What country is tartare sauce originally from?

Answer 1

Tartar sauce
Yes, tartar(e) sauce was named for the Tatar peoples of Mongolia. No, it is not a traditional Tartar recipe.

The word tatar' refers to the Turkic-speaking people [Tatars] who settled in Mongolia sometime during the 5th Century AD. In the food world, tatar' takes on the French spelling tartare' and is most often associated with tartar(e) sauce and steak tartare.

Meat/fowl/fish sauces made with eggs, oil, vinegar and spices date back to Medieval times, a tradition carried over from Ancient Roman cookery. These recipes were not called "tartar sauce" but are unmistakably similar to the sauce we know today. They were still popular in Elizabethan and later times:

"Sauce for hens or Pullets to prepare them to roast...Then for the sauce take the yolks of six hard eggs minced small, put to them white-wine, or wine vinegar, butter, and the gravy the of the hen, juyce of orange, pepper, salt, and if you please add thereto mustard."
--- Accomplist Cook, Robert May [1685] (p. 149)
The first step in dating modern tartar sauce is dating the origin of this recipe's major component: mayonnaise. There is some debate regarding the *invention* of mayonnaise but most food historians seem to agree that it happened in Europe sometime during the mid-eighteenth century. The most popular story attributes the invention of mayonnaise to Richelieu's chef who was commemorating the June 28, 1756 capture of the city of Mahon (capitol of Minorca). Details on the theories of the origins of mayonnaise can be found in Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang [Crown Publishers:New York] 1988 (p. 662), The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 202) and The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 486).

There are many variations on the recipe for tartar sauce; the simplest being a mix of mayonnaise and chopped pickles. Elaborate recipes give instructions for making one's own mayonnaise and include chopped onions, scallions and a mix of spicy herbs.

Compare these recipes:

[1845] "Tartar Sauce.
Add to the preceding remoulade, or to any other sauce of the same nature, a teaspoonful or more of made mustard, one of finely-minced shalots, one of parsley or tarragon, and one of capers or of pickled gherkins, with a rather high seasoning of cayenne, and some salt if needed. The tartar-mustard of the previous chapter, or good French mustard, is to be preferred to English for this sauce, which is usually made very pungent, and for which any ingredients can be used to the taste wich will serve to render it so. Tarragon vinegar, minced tarragon and eschoalots, and plenty of oil, are used for it in France, in conjunction with the yolks of one or two eggs, and chopped capers, or gherkins, to which olives are sometimes added."
---Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton, originally printed in 1845, with an introduction by Elizabeth Ray [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1993 (p. 137)
[1879] "Morcan's Tartar Sauce--To Mix Mustard
Yolk of one raw egg, sweet-oil added very slowly, until the quantity is made that is desired; thin with a little vinegar. Take two small cucumber pickles, two full teaspoonfuls of capers, three small sprigs parsley, and one small shaleot or leek. Chop all fine, and stir into the sauce about an hour before serving. If very thick, add a tablespoonful cold water. This quantity will serve eight persons--is good with trout, veal cutlets, and oysters."
---Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Marion Cabell Tyree [1879] (p. 303)

[1884] Tartar Sauce & Sauce Tartare
Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln [1884]

[1890?] "Tartar sauce
Place a round-bottomed basin in a deep sauta-pan containing some pounded ice, put two raw yelks [yolks] of eggs into the basin with a little pepper and salt, and with a wooden spoon proceed, with the back part of the bowl, to work the yelk of eggs, dropping in, at intervals, very small quantities of salad-oil, and a little tarragon-vinegar, until a sufficient quantity of sauce is produced; bearing in mind, that the relative quantity of oil to be used in proportion to the vinegar is as five to one. When the sauce is finished, add some chopped tarragon and chervil, and half a shalot. In making this sauce, should it decompose through inattention, it may instantly be restored to its proper consistency by mixing in it a good spoonful of cold white sauce."
---Francatelli's Modern Cook, C. E. Francatelli, 26th London Edition [1890?] (recipe 96, p. 55)

Why is this recipe called tartar sauce? And when was it first referred to a such? This is hard to say. According to Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens (p. 156) "Beef Tartare--finely minced lean raw beef--became fashionable in France in the nineteenth century. It was named for the Tartars (Originally "Tatars") or Mongols who had terrorized eastern Europe in the days of Gengis Kahn....Beef Tartare was usually served as it is now, with a bevy of garnishes, including a piquant sauce with a mayonnaise base that came to be called sauce Tartare or Tartar Sauce. Today, at least in the United States, it is more often served with fish."

Answer 2

Atlantis

Answer 3

i easily like them by themselves or according to hazard basically a tiny little bit of ketchup or BBQ sauce. It basically grosses me out to think of of fries with mayonnaise or gravy, because of the fact there is adequate fat in them as is without slathering greater fat on them. i've got constantly questioned if people who do this to fries basically grew up eating them that way. (And who am I to tell them they shouldn't or they are in a position to't? i can basically say 'nicely do exactly no longer do it in front of me! 8^P ).

Answer 4

France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartar_sauce