Espagnole sauce Espagnole sauce Espagnole sauce () is a basic brown sauce, and is one of Auguste Escoffier's five mother sauces of classic French cooking. This sauce was already compiled in different Spanish cooking handbooks of the late 19th century, and Escoffier popularized the recipe, which is still followed today. Espagnole has a strong taste, and is rarely used directly on food. As a mother sauce, it serves as the starting point for many derivatives, such as sauce africaine, sauce bigarade, sauce bourguignonne, sauce aux champignons, sauce charcutière, sauce chasseur, sauce chevreuil, and demi-glace. Hundreds of other derivatives are in the classical
French cuisine central figure to the modernization of haute cuisine and organizing what would become the national cuisine of France. His influence began with the rise of some of the great hotels in Europe and America during the 1880s – 1890s. The Savoy Hotel managed by César Ritz was an early hotel in which Escoffier worked, but much of his influence came during his management of the kitchens in the Carlton from 1898 until 1921. He created a system of "parties" called the brigade system, which separated the professional kitchen into five separate stations. These five stations included the "garde manger" that