A bottle of sauce in your refrigerator is like the flight of V-shaped birds on a toddler's scenery drawing — it's less indispensable and more essential. In a matter-of-fact way, it's bound to be there. But for decades, and in each culinary heritage, sauces, or their equivalent, would be skillfully made using fresh, sun-kissed produce, until the rise of commercialism ushered in pre-made and packaged preservatives.

As the business of food struggles to find a new logic in the face of the impending challenges of sustainability, chefs are being forced to revise their approach. And an offshoot of this phenomenon involves cooking from scratch, thereby reducing dependability on unsustainable market-variety products.