Cookie- no, no, no... no such thing as a dumb question...

"Bechamel" is the French name for a classc sauce which many in the U.S. call "white sauce" or somtimes "supreme sauce". It's basically milk thickened w/ roux (cooked flour and butter )or a burre manie (uncooked flour and butter) and seasoned simply w/ sometimes just S&P, and sometimes nutmeg, and an onion-studded clove. (KYH also menions "mornay sauce"- which is one of my favorites. Mornay is simply bechamel w/ parmesan cheese whisked into it)

A quick sauce course: Chef Antonine Careme is one of the god-fathers of the modern kitchen (along w/ Aufuste Escoffier) who lived in the early 19th century. Careme invented the idea of the "Mother Sauces". Basically, all sauces are derivatives- or "children of" these five main sauces or "Mother" sauces, which are: bechamel, veloute, espagnole, hollandaise and tomato sauces. All sauces/gravies today tend to be offspring of these five basic classic sauces... (trivial, needless things learned during my 2 semesters of culinary school- and my apprenticeship many moons ago!)

I'd have to make one "correction" to Kevin's short course.

Careme and Escoffier are the Godfathers of classic French cooking. Ultimately, one could say that Careme invented it and Escoffier codified it.

However, where I quibble is in calling them the Godfathers of modern cooking, which they're not. Classic French cooking is based heavily on liaisoned sauces which enrobe the food. Modern sauces are more like broths; they do not enrobe the food (indeed, the food most often just sits in them) and they do not use liaisons.

Modern sauces, particularly in the 1980s and '90s were based on butter and cream. More recently, even they have been replaced by reductions and jus.

A liaison, btw, is a binding agent that causes other ingredients to thicken and stick to each other. Flour, various starches, eggs are among the more familiar liaisons.

The other trend affecting modern food, and helping to define it, is the inclusion of ethnic cuisines. With the possible exception of Italian, classic French cooking acknowldeged no debt to other cuisines. Nowadays we totally embrace them.

...correct, Brook- but by "modern" I just meant "post saber-tooth tiger ribs from back in the cave-man days"! Ha!

>...post saber-tooth tiger ribs<

Saber tooth tiger ribs with my pomegranite barbeque sauce would be world famous---if we could still get the ribs. :p

Absolutely, Brook! Of course, one could double-up on guinea pig ribs though- but they're not quite as meaty!