Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The Introduction opens with a lively anecdote regarding the book’s inception, a chance encounter with a waiter in Slovenia. The resulting conversation, one centered around the role sauce plays in defining identities, reveals that a complex relationship exists between sauce and culture. Sauce is too often discussed in relation to physical properties—it is red, it is not thick enough, it is too salty. The definition we establish here is less about a modern sense of physical properties and more about how cultures construct and understand their sense of what a sauce is. In addition, we consider the emotions that sauces impart to their consumer. Sauces are an agent for enhancing emotions. These factors, we believe, considered together, help us understand not only sauces themselves but the cultures that prepare and consume those sauces.</jats:p>