It’s dinner time and that just makes me hungrier
Rice and gravy, biscuits and gravy with chicken livers, red eye gravy with biscuits, giblets gravy. I could do this all day....
All the gravies I know of are either beige or some shade of brown. Apparently, Italian Gravy is red and something most of us would simply call Pasta Sauce or Spaghetti Sauce.
Lesson learnt.
This easter I didn’t give my grandkids candy for Easter. I gave them a big pot of meatballs and Bolognese sauce. I had made 4 dozen meatballs and 2 pots of sauce and they were gone in 3 days.
I grew up in an Italian immigrant family.
It was an awesome, awesome experience.
In my home, English and the Italian Avellinese and Sicilian dialects were spoken.
The food, the food. Kids at school wanted to buy my lunches. Meatball and bracciole sandwiches on Scala bread. Eggs fried with peppers and onion.
We had Sunday gravy, Wednesday gravy,Thursday gravy. Friday, we had fishballs, lobster or squid in gravy, or broiled fish. My grandfather and his brothers were fishermen.
Saturday night, it was broiled steak.
There was home made pizza, bread, and for holidays, home made ravioli, fettuccine, and Cavatelli.
It was the best.
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Gravy is brown and goes on meat. You put sauce on spaghetti. And I’m Italian.
Just made up some pasta and sauce for the week’s lunches
Wonderful memories. More often than Sundays, most of our family dinners involved a pot of gravy with meatballs or sausage.
This sheds light on something my father always used to do: call tomato sauce “gravy.” He was the first generation born in the US, so he probably heard the term growing up. When my Mom would make spaghetti Dad would say: “We’re having macs and gravy.” (For me, I say: pasta with sauce. Ragu tends to be more elaborate. We make a pork ragu that will make you eat yourself into a stupor!)
I’m salivating like crazy. Where can one find a restaurant that serves these old traditional dishes, just like from the old country, without being bastardized beyond recognition.
Ping!
I just took delivery of an Ooni wood-fired pizza oven and am going to set it up and test it tomorrow. Can't wait!
No true Italian says “gravy.” Italians say “salsa,” “sugo” “ragu” and a few other more regional terms. I am half Italian and love Italian culture but find Italian American culture cringy and dying due to assimilation and intermarriage anyway.
I know that in our family and at least three other Italian American families, it was de rigueur for my FATHER to make Sunday gravy.
It was the ONLY day that Papa was in control of the kitchen.
Contrary to some who think differently, Italian Americans’ homes were Matriarchically run.
The first 2 paragraphs capture the essence of Sunday gravy/sauce. And of the Italian-American experience.
Our sauce recipe is a closely guarded heirloom. You need to be married at least 5 years before your spouse gets to know how its made...LOL!