[Sca-cooks] Sauce Bob? (was STC was Dayboard anxieties)

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur:
>  > > > Why so much STC?  When you planning on making it?  If it isn't served
>up
>>  > > soon after preparation it separates.  What are you thinking it will be
>>  > > served on?  I don't see any veggies except carrots and cabbage, and
>>  >frankly,
>>  > > I can't imagine STC on cabbage.
>>  >
>>  >In the East we eat it on bread, and we eat it by the Metric ton. :)
>>
>>  Yeah.  Here in Bright Hills they eat it on everything.  Typically we serve
>>  it with veggies, not on them, but these folks would eat it simply on a
>spoon
>>  or finger.  Sauce Bob is the same.
>>  Olwen
>
>What's Sauce Bob?

Sauce Robert. In Taillevent, it is referred to as Taillemaslee, ou La
Barbe Robert, and no recipe is given. Somebody roughly contemporary
gives a recipe (I think it's added into maybe the Pichon edition, and
included as a footnote in the Scully edition of Taillevent, but I
could be wrong here). It consists, IIRC, of shredded onions, sauteed,
mustard, vinegar and/or verjuice, and probably the juice of any roast
you may be serving it with. In its day it has also been served with
rabbit, fried fish, and eggs, too.

La Varenne [c. ~1650 C.E.] gives a different version, involving
semi-emulsified butter, mustard, something vinegary, and, I think, no
onion. Sorta like a mustardy beurre blanc. However, given that the
earliest versions I've seen involve sauteed onions, and subsequent
versions also involve them, even today (okay, except the modern
version usually calls for demi-glace instead of roast meat juice, but
still has the mustard and onion component), I'm inclined to think the
oniony version without butter is both the Ur-Bob and the Final
Edition Bob, while the buttery, non-oniony version, while pleasant,
is not the Real McBob. Today it is most commonly served with pork
dishes and rabbit; sometimes the onions are strained out before
serving.

Be that as it may, to make a long story short, it seems to me that
what most SCAdians are thinking of when they hear "Sauce Bob" is the
buttery version. <shrug>

Adamantius