This evening the thought, “who first said they were lost in the sauce?” Passed through my head. Googled “lost in the sauce etymology” and much of the Internet claims that Gucci Mane coined the phrase in 2013. The band Ween has a beautiful song released in 1997 featuring the lyrics “Lost in the sauce once again.” This predates Gucci Mane’s usage by 16 years and is surely not the first time the phrase has been used. The misinformation and misattribution is very mildly infuriating.
Please post the earliest usage of lost in the sauce you can find so we can right this wrong.
First off, all hail boognish. Ween rules.
That said I think it’s related to cooking. I used Google Ngram to search for it and found a “lost in the sauce” reference in an 1896 cookbook.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Cassell_s_new_universal_cookery_book/mf7fq2HT8YwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="lost+in+the+sauce"&pg=PA105&printsec=frontcover
Not the colloquial usage, but the earliest usage I could find.
Keep it brown.
Thanks for your research! Definitely not the current usage but a lot of nice sauce.