I'm just beginning to appreciate the French genius of totally exploring a well-defined culinary combinatoric space and naming everything differently just to intimidate people with 6000 names for sauces or soups.
Thu Jul 08 2004 12:38 PST Entrez la Matrice des Sauces:
Feeding my 'recipe patterns' obsession, Sumana sent me Matrice des sauces au moment, which shows how 1.3 zillion French sauces are obtained from one procedure, with examples. Also has a great interface for mouseover French/English translations and showing which elements of the matrix make which sauces.
[N]o one ingredient is by itself critical. Each can have another ingredient substituted for it and the sauce will still work (although the name may need to be changed).
under a Creative Commons License.