A saucier

Saucier

A Saucier is a position in the classical brigade style kitchen, which is still used in large commercial kitchens such as some restaurants. It can be translated into English as sauce cook. This position prepares sauces, stews and hot hors d'œuvres and sautés food to order...

 or saucière is also a position in cooking or a sauce pan.

A sauce boat, gravy boat or saucière is a boat

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...

-shaped pitcher

Pitcher (container)

A pitcher is a container with a spout used for storing and pouring contents which are liquid in form. Generally a pitcher also has a handle, which makes pouring easier.A ewer is a vase-shaped pitcher, often decorated, with a base and a flaring spout...

 in which sauce

Sauce

In cooking, a sauce is liquid, creaming or semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsus, meaning salted...

 or gravy

Gravy

Gravy is a sauce made often from the juices that run naturally from meat or vegetables during cooking. In North America the term can refer to a wider variety of sauces and gravy is often thicker than in Britain...

 is served. It often sits on a matching plate

Plate (dishware)

A plate is a broad, concave, but mainly flat vessel on which food can be served. A plate can also be used for ceremonial or decorative purposes.-Materials:...

, sometimes attached to the pitcher, to catch dripping sauce.

Some gravy boats also function as gravy separators, with a spout that pours from the bottom of the container, thus leaving any surface-floating fat behind.

History

While some vessels have been identified as being used for sauces since ancient times, the modern fashion for sauce boats probably derived from fashion in the late 17th century French Court. Silver sauce boats with two handles and two spouts were reported as early as 1690 and appear to have developed in response to the new and original nouvelle cuisine

Nouvelle Cuisine

Nouvelle cuisine is an approach to cooking and food presentation used in French cuisine. By contrast with cuisine classique, an older form of French haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased emphasis on presentation.-History:The term...

. French fashion was highly influential in 18th century England where such sauce boats were copied in English silver, and from the 1740s, in English porcelain

Porcelain

Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...

.

Sauceboats became an important product for English porcelain factories, particularly as Chinese export porcelain wares were uninspiring. Consequently the earliest factories, such as Bow, Chelsea, Limehouse

Limehouse

Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....

, Lunds Bristol, and Worcester

Worcester

The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

, all had sauce boats in their product range.

During the second half of the 18th century, the elaborate early porcelain sauce boat designs were simplified in response to the growing market among the aspiring middle classes. A wide variety of designs were produced and the influence of silver diminished somewhat. Few of the early factories manufactured full dinner services, but the new creamware

Creamware

Creamware is a cream-coloured, refined earthenware created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, which proved ideal for domestic ware. It was popular until the 1840s. It was also known as tortoiseshellware or Prattware depending on the colour of glaze used...

, developed by Wedgwood

Wedgwood

Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA. Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an...

, lent itself to the manufacture of large plates, always difficult in early porcelain. As a result, the sauce boat became part of a dinner service, which generally it remains today.