Samuel Sebban & Sauce Béarnaise

Samuel Sebban is a young graduate from the Pau (Béarn) Business School, who had the brilliant idea of marketing Béarnaise Sauce in Béarn.  

Béarnaise sauce is a sauce made of clarified butter emulsified in egg yolks, white wine vinegar and flavored with herbs. It is considered to be a 'child' of the mother Hollandaise sauce, one of the five sauces in the French haute cuisine mother sauce repertoire. The difference is only in their flavoring: Béarnaise uses shallot, chervil, peppercorn, and tarragon, while Hollandaise uses lemon juice or white wine.

The interesting thing is: Béarnaise Sauce is not from Béarn at all! Like calling the ‘beret’ a ‘Basque beret’, the name is all based on a mistake.

The sauce was first created by the chef Collinet, the inventor of puffed potatoes (pommes de terre soufflées), and served at the 1836 opening of Le Pavillon Henri IV, a restaurant at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, not far from Paris. His restaurant was named Henry IV of France, who was a gourmet himself, and born in the province of Béarn.The sauce was named in Henry IV’s honour.

Samuel Sebban runs his own delicatessen store, Bord de Gave, in the centre of Pau, selling all goodies Béarnaise.