text: Subsequently, several legends were created to explain its name. It is said, for example, that Anne of Austria – who despite her name was Spanish – introduced cooks from Spain to the kitchens of the French court and that her cooks improved the French brown sauce by adding tomatoes. A similar tale refers to the Spanish cooks employed by Louis XIV's wife, Maria Theresa of Spain. Another suggestion is that in the 17th century, Spanish bacon and ham were introduced as the meat for the stock on which the sauce is based, rather than the traditional beef. There is no historical evidence of Spanish cooks in the kitchens of the French court, therefore, these legends appear to be untrue.
  History
  The term "sauce espagnole" appears in Vincent La Chapelle's 1733 cookery book Le Cuisinier moderne, but no recipe is given. Antonin Carême printed a detailed recipe in his 1828 book Le Cuisinier parisien. By the middle of the 19th century the sauce was familiar in the English-speaking world: in her Modern Cookery of 1845 Eliza Acton gave two recipes for it, one with added wine and one without. The sauce was included in Auguste Escoffier's 1903 classification of the five mother sauces, on which much French cooking depends.