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?