Gabriela

· 06 Aug 2022

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Beginnings and creation of salsa

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and we go back to the 14th century with the medieval descriptions of the gastronomy book known as Llibre de Sent Soví of what today could be emulsified sauces, there is mention of ayada, as a condiment based on chopped garlic, mixed with meat or fish broth and thickened with bread crumbs. The aforementioned sauce was used in the seasoning of roasted pork or eels.

These recipes appear in a similar way in other Italian texts of the time and call it agliata or agliata blanca, in chapter CXXXI, CXXXII or 66 of the Llibre de Sent Sovi there is the almodrote (almodroch). It is a sauce mixed with raw garlic, cheese and water. The almodrote can also contain hard-boiled egg, oil, spices, etc. This sauce survives under the name of ajoqueso and in the cuisine of the Canary Islands as almogrote.

The recipes after chapter CLXVI talk about the way of making juvert (sauce based on parsley and vinegar), popular in the Middle Ages and which in Sent Soví the addition of toast, hazelnuts, walnuts and egg yolks is described in an original way.

Another sauce described and known in the Middle Ages was alidem, made from whole eggs or beaten yolks, to which agriz, broths or other liquids were added. Ruperto de Nola describes this sauce as an accompaniment to eggs.


Other authors after Libre show variations of this type of sauces in their recipe books, so you can see in Spanish authors such as Juan de Altamiras the elaboration of this sauce in dishes such as snails (making a garlic, as mentioned).