In today’s world, the demand by consumers to know where their food comes from, and even more specifically, who makes their food, is becoming as important as how their food tastes like. People are now more interested in where their coffee was farmed and who roasted it, who the butcher that sold them their last steak was, and even which independent bakery sold them their last ciabatta or focaccia bread. So why should artisan sauces be any different? With more people having less time to stand in front of their stoves for hours on end, more and more people are looking towards getting pre-made sauces for their food and the better choice will always be with artisan sauces.
Artisan Sauce Trivia
- One of the first ready-to-eat or use sauces that appeared on the market was pasta sauce, this was primarily marketed as a convenient way to quickly enjoy pasta without spending hours in front of the stove stewing tomatoes.
- A1 steak sauce, a very popular well… steak sauce was created in the 1820s by a chef in King George IV’s court. The king loved the sauce so much that he proclaimed the sauce “A number 1” or “A1.”
- Sauces are such an important part of cuisine that in many high-end establishments, there’s always a chef that specializes in sauces and that chef has the title of “saucier.”
- In French Cuisine, there are five mother sauces, Bechamel, Espagnole, Veloute, Hollandaise, and Tomate, of which all sauces are derived from.
- Sauces can come in many forms, they can be cold, warm, or hot. Sauces can also be sweet, salty, sour, bitter, spicy, or any combination. There are even solid sauces! (Hint: It’s served at Thanksgiving.)
Artisan Sauce Buying Guide
Artisan has become the buzzword of our times. Everything from fast food burgers to bottled sauces, we’ve seen the buzzword “artisan” become overused just to make their products more appealing to the public.
A good rule of thumb when in the market for artisan sauces is, if it’s on a supermarket shelf then 99 times out of 100, it’s not artisan. If there are dozens, if not hundreds of the same bottles waiting in the storeroom, and thousands across the state or the country, then it’s not artisan.
There is no law regulating the use of the term “artisan” so producers will often use it with other words like natural, farmstead, traditional, and so on just to make it feel more authentic and artisan. To get true artisan sauces, you don’t really have to look further than your local farmers’ market. Everything that is sold there is handmade, traditional, and if they say it’s farmstead, it’s actually made on an actual farmstead with homegrown components.
Artisan Sauce Production & Farming in Texas
Artisan sauces have a long history in Texas. Even before there were farmers’ markets and even before the term “artisan” was coined to describe pre-made food, people have been selling handmade, real artisan food to their friends and neighbors for countless years.
Here are some reasons why to buy actual artisan sauces from local producers who frequent and display in farmers’ markets.
- It’s an investment – Buying artisan sauces from your local producer is an investment in your producer, your community, and yourself. By buying local, you’re allowing local producers to support their family and improve their craft, ensuring that they will provide better food for you and for the community in the long run.
- Quality – Real artisan sauces aren’t cheap to make. Quality ingredients and good old-fashioned time and attention make artisan sauces a bit pricier than their commercial counterparts, but you’re guaranteed to get the best ingredients with your sauce.
- Relationships – Real food is about building real relationships. It’s an artisan product for that reason. It’s handmade by real people, with real tastes, for real people. When you purchase from a local artisan, you’re not just getting a product off a shelf, you’re building a relationship with the producer.
What kind of artisan sauces are produced in Texas? Just check out the rest of the entries here in our Texas Real Food Promptuary sauces sections and you can read all about it. On each of the pages, you can also find a list of local producers near you. You can also check the bottom of this page for a list of all the producers in your area that sells artisan sauces and where you can find them.
Preservatives, Additives, and Chemicals:
Real artisan sauces do not use any preservatives or chemicals as they are usually made in small batches and are usually all sold out at the end of the day. They’re not meant to stay on the shelves for extended periods of time.
For commercially produced sauces, each sauce type may use different types of preservatives and additives so if you want to know about which specific additives they use for specific sauces, then you can go check out the specific sauce entry here on the promptuary.
Enjoying Artisan Sauces
Artisan sauces are quite specific so they work best for the purpose that they were made for. Say for example you have artisan pasta sauce, then those would work great on pasta, and so on.
In a nutshell, the best way to describe artisan sauces would be like bringing top-quality sauces from really good restaurants home with you. They taste nothing like their mass-produced store-bought counterparts.
Cooking:
Just like what we were saying earlier, you just can’t make something and slap an “artisan” label on it, so we really can’t provide an “artisan” recipe per se. Having something artisan isn’t just about having good ingredients or having a traditional recipe, or being good in the kitchen. It has to be a careful blend of all these three things plus the discipline borne out of years of practice.
