Samuel Sebban is a young graduate from the Pau (Béarn) Business
School, who had the brilliant idea of marketing Béarnaise Sauce in Béarn.
Béarnaise sauce is a sauce made of clarified butter
emulsified in egg yolks, white wine vinegar and flavored with herbs. It is
considered to be a 'child' of the mother Hollandaise sauce, one of the five
sauces in the French haute cuisine mother sauce repertoire. The difference is
only in their flavoring: Béarnaise uses shallot, chervil, peppercorn, and
tarragon, while Hollandaise uses lemon juice or white wine.
The interesting thing is: Béarnaise Sauce is not from Béarn
at all! Like calling the ‘beret’ a ‘Basque beret’, the name is all based on a
mistake.
The sauce was first created
by the chef Collinet, the inventor of puffed potatoes (pommes de terre soufflées), and served at the 1836 opening of Le
Pavillon Henri IV, a restaurant at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, not
far from Paris. His
restaurant was named Henry IV of France, who was a gourmet
himself, and born in the province of Béarn.The
sauce was named in Henry IV’s honour.
Samuel Sebban runs his own
delicatessen store, Bord de Gave, in the centre of Pau, selling all goodies Béarnaise.
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