Talk:Béchamel sauce

White sauce in Middle Eastern food?
What is the "white sauce" in Middle Eastern food? It's typically served at carts and small places in NYC. It's always halal food. I think it's made with yogurt... possibly poppyseed? I don't think it's the same as this bechamel sauce... is it? Passdoubt | Talk 07:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Is it tzatziki? - Gobeirne 05:04, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * My friend thinks the "white stuff" is yogurt mixed with spices and cucumbers, or perhaps tahini. Otheus 07:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The recipe was deleted here but not added to Wiki Cookbook.--Wetman 08:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

If it is the yogurt based sauce, that is light, cooling, and possibly minty, or with hints of corriander, you are seeing a tzaziki sauce(served most often with Greek Cuisine, gyros especially). If the light, not quite white sauce is bitter, and dries your mouth, it is Tahini, made from sesame seeds, in the same fashion that peanut butter is made from peanuts. Tahini is served with Middle Eastern food, and is a main component of hummus, along with garbanzo beans and lemon juice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.196.181.50 (talk) 01:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Veloute in Sabina Welserin?
"The sauce called velouté, in which a blond roux is whisked into a white stock, is a full hundred years older, having appeared in the cookbook of Sabina Welserin in 1553."

I am familiar with this cookbook (in translation), and I don't see any recipes in it that can be accurately labelled as velouté.

There are three sauces in it that are liquids thickened with flour.


 * 1) "5 How to cook a wild boar's head, also how to prepare a sauce for it" - the sauce here is fat, flour, wine, cherry syrup, and spices.


 * 1) "9 To make a yellow sauce for game or birds"  -  fat, wine, broth, ginger, pepper, and a yellow colorant.


 * 1) "11 To make a yellow peppersauce"  -  flour, fat, wine, broth (or pea puree), and "seasonings"

Of these three, the last two kind of sort of fit the description, except that they are obviously intended to be pepper-sauces. The last one fits only because the "seasonings" aren't specified. I expect from the name that it at least contained pepper and a yellow colorant. --Doc (talk) 18:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

An English translation of this cookbook can be found online


 * In what way does Sabina Welserin's lists of ingredients not imply the following: "fat + flour = blond roux, cooked or uncooked + wine or stock = velouté". Is there a problem? Not every flour-thickened stock is a velouté, of course, but how can the implication be avoided that "The sauce called velouté, in which a blond roux is whisked into a white stock, is a full hundred years older, having appeared in the cookbook of Sabina Welserin in 1553." Any suggestion that serves the Wikipedia reader improves the encyclopedia. --Wetman (talk) 19:07, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

photo illustration of French sauce is Italian
Bechamel is, as said in the entry, historically a French mother sauce, as is every named "classic sauce" [words from the entry] (of which there could be, of course, many more "children" white sauces), as well as the internal and external links in the entry. Given that, it seems odd that the one photo used to illustrate the entry is of lasagna. Shlishke (talk) 06:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)Shliske

"Origins"
The following unsourced and generic assertions have been commented out:

Origin

 * The Italian version is that it was invented by Catherine de Medici's Tuscan cooks who brought it to France from Italy in the 17th Century.
 * This is standard cooking pseudohistory, applied to various innovations. Placing Catherine de' Medici in the seventeenth century is the giveaway in this case.


 * It was created by Philippe de Mornay, who also is reputed to have invented Mornay sauce, Lyonnaise sauce, and Porto sauce.
 * The editor has no idea who Philippe de Mornay, author of De L'institution, usage et doctrine du saint sacrement de l'eucharistie en l'église ancienne was, to be imagining him puttering about his kitchen "inventinmg" a long list of sauces. This Mornay is picked at random, to match up with sauce Mornay.


 * It was invented by Marquis Louis de Béchamel (1603–1703), a 17th century financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to Louis XIV (1643-1715).
 * Louis XIV's dates are correct here.


 * It was it was created by François Pierre de la Varenne (1615-1678) who was chef to the court of Louis XIV (1643-1715), during the time that Louis de Béchamel, was there. It is believed that La Varenne named the sauce in his honour.
 * The article already offers a more sophisticated version of this.

As a general rule, anonymous edits are more likely to be irresponsible.--Wetman (talk) 07:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Standard cooking pseudohistory
I agree with the above. This so-called "salsa colla" edit originates from an Italian IP, but nothing corroborates it. The Larousse certainly makes no mention of it. It states the sauce is an improvement upon velouté. It is true that dates between Catherine de Medici and Pierre de La Varrenne do not match. Last but not least, mentions of "salsa colla" on the Net appear to refer to this article. Jaucourt (talk) 07:59, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Béchamel sauce is in fact Byzantine in Origin
The word is Turkish, but the sauce is 100% Greek Byzantine in origin. How in the world did this get listed as French? This sauce is much, much older than French food.

"Although some of these dishes are now known to the world by Turkish or European names (even the Greeks call white sauce "bechamel"), their origins are Greek."

REFERENCE LINK: Byzantine foods

--Nikoz78 (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * "based partly on the work of a modern author, Nicholas Tselementes (…). Tselementes provides no documentation for any of the recipes in this book". The Greeks calling white sauce "bechamel" doesn't teach us anything as all languages call it that, including Arabic and Farsi. Many people claim it in good faith Béchamel as part of their own cuisine because that's what they call it in their language but Béchamel was not Turkish, Greek, Arab, or Persian, but French. This is how in the world this did got listed as French. Jaucourt (talk) 02:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Escoffier did it differently
If Escoffier's recipe is "authoritative" then his recipe should be cited. Ingrediences, genuine from his "Bible of Haute Cuisine (fr., Le Guide Culinaire, 1903)" (eng., A Guide of modern Cookery, 1907):

"Quantities Required for Four Quarts.
 * 1 lb of white roux,
 * 4 1/2 quarts of boiling milk,
 * 1/2 lb of lean veal,
 * 2/3 oz of salt, 1 pinch of mignonette and grated nutmeg, 1 small sprig of thyme.
 * 1 minced onion." (Escoffier calls black pepper mostly mignonette or mignonette pepper; quarts are imperial)

Paul Bocuse published in his "Bible of Nouvelle Cuisine" (fr., La cuisine du marché, 1976) the same ingrediences in the same amount (just some more onion) and a negligible different processing. The main difference is in their Rouxs. Escoffier uses 8 oz of clarified butter on 9 oz of "best-quality" flour for 1 lb of "white roux", while Bocuse takes 500g of whole unsalted butter on 600g of flour for 1 kg of "pale (blond) roux" which is some longer roasted in less butter fat (just 400g); the 100g of butter's water have to evaporate first but the whey is to be used for his roux. Roasting times even for the white roux not under 15 minutes.

Escoffier allows for "Lenten Preperation" the omission of the veal (and only the veal). Bocuse suggestes for that a replacement with some white flesh of fish. If both is omitted for economy or time, he warns that then the taste deteriorates.

It should be mentioned that a freshly made, still hot roux has to be filled up with cold (or just little warmed) milk slowly and in portions (Bocuse's method). In advance produced, chilled roux has to be solved in hot milk (Escoffier's method). Hot in hot and cold in cold can make lumps. Both star chefs demand a simmering of one hour to loose all flour flaver. That is why the ingrediences of Escoffier' recipe reduces to four quarts of sauce.

The interpretations of Louis Saulnier in his Le Répertoire de la Cuisine are widely declined if the original recipes and procedures of Escoffier are aveilable.--46.115.37.242 (talk) 11:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree that this should be included here. Good find! Doc   talk  12:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

If you liked "salsa colla", now comes "Balsamella"!
The assertion that so-called "Balsamella" supposedly “used for centuries in Tuscan and Emilian cuisine” could have been called that in anticipation of the marquis de Béchamel "easily renam"ing after his name centuries later, is just ridiculous in its anachronism. Just the same, "Marie de' Medici" was basically out by 1617 but Béchamel sauce didn't come of age until half a century later with François Pierre La Varenne's Cuisinier françois. Likewise, if "Béchamel sauce was used for centuries in Tuscan and Emilian cuisine", why is it not mentioned in Italian cookbooks until the 19th century? (See Wetman's post above) 62.73.9.28 (talk) 23:51, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Not an ingredient in the original lasagne recipe
Contrary to 79.6.30.239 unsourced assertion, "Béchamel sauce is not an ingredient in the original lasagne recipe". Unsurprisingly (See Origin above), the Liber de coquina, one of the oldest Italian medieval cookbooks (early 14th century) makes no mention of this 17th-Century French sauce: ''De lasanis : ad lasanas, accipe pastam fermentatam et fac tortellum ita tenuem sicut poteris. Deinde, diuide eum per partes quadratas ad quantitatem trium digitorum. Postea, habeas aquam bullientem salsatam, et pone ibi ad coquendum predictas lasanas. Et quando erunt fortiter decocte, accipe caseum grattatum. // Et si uolueris, potes simul ponere bonas species puluerizatas, et pulueriza cum istis super cissorium. Postea, fac desuper unum lectum de lasanis et iterum pulueriza; et desuper, alium lectum, et pulueriza : et sic fac usque cissorium uel scutella sit plena. Postea, comede cum uno punctorio ligneo accipiendo. Liber de coquina'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.153.79.126 (talk) 05:14, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Is the color of the sauce in the photo correct?
It's described as a white sauce made with butter, flour and milk, but the photo shows a sauce that is yellow and looks more like Hollandaise or Bernaise sauce. 2600:1010:B12E:5940:99AF:831A:165F:F006 (talk) 02:09, 20 March 2022 (UTC)