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A recent question got me wondering: are there any cuisines that rarely, or never, use sauces?

There's many cuisines that are very sauce-centric: French, Italian, Thai, Szechuan, Mexican, etc. But are there cuisines that use sauces so rarely that you could open a restaurant and not have one sauce on the menu, without really going out of your way to do so? I can't think of one.

Let's include some definitions to make this question answerable:

  • Sauce: a liquid, puree, or paste that adds flavor to a dish or seasons other ingredients
  • Cuisine: the complete foodways of a cultural or regional group (not just a specific dish or specific type of specialty restaurant)

Let's also limit this to "cuisines that you could conceivably open a restaurant for"; while there are definitely groups of people who live in remote areas, don't trade, and thus don't have any basis for sauces, I'm asking for culinary traditions that have chosen to turn away from them instead.

Are there any? Can you name one or two?

FuzzyChef
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    Interesting question. Maybe a nomadic culture. As in, a culture where most of the food is recently hunted or gathered, and everything else is only what they carry with them. If the main meal is prepared after a day of travel, there's not a lot of time to develop a sauce, and one would probably not be carried due to the weight. So the food is basically meat cooked over a fire, plus some bread, maybe some beans. (I'm thinking of cowboys, but perhaps other nomadic cultures would fit.) – csk Oct 27 '20 at 06:07
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    Cowboys like sauces @FuzzyChef, trust me I cooked for a bunch of them one summer. – GdD Oct 27 '20 at 08:22
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    When you add pan sauces, hot sauces, and condiments (which fit your definition)...what is left? Just proteins, starches, and veg? – moscafj Oct 27 '20 at 10:44
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    "Traditional" Dutch cuisine is very much only proteins, starches, vegs, and some gravy, but not sauces. But present day the cuisine has evolved and most people and restaurants will add sauces to dishes. Too bad you're ruling out 'specialty restaurants', because at this point traditional Dutch cuisine like stamppot (which is potatoes mashed with vegetables like carrots/onions, sauerkraut, kale or endive, and no sauce) is served in 'specialty restaurants'. – Tinkeringbell Oct 27 '20 at 11:19
  • If such as ketchup or mustard are excluded, you're describing any burger bar. – Tetsujin Oct 27 '20 at 11:27
  • There are many individual dishes in most cuisines that are, or can be, sauce-free, but I don't think that is what the OP is asking. – moscafj Oct 27 '20 at 11:30
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    If you exclude sauces used as condiments then British cuisine is largely about stews and plain roasted meats, with very few sauces. – DJClayworth Oct 27 '20 at 14:20
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    Does a curry count as a sauce or as a not-sauce? Because curries (i.e. north-Indian, Thai, Vietnamese) may be very saucy, but one rarely puts additional sauce on them. – The Photon Oct 27 '20 at 20:40
  • @ThePhoton...again, these are dishes, not cuisines. – moscafj Oct 27 '20 at 22:55
  • @Tinkeringbell well, Traditional Dutch Cuisine would still qualify then. One could imagine opening an aggressively purist "authentic" restaurant. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:02
  • Photon: curries are swimming in sauce, as a rule. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:02
  • By ruling out specialty restaurants, I'm ruling out restaurants that only serve one dish, like only fried chicken or only udon. While such restuarants can be largely sauceless, they do not represent a whole cuisine. Same with restuarants that cater to special diets that are not the majority in their home cultures. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:15
  • @DJClayworth the question is can you exclude sauces used as condiments? If you served a 4-course British meal with no condiments, would it be very strange, or normal? That's the test. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:30
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    Do we count aboriginal food as "cuisine"? I'm thinking that cultures without saucepans are going to have a difficult time making sauces. – Joe Oct 28 '20 at 00:56
  • That's the comment in the original question about "groups of people in remote areas, who don't trade". This would also mean, say, the !Kung of South Africa or Amazonian indigenous groups or even starving villagers in 19th century Siberia. I'm not going to say that their food isn't a cuisine, but you certainly wouldn't open a !Kung restaurant. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 02:22

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Pilav-and-kabab-centric cuisines, such as Afghan, Uzbek, Tadjik seem sauceless. Of course I cannot prove that they don't have them, but I have never seen one.

Armenian (and perhaps Turkish) cuisine also deserve close inspection.

user58697
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    No yogurt sauce? – moscafj Oct 27 '20 at 22:54
  • @moscafj In Uzbekistan? No. – user58697 Oct 27 '20 at 23:09
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    I'm not that familiar with Uzbek or Tadjik, but I do make a fair amount of Afgan and Turkish cuisine, and you missed on those. For one thing, at both Afgan and Turkish restaurants, the customary free appetizer is bread with between one and three dipping sauces. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:07
  • Lemme dig a bit into Armenian, though. They do rely on marinades and rubs a lot more. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:09
  • Also ... add a link to Uzbek or Tadjik cuisine resource to your answer? That would let me evaluate. – FuzzyChef Oct 28 '20 at 00:13
  • Armenians, Afghanis, Uzbeks and Tajiks all eat [manti/mantu/մանթի/مأنتى/мәнті/манту](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manti_(food)), a boiled or steamed meat dumpling typically served with some kind of dipping sauce. Anyway, all these cultures (and possibly all cultures) eat stews, which must qualify as saucy if curry qualifies. – Juhasz Oct 28 '20 at 23:32
  • @Juhasz Each and every mantu I had in Soviet Central Asia (and I had a lot) was steamed and served dry, with no sauce. Also I don't think a stew qualifies; yet again all the stews I had were rather soups. – user58697 Oct 28 '20 at 23:58
  • @FuzzyChef No links, sorry. Personal experience. – user58697 Oct 29 '20 at 00:04
  • This highlights the problem with this question. 1) How commonly do sauces need to be used to qualify (because I can find at least one (apparently) Uzbek recipe with sauce - https://youtu.be/atf42JtBYR4?t=260)? 2) What is and isn't a sauce - because it's not at all clear to me whether food cooked in its sauce, like a soup or a stew, should count. The questioner said in a comment that "curries are swimming in sauce." What's the difference between curry and chorba? – Juhasz Oct 29 '20 at 00:13
  • Stews are not sauces, because the liquid is not generally added to flavor the ingredients ... rather, the other way around, given that often as not the liquid is water. Curries, on the other hand, start with a spice paste, and can consist of just a spice paste and some fat, making them unquestionably sauces. – FuzzyChef Oct 29 '20 at 04:08
  • @user58697 with a couple of links (and taking out Turkish) I could pick your answer. Uzbek food looks pretty promising in the "no sauce" department. – FuzzyChef Oct 29 '20 at 04:56