In French cuisine, the mother sauces (French: sauces mères, pronounced [sos mɛʁ]), also known as grandes sauces (pronounced [ɡʁɑ̃d sos]) in French, are a group of sauces upon which many other sauces – "daughter sauces" or petites sauces – are based. Different classifications of mother sauces have been proposed since at least the early 19th century.