Sauce Mornay
The “mother” sauce béchamel entered the culinary lexicon in a formalized fashion at the hands of, (who else?), Escoffier in about 1902.
When you add Gruyere or Parmesan cheese, the béchamel becomes a Mornay sauce.
A white sauce, béchamel is simply one built with a roux and a liquid: milk-based, it maintains its white colour. Roux has been a sauce component for a long time, dating to the Middle Ages in Germany and Italy as early as the 1400s, and therefore much before being co-opted by the classic French preparations of the 17th- and 18th-centuries.
The origin of the name Mornay is debatable, but it has nothing to do with American actress Rebecca de Mornay … or the Seinfeld episode.
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