The classical century is not our greatest culinary century, but it had to provide us with a mysterious episode that was perhaps tragic
At that time there lived and ate an important and extremely wealthy secretary of King Louis XIV, named Louis de Béchameil, did he owe it to his qualities as a gastronome? This wealthy purveyor found favor even in the eyes of the redoubtable Saint-Simon:"Had been in business, but had good reputation, as much as people who get rich can keep." »
One day this courtier, no doubt with the complicity of his cook, invented a sauce to which he gave his name. The Béchameil was made with shallots! Fortunately common sense watched at the gates of the palace, and it properly expelled this upstart who was playing the Madame de Maintenon. There are no more shallots in the Béchameil that we appreciate. The shallot will have to wait almost two centuries to start again - and succeed - with Béarnaise!
Here is Louis de Béchameil's original recipe:
In a saucepan, put three or four loaves of butter, with a little parsley, spring onion, chopped shallots, salt, cracked pepper, a little nutmeg, flour to bind the sauce, moisten with good cream. Turn over the heat to make it thicken.
Excerpt from La Gastronomie Française by Raymond Dumay _ Stock 1969.
