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ADR-0008: A parent may be any catalogued preparation

Status

Accepted.

Date

2026-08-20

Context

The first parent rule resolved only the five mothers. An opening paragraph naming exactly one mother recorded a derivation, and everything else recorded None. That rule read 29 derivations out of 124 preparations.

The source states more than the rule could read. MARROW SAUCE (entry 45, line 1895) says "the Marrow Sauce being only a variety of the Bordelaise", with a cross-reference number. The record still said parent: None, because Bordelaise is not a mother. Escoffier's structure is not a five-way star. It is a graph with depth, and the old rule flattened it.

Widening the candidate set widens the ways a reading can be wrong. Three appeared while building this rule:

  • HORSE-RADISH SAUCE (entry 138) opens with "finely-rasped horse-radish". The words answer to a name of entry 119, HORSE-RADISH OR ALBERT SAUCE. The entry states an ingredient, not a parent.
  • GENEVOISE SAUCE (entry 38) opens with "add one pint of Lenten Espagnole". The word "Espagnole" sits inside that name. Reading both names turns one statement into a false ambiguity.
  • Folding an opening flattens punctuation, so a careless rule can join words across a full stop. That is the substring defect of ADR-0007 in a new disguise.

Decision

A stated parent may be any catalogued preparation, not only a mother. What counts as a statement is narrowed to keep every derivation checkable.

The candidates are the catalogue's own names. Every term of every kept preparation, every folded title, and every declared mother is a candidate. Nothing else is. Two names that reach one preparation count as one candidate.

A statement is a whole run of words inside one sentence. The run must sit in the opening paragraph, as before. tomatoes is not tomato, and a name split across a full stop is not a statement.

A run inside the entry's own name is not a statement. An entry named HORSE-RADISH SAUCE that says "horse-radish" names its own subject. A mother is exempt, because a mother is never an entry's own subject. LENTEN ESPAGNOLE naming Espagnole does state its base.

A name stated only inside a longer stated name is not a statement. The longer name shadows the shorter one when the two reach different preparations. "Lenten Espagnole" states entry 24 and does not also state the mother. When both names reach one preparation, the mother concept is recorded, so parent: bechamel stays bechamel.

Ambiguity still resolves to nothing. Exactly one candidate in the opening paragraph, or no parent. This rule now dissolves derivations the old rule recorded. ANDALOUSE SAUCE names Mayonnaise sauce and tomato purée, and the old rule read the purée as the mother Tomato. It records None now.

A mother binds to its own entry. Among the preparations answering to a mother's name, the first the source presents is the mother's entry. The source states a base before its derivatives. Binding by name length instead would bind velouté to THICKENED VELOUTÉ, an alias of Allemande, and collapse two preparations into one candidate. ORDINARY CHAUD-FROID SAUCE says "substituting Allemande Sauce for the velouté". That states two preparations, so it records None.

A cycle is cleared, never broken by choice. Two preparations deriving from each other would make each its own ancestor. Every derivation on a cycle is cleared, and derivations leading into it stay. Choosing one to keep would be an arbitrary choice wearing the costume of determinism.

Half-glaze stays unencoded. Bordelaise's opening names half-glaze and never Espagnole. A term that encodes a derivation is not a statement of one, so Bordelaise stays unresolved. That entry is the bar a later model measures against, and this rule does not lower it.

Consequences

Positive

  • Derived rises from 29 to 50, and unresolved falls from 95 to 74. All 24 new derivations quote a name the source wrote in the opening paragraph.
  • saucier tree gains depth. Marrow Sauce sits beneath Bordelaise, and Bordelaise itself still reports no parent.
  • Three derivations the old rule recorded from ingredient words or compound statements now dissolve to None, which is the honest reading.
  • One derivation moves to the statement itself. Genevoise records Lenten Espagnole, where the old rule recorded the mother the name contains.

Negative

  • A recorded parent is no longer always a mother, so consumers must resolve a parent concept through the catalogue rather than a five-entry table.
  • The subject and shadow rules are two more things a contributor must know before touching the resolver.
  • A derivation stated under a name the catalogue does not carry, such as "the Bordelaise" alone, is still unresolved. The rule resolves less than a reader would, and that is the accepted trade.

References