Why Is ‘Mickey 17’ So Obsessed With Sauce? | Eater

"The leaders' private quarters are presented as the locus of culinary privilege: Ylfa is obsessed with sauce — “Sauce is the true litmus test of civilization,” she tells the ship’s crew — and her meals are far more elaborate than those available to ordinary crew, with steaks adorned with vibrant sauce and garnishes. She asks crew members to taste iterations from her pinky and smothers her own dinners in the stuff; when she and her husband invite the protagonist to dinner, his gooey-looking steak sits in more of a pool of its own juices while the hosts and officer Kai enjoy proper sauce, underscoring the film’s point that Mickey is expendable and that sauce is reserved for the select few. This behavior is read as a deliberate signifier of class and hierarchy: the production of pleasure for a privileged minority on the backs of an exploitative system. That cultural coding of sauce is anchored in culinary history here — the five French mother sauces codified by chef Auguste Escoffier at the turn of the 20th century formed the foundation of fine dining — which explains why these private meals function as markers of refinement and power rather than mere nourishment." - Jaya Saxena