milk sauce
After Louis de Béchameil, Marquis of Nointel (1630-1703).
Béchameil was Louis XIV's financier and seneschal. He had made his fortune during the Fronde Civil War and used that money to pay for fishing off the coasts of Newfoundland.
The French stomachs could not tolerate the dried cod that the Marquis brought across the Atlantic, so as steward at a reception around 1700 he served the white sauce that was supposed to make the cod palatable. He was then seventy.
The authentic bechamel sauce is not only prepared with butter, flour and milk, but also with veal, onion, thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns and nutmeg. At the time, the Marquis herself had used fish scraps in it.
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