Who invented Bechamel sauce?
From lasagna to croque moniseur, what is the origin of this mother sauce.
If you’re like me, you might have hesitated in the origin of Bechamel sauce. It is found in Italian cuisine just as much as the French. All across the continent, this sauce is vital to modern European cooking.
The sauce is made up of a Roux, a temps pour temps (fancy way of saying equal amount of produce) of flour and butter. You let that cook at very low heat on the stove. You then add in your milk which is also mathematically aligned with the rest.
To make things make sense, you add 100g of flour to 100g of melted butter, you stir and then slowly add in 1L of milk. To your Roux, you will then season salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
We have to thank Louis de Bechameil, a man of finance who was close to the aristocracy and to the French royal family. Was the one who updated the sauce to the creamy and unctuous delight it is known as today. However, he is not the initial creator of this relish. The original was invented by Francois Pierre de la Varenne, who was one of the first French gastronome writers of the XVIIth century. His most renowned work being Le Cuisinier français published in 1651.
After its success, he continued with similar books in the kitchen domain, Le Pâtissier français in 1653, Le Parfait Confiturier in 1664, et L’École des ragoûts four years afterwards. This first variation of the sauce was in fact meat bases. The cook would quite simply add meat stock or a fond of any kind to the Roux, to make a thick and fatty sauce.
It is only when Louis de Bechamel served this same creation of King Louis XIV of France, that the sauce was truly baptised. The king supposedly adored it.
In later documents, this same sauce is known as Bechamel sauce, named after the man who introduced it officially to the gastronomic world.
La béchamel est née à Nointel sur l’Oise, Julien Heyligen, 06/08/20218 https://www.leparisien.fr/oise-60/nointel-60840/cette-sauce-mythique-de-la-cuisine-est-nee-a-nointel-06-08-2018-7845012.php#:~:text=Oise%2COise%2CNointel-,La%20b%C3%A9chamel%20est%20n%C3%A9e%20%C3%A0%20Nointel%20dans%20l'Oise,du%20ch%C3%A2teau%20de%20la%20commune.
Révison des bases: la sauce béchamel, Michelin guide, 01/04/2020 https://guide.michelin.com/fr/fr/article/dining-in/preparer-une-sauce-bechamel
François Pierre de La Varenne, Kilien Stengel, 09/07/2024https://francearchives.gouv.fr/pages_histoire/82591534