like you :-)
>
>It's one of my pet peeves, this using a classical name yet screwing the
>recipe around so much it hasn't much to do with the name anymore...  If
>you're doing Beef Bourguignon and aren't putting in a garnish of glazed
>pearl onion, lardon and sauteed mushrooms, why don't you just call it a
>beef stew?  :-)  <shrug>  'Nuff Muiredach, 'nuff...

I am, in part, of Celtic ancestry, a member of a race whose
comparatively recent belief in the power of the written word is
exceeded only by its ancient belief in the power of the spoken or
sung word. Words are the tools of the poet, the magician, the
physician, the lawyer, and the king. Words are magical tools, and to
screw with them invites peril.

Escoffier's main contributions to the kitchens of his distant
posterity (to borrow a couple of words from Robert Graves) are to the
terminology of staff organization -- the brigade system, and to the
organization of related dishes, such as Great and Small, or Mother
and Daughter, sauces. This isn't just some egomaniac primadonna's
arbitrary decision, but the result of years and years of teaching
other cooks in the simplest and most efficient way he could devise,
as yet, it seems, unimproved upon.

Who am I, after spending most of my career as a garde-manger and line
cook, to mess with such a perfect creation?

Note that I'm not averse to changing a recipe now and then. I've
never been accused of hidebound, reactionary, uncreativity, but the
names exist to describe certain things, and if you make up your own
sauce, make up your own name for it.

Dot's all...

And with Saint Lawrence (or is it Saint Martha? Or the Dagda?) medal
in hand, here endeth the lesson ;-)

Adamantius
--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER