Gravy or Sauce?
Ask any Italian-American to describe what his mother cooks
on the stove every Sunday morning, and the answer splits right down the
middle. Is it gravy or sauce?
Growing up in the middle-sixties in the suburb of New
York called New Jersey,
I never knew there was a way to ‘order’ pizza.
My four-foot-nothing great grandmother brought it up from her cellar
every Friday. The smell of oregano,
fresh tomato, and broiled cheese filled her house.
It wasn't until I was sixteen that, to my amazement, I found
out people called a phone number and had pizza delivered. I thought it was a dish of my own family’s
creation. Of course, it was not the kind
of pizza I ate at home. Nor did it have
that certain irregular perfection, but for the first time in my life, I
realized there were other Italians in America.
When I was six, I wasn't allowed out of my back yard. At eight I graduated to the front yard. At ten, I roamed the block like a mad Bedoin
looking for goat milk. It wasn't until I
reached the ripe old age of twelve, that I realized the world was bigger than a
dead-end street in Brick, New Jersey
called “Acapulco Drive’.
Dishes like menesta and beans, cavatelli and broccoli, and
ciambotta, were staples on our table.
Black coffee was what my family drank after dinner from tiny white
cups. Anisette was drizzled in it – milk
was never an option. Peppers were always
roasted, and chicken soup contained pastina.
Most of us took it for granted. Now
I feel like my heritage is a green-patina tint on a long forgotten past.
When I was sixteen, I came home from school with a bloody
nose and a three day sentence in detention.
My mother hit the roof. She
demanded an explanation. I told her a
boy, on the bus, insisted what she cooked for four hours every Sunday morning
was ‘sauce’. I stood my ground. I adamantly told him it was ‘gravy’. For that I got a punch in the snoot. It was the first time I was struck by another
person, and the last. I promised my
mother if anyone ever insulted her cooking again, I would strike first, and
answer questions later. Her laugh was
both inspirational and confusing.
As a grown man out of college - raising a family - and
cooking my own pot of ‘gravy’, I realized the answer.
When someone says, “If it’s red, it’s sauce – gravy is
brown,” they are mistaken. I respond in
a kind, but firm voice. “In cooking, the
color brown denotes meat, and meat makes gravy.
Red is a dominant color in food.
Tomatoes are red - therefore whatever they are cooked with becomes
red. But, once meatballs, sausage,
braciole, and pork bones are added, ‘tomato sauce’ becomes gravy.
Since the bloody nose in High School, I have come to realize
one thing – never insult a mother’s cooking.
But, as an intellectual, I feel compelled to examine the root of a
preconceived notion. The answer is
simple: “When you put meat in it – its
gravy.”
