Who’s killing the great sauces of France? The answer is simple..Today’s Chefs.

It seems to me that chefs today; even in France, don't use rouxs or a lot of the classic sauces anymore ( if at all). The question to me then becomes “Are we better off or are we worse off?”                            Worse, oh so much worse. 

Today we have a cult of (so-called) culinary stars, but I bet, if I went to them and asked them to make a classic consommé or classic velouté or hollandaise-based sauce, and God forbid to ask them to create, an Nantua, Chasseur or Espagnole sauce, could any of them do it? NO!! Most of these are culinary school graduates, whether it's Johnson & Wales or CIA or another school, but I'm sad to say that a lot of them (maybe most of them) probably couldn't without being shown how. That's kind of sad. For a great classic sauce does not conceal, ……………………but revels a dish.

 So, I always judge a chef on how he cooks a roast chicken and how he can make at least 5 classic sauces, if he can’t, no matter how famous he is, to me, it is not worth sampling his food. As a teenager, my bothers and I would cook up a large pot of Béarnaise sauce and sit in front the TV and devour it. My sauce training started early and has continued for over 60 years. Chefs that I see today are a fussy lot and their tasteless food shows it. Its all show and no taste. In this age of I can’t eat this or that, I say Phoew!

 I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward. 

 Oh! Mr. Escoffier, where are you today?