Your post reminds me that I think we should have a Free Republic cookbook. I’ve always wondered why Italian-Americans call tomato sauce “gravy.” My husband does this and it amused me when we were first married.
A 17th century English dictionary describes it thus: ‘GRAVEY, BROTHY DRESSING FOR MEAT OR FISH’. The Pilgrim Fathers brought the word GRAVY with them when they arrived on the East Coast in the 1600s. East Coast Italian migrants adopted it from English in the 1860s, as a direct translation of DRESSING. If Americans want to call Salsa Gravy, what’s the problem? As long as they don’t really believe it to be an Italian word. It’s old English! Besides, THERE IS NO LETTER ‘Y’ IN THE ITALIAN ALPHABET!
We weren't Italian. My Dad was born in Holland. Spaghetti sauce was sauce, and gravy was from pan drippings. He did both quite well. I make a decent spaghetti sauce, although it's nothing like my father's. We'd can tomatoes every year for the sauce. He'd make his own meatballs, fry up Italian sausage, and throw in some browned pig hocks. If there was beef or pork steaks leftover from a weeknight meal, he'd throw those in too.
Neither of my sons are married, but survive on their own because they know how to cook. The last time I visited my oldest son, he made me Hungarian Goulash. Not the Americanized version with ground beef and elbow macaroni, but the kind you get in Hungary with cubed beef and dumplings. It was excellent. He visited Budapest this past May, and had real Hungarian Goulash there. He brought a bunch of different types of paprika back home with him, found an authentic recipe online, and has made it a few times since then.
I have a friend, Italian Catholic from New Jersey...she's a longtime Freeper but hasn't posted in years because she and her husband work all the time to keep three girls in private school. Anyway, one day she mentioned having to pick up some pasta to go with the gravy she makes every Sunday.
I asked her if she really put gravy on spaghetti...said I'd never heard of such a thing.
She said, "Of course! What do you put on your pasta!?"
"Well, sauce, what else?" I replied.
She laughed and said, "That's gravy. What's wrong with you?"
I said, "No, it isn't, it's SAUCE!"
God bless her, she's also never eaten beans. :)
I never heard of spaghetti sauce refered to as gravy until I saw “Tne Sopranos”.
I thought it might be a NJ thing.
As for a home cooked meal. I’m single. Breakfast and lunch alone are ok. I miss family dinners. I love to cook. But get no pleasure for cooking for myself. I wish I had someone to cook for, and share a meal with.
P.S. yes to a FR cookbook