What do a chef, a lifestyle professor, and a leading global brand for bathroom solutions and kitchen fittings have in common? Taking 50 countries as the starting point, innovating 50 national sauces, and looking on “how they do good”, Paul Svensson and Mai-Lis Hellénius being advocates for living a sustainable lifestyle, join forces with the GROHE brand to inspire a way to setting healthy, more enjoyable, yet sustainable life goals. 

We welcome you to our Sauce Atlas. We want to take you on a culinary journey across the globe. The taste of the world manifested in international sauce recipes, all having one ingredient in common: water. There’s nothing more essential to life on earth than water. Yet, from Cape Town to California, and from rural, sub-Saharan Africa to booming megacities there’s a global water crisis. People are struggling to access the quantity and quality of water they need for drinking, cooking, bathing, handwashing, and growing their food. 

"It all starts with water"
Paul Svensson 
Chef

In search of some of the world’s most interesting sauces, we have for the sake of this book turned over many rocks and sniffed around for 50 examples from 50 different countries. Or rather, we have connected each sauce to a country. Finding the origin of a sauce and stubbornly maintaining that certain sauces have their roots in certain nations is impossible.  

"Life should be a joy"
Mai-Lis Hellénius
MD, Professor of Prevention and Lifestyle
at Karolinska Institutet

For each sauce in this book, I supplement Paul’s recipes, giving you a little insight into how they not only taste great but are also doing you some good.

Sauces are the unsung heroes of many dishes – in our Sauce Atlas book they decidedly take center stage to inspire you to follow a more sustainable lifestyle when it comes to cooking. Recreating these tasty sauces from around the globe is easy thanks to the book including helpful tips and a recipe index informing you which foods and combinations of flavors are going to tickle your taste buds when paired together.

The kitchen is the heart of the home where people gather and socialize, combine that with healthy tasty food and you have yourself an evening well spent. So if you are keen to taste the fiery Arrabbiata Sauce recipe from Italy, the Garam Masala from India, or the Chimichurri from Argentina, the Sauce Atlas can be your perfect guide and as you might have guessed – water is always going to be one of the main ingredients! It’s time to delight your guests. 

The sauce atlas also tries to approach cooking in a more conscious and sustainable way. read up about hints and tips on what to do with your leftover food in our “Leftover Magic” section. Modifying quantities and adding a few new ingredients can really aid your sustainable lifestyle journey in the kitchen. 

We hope to inspire you to try out as many sauce recipes as you want and experience and explore each country through your tastebuds. Our Sauce Atlas aims to not only have a big impact on your tastebuds but also intends to raise awareness of the world’s shared reliance on life giving water and the importance of a sustainable lifestyle and using water in a more conscious way.