Sauces and Gravies: The 1970s and After

In the 1970s some sauces started to become lighter. There was a nouvelle cuisine rebellion against “library paste,” and a search for lower-fat and lower-calorie sauces often turned to ethnic cuisines for inspiration. “Lightening” sauces did not necessarily mean simplifying their preparation or decreasing their richness. Some of the favorite sauces of nouvelle cuisine were based on time-consuming meat essences and rich melted butter. Intricate sauces intrigued home chefs who viewed cooking as recreation, and American nouvelle cuisine cookbooks included lengthy recipes for the demi-glace that Child had omitted. For cooks short on time, gourmet purveyors sold frozen demi-glace, which could be turned into a sophisticated French sauce with scant effort. This sauce differed from the finished commercial sauces of an earlier generation by providing a foundation for hobbyist cooks, who creatively finished the sauce.