Sauces and Gravies: Sauces through the Mid–Nineteenth Century

Seventeenth-century colonists continued the late medieval sauce tradition of thickening broth, wine, vinegar, and fruit juices with bread crumbs. Often seasoned with dried fruits and spices, such as cloves, saffron, nutmeg, and cinnamon, many seventeenth-century sauces were sweet, tart, and piquant. In the New World, sauces had to be adapted to available ingredients, cooking equipment, and the immigrant’s pocketbook. As cooking styles were changing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe to incorporate more butter and cream, the colonies learned of these developments through imported cookbooks, new waves of immigrants, and extended trips to Europe for educating the children of the wealthy.