Made some jammin’ salmon croquettes the other nite, only to be chagrined to find that I’d lost my old favorite “come-back” sauce recipie which an old friend from South Miss. had given me.
I got a pox on, when I turned to the Joy and it had no mention of it !!!
I resorted to the Web and made a VERY mediocre sauce for the cakes.
Heh. I know my own thought process went something like "I am not really a cook, and don’t often look at “Café Society” but if I don’t open this thread, I just know I will end up wondering what the hell “Come Back Sauce” is. I’m glad I was not the only bewildered one. It sounds good, if a bit fierce.
Why is it called “Come Back Sauce”? Is it so good that it forces you to Come Back? (That seems the simplest and most likely) Or is it meant to lure your guests back for another visit after they’ve tried it? Or does it come back uo your throat after you’ve eaten it? (That seems the least likely)
We frequently forget that commonplace terms in a region or even in one family might be totally misunderstood or not understood outside that group. My mother always caled advertising circulars “throw aways”, because that’s what she did with them. As a kid, I thought that’s what everyone called them. I once read a story about some family who called a kind of undergarment “crucials”, and it wasn’t until one man in the family went out to buy some (it was a female-type thing) that he found out that nobody else used that term.
As I’ve always understood the term, it’s Come-Back sauce because the heat isn’t immediately apparent. It’s only after you’ve had a few tastes that the heat comes back to bite you.
In other circles, it’s like saying, “Man! These hot wings creep up on you!”
Count me among those who (a) rarely reads Cafe Society and (b) opened this thread just to find out what Come Back Sauce is.
It looks divine. In general I love mayo with spicy stuff added; this one looks even better than the Chipotle mayo I improvised last month. But that jar is now empty and I need some more mayo to mix in it.
So now that (a) I have seen that recipe and (b) I know it is inferior, I have a serious and irresistible hankering for some GOOD Come Back Sauce. I am most frustrated by this hijack (14 recipes and nary a bitchin’ recipe!). I want sauce!