Gravy

Cultural geographers should pay more attention to gravy.

We have a love-hate relationship with gravy. There's nothing better than a steaming hot, fresh, chicken-fried steak drenched in gravy. And, where would Thanksgiving be without gallons of giblet gravy to drown the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes? Thick or thin, brown or white, it's all good. Yet, if you go to a snooty cafe or bistro, they don't serve gravy. Just sauce. Breakfast of fried eggs, fried ham, and red eye gravy becomes eggs with ham au jus. The beef tenderloin comes with a red wine reduction. That rolled pork roast doesn't have gravy, it has a thin puree of root vegetables served as a sauce. Veal t-bone goes with demiglace. Chicken will have a veloute sauce, or some fancy-named variation thereof (in a French kitchen, the milk gravy on my mother's fried chicken would be a classic "Sauce Supreme").

When I was in high school, we used to order French fries with brown gravy at lunch. Yum. I'm old enough that our gravy was actually made fresh by the school cooks every morning—they didn't just open a can. There's also an old, classic diner in my hometown famous for its "hot hamburgers"—a wonderfully decadent concoction with a couple of slices of toast topped by an enormous hamburger steak topped with grilled onions topped with brown gravy topped with a mound of great big French fries. And even to the present day, when I go spend the weekend with my family at some Indian pow-wow, the main course for dinner one night is sure to be "meat gravy", a nice thick gravy with a few bits of crumbled up meat served with whatever starch is available that day, perhaps potatoes, perhaps rice, and usually also available will be big, plate-sized pieces of Indian fried bread. At home with my parents, my father will often ignore the steak on the table, butter a slice of bread, lay it flat on his plate, and cover it with steak gravy.

But we can't get gravy at a nice restaurant. And the dieticians admonish us to leave the gravy off the meat.

During one formal dinner my sophomore year of college, my wise fraternity "pledge grandfather," who was destined to be Outstanding Senior Man of the University, explained to me the geographic differences of gravy use. He said that when you go back to the northeast Yankee part of the country, meat is served with just a little dollop of gravy. In the midwest, they serve about a spoonful of gravy on the meat. But here in the South, we have a little meat with our gravy!

Where did gravy come from? Sometimes I think it's a rather uniquely American thing. They don't have gravy in Mexico--melted cheese doesn't count! Asians don't use gravy, no doubt because it would be too hard to eat with chopsticks. I don't remember ever being served gravy when I was in school in England, although it was used in casseroles such as shepherd's pie. Italians use vegetable sauces (think tomato). Never had "gravy" in Germany, though they do occasionally use a little sauce. And France--need we ask?

Now I'm hungry. Anybody wanna go out for steak and gravy?

Thai Kingdom, Washington, D.C.

Leo got in late last night from a harrowing bus ride back from New York. Their tire blew out on the interstate and the bus nearly lost control; they were delayed four hours waiting for repairs and a replacement bus. So, when he got in, we thought he'd relax better if we went out to dinner, rather than cooking at home.

We walked up to K Street and found a wonderful, very authentic, Thai place called Thai Kingdom. The chicken satay appetizer was marinated in coconut milk and served with a great peanut sauce with quite a bit of spicy heat. Dessert was a shared plate of sticky rice with mango--**so** much better than the one we had last week at Thai Coast. For entrees, we had two different types of Thai flat noodles, Leo a dry, spicy mixture, and I had a beef and broccoli version that the waitress explained was different from a similar dish because this one came with gravy. Now, the dish was excellent.....great flavors, tender meat, interesting cuts of the entire broccoli plant, but the gravy....it wasn't gravy. It was sweet.

Wine and cheese at Circle Liquors, Washington, D.C.

Last night I went to a wine tasting at this absolutely wonderful wine shop in Upper Northwest D.C. near Chevy Chase circle called Circle Liquors. It's a big shop on Connecticut Avenue, but it's not just big, it has a very nice and very well thought out selection of international wines from all price ranges. They apparently do a tasting about once every six weeks.

The theme of last night's tasting was French burgundies. They presented six wines, four white and two red.

The first white was Domaine Chavy Puligny-Montrachet 2001, which retails for $39.99. It was a very nice, light, crisp wine with a light straw color, no oakyness, and almost classically steely. It would be good as an aperitif, but it did not stand up all that well to the cheeses (more about cheeses later). Next was Domaine Matrot Meursault 2001, $33.99, which was a big, fruity, full-bodied wine with a bit of limestone, a hint of honey, and a good acidity. It did well with food, and I think it was probably my favorite white of the evening. The next two wines were both Domaine Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne chardonnays. First, they presented the 1993 ($105.99). It was good. This was a bit of a surprise, since it's a twelve year old chardonnay, but French chardonnays do tend to hold their age better than do California chardonnays. The next Corton, though, the 2002 ($119.99) was amazing. It was a lovely wine, clear, mellow, woodsy, with good complexity and a honeyed finish, and it stood up to the food very well. The sommalier was saying it was still a bit tight and would only improve with a little bit of age.

Next, they presented the reds, both pinot noirs. First up was Domaine Tollot-Beaut Chorey Cote de Beaune 2000 ($27.99). This wine comes from the southern half of the burgundy region. It had a burgundy color with a slight tinge of brown, but drank very well. There was definitely a forward fruitiness to the wine and a lot of floral notes. It didn't stand up to the strong cheeses as well as the other red, but I still think I prefer this wine of the two. The second wine was Domaine Grivot Nuits St. Georges "Les Charmois" 2001 ($39.99), which comes from the northern half of burgundy. This wine definitely had more structure than the Cote de Beaune, and a touch of tanin which allowed it to do very well with the cheeses. It was a nice, medium-bodied wine with a hint of cherry. C'est bon.

The cheeses used to accompany the wines were worthy of their own tasting. There was the omnipresent brie, this one a very nice 70% butterfat cheese that was sufficiently aged so as to have a nice, soft, spreadability without the strong ripeness the French love but Americans hate. They had a lovely three year old gruyere I turned to often. The cheddar entry was a pleasant Red Leicester, but I noticed as the evening went on and the cheese warmed to room temperature, it got rather too soft for a leicester. The "smelly cheese" category was filled with the only slightly so smelly morbier, which had a very nice, soft texture and flavor. The morbier was probably chosen more for its talking points--this is a unique cheese made half from "morning" milk and half from "evening" milk, separated in the wheel by a thin layer of grape leaf ash. It has a nice appearance with a "stripe" running down the middle from the ash, and the more discriminating palates can detect a very faint difference in taste from the morning side versus the evening side of the cheese.....I always say the evening side has a bit more of a grassy taste, since the cows have been eating fresh grass all day long! The star cheeses from this tasting were both three year aged Grand Goudas, which were both hard and granular and so full of wonderful flavors. One of the goudas was plain and the other was applewood smoked. These were absolutely wonderful cheeses, and I think a 3 year old Grand Gouda probably retails for about $18-20 a pound.

I helped the sommalier carry his stuff out to his car after the tasting, and he gave me a bottle of the Puligny-Montrachet and a plastic baggy full of the leftover cheeses. Yum.