Les Sauces

Sauces

Appears in
top 1000The Cuisine of the Sun: Classical French Cooking from Nice and Provence
The Cuisine of the Sun

By Mireille Johnston

Published 1990

  • About

French haute cuisine may boast about its three thousand sauces, but in Nice we do not want it said that “la sauce fait passer le poisson” (it is the sauce which makes the fish bearable).

In our cuisine the ingredients must speak loud and clear, not smothered by heavy sauces that may drown out their natural flavor. As Curnonsky, “the prince of gastronomes,” said, “Cuisine is when food tastes of what it is.”

The other basic difference from haute cuisine is that Niçois and Provencal sauces are not based on butter, cream, or flour but on oil and vegetables. Most of the sauces are cold, and accompany meat, fish, and vegetables. They are used to fill halves of hard-boiled eggs and lemon, tomato, and cucumber “boats”; and as dips to accompany a basket of crudités (trimmed raw vegetables).