I love it over at facebook, and my cousin Joe Carlini sent me an invitation to join a group called Gravy Wars, South Philly Food Feuds and Attytudes.
Growing up, we always called the red sauce you put on pasta (macaroni for us South Philadelphians) gravy. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that for the majority of people in the area, gravy was brown and you put it on roast beef. Well, we call that brown gravy! If you are having a seafood sauce, my mom always called it seafood gravy. Just putting crabs in it... crab gravy. Very simple.
Of course, this was only one of the many things that I realized was different about me than my non Italian friends. When I go out to lunch, I love to get soup and a 1/2 of a sandwich. Now, when the menu says, your choice of bread. to me that implies I can have my choice of bread. Okay, I'll have chicken salad on a roll. Bad enough they are going to call it a kaiser roll, wherever that name came from, but now they tell me I can't have my sandwich on a roll. I say why not... the menu says my choice of bread. Oh, it has to be sliced bread. They can't cut the roll in half... who else will eat it? Seriously? There isn't one other Italian girl in this restaurant that wants a 1/2 of a sandwich?
Italians make meals into great social gatherings. I love to sit around the kitchen table with friends and family and eat, talk and laugh. Meals are meant to be celebrated and enjoyed. Not something to get over with. I have my doubts about a person who doesn't love food. How passionless. I love to watch people eat that love it! I love to cook for people who love to eat.
My husband makes me mad every time we have dinner. I go to great lengths to delicately spice my meals and the man puts hot pepper relish on everything. Why do I bother? He wouldn't know the difference! And he doesn't like seafood gravy? And he likes to watch TV while he eats. And he wants to eat his salad first. What is up with that? We always had salad at the end of the meal. How else would your stomach know it was time for dessert? His family always rushed through the meal so that they could all line up in front of the TV. One family meal that included his side of the family forced me to unplug the TV and pretend I didn't know what was wrong with it. Sadly, they figured it right out!
I loved growing up in South Philadelphia. I loved having close neighbors and sitting on the front step on a warm summer night, talking and laughing. I loved walking down a South Phiilly street on a warm summer Sunday and smelling everyone's gravy simmering on their stoves! I loved that I could walk every where I needed to go and I loved feeling like I belonged somewhere. I looked like everyone else, I talked like everyone else. I was Italian, and pretty much, so was everyone else!
So, the next time a pretty Italian woman invites you over for gravy, at least now you'll know what she's talking about!
Susan C. Mangigian
1450 E. Boot Road, Suite 600-A,West Chester, PA 19380
610-719-1700 main office, 610-299-6237 cell
Moving? I can help!
Susan...
Several things continued....
Well Richard... you are going to just leave me hanging here?
Susan~I would just love to come to Philly and eat some gravy with you!!! I had no idea that gravy could mean so many things!!! I saw that you were in that group on FB, and realized as a "foreigner", I would have no idea what was going on!!!
OK, I wanted to be the first to comment and didn't want anyone else to sneak in while I was typing this.
For us in Pittsburgh, it was "red sauce." Not marinara, or bolognese or anything fancy, just red sauce. Gravy was brown. Here is the south gravy is white.
I went to a restaurant and the menu said "eggs any style." So I ordered hard boiled, and was told they couldn't do that. I said, "just put the eggs in boiling water for 12 minutes, I'll wait!" They still said no!
We always ate salad with the meal like a vegetable.
Oh, could be a Steeler-Eagle Super Bowl. Wouldn't that be AWESOME!
Susan,
I can so relate to that. Our dinners with the relatives when I was growing up took hours. Soup, meatballs/pasta (with gravy), roast beef, vegetables, salad and then dessert. I don't know how I ate it all back then...and remained so thin.
Anyway, at the end of consuming about 3000 calories, all the aunts would look around the table and ask if there was any Sweet and Low for the coffee...like an extra ten calories were going to make a difference then.
Thanks for the reminders, I miss those days.
Rich
Well, how can I get so lucky to have my two favorite Richards commenting one after the other!
Richard W., gravy is white down south? What is in it? Red sauce huh? Steeler-Eagle Super Bowl? I'll have to ask my cousin Joe! xxoo
Richard I., you made me laugh! You are so right about the sweet and low! In a restaurant, my grandmom would fill her purse with the sweet and low! Did anyone actually buy that stuff? Lol!
Pam, you would really feel like a foreigner, from much further away that your home country of Idaho, if you ever ate a meal in South Philly! But you would love it, and they would love you... fattening you up would be their favorite new past time!!
I'll be right over Susan. This post has made me hungry. BTW in Texas gravy can be white cream, brown, or red, so we just eat it and love it any way we get it served.
Girl, I want to come over for some gravy, and I'll stay at the table all evening long if you want me to! It was so much different when I was in Italy, dinner time lasted for hours and was just plain fun. Talking, laughing, drinking wine, eating amazing food... who needs tv?
Susan - It was always called sauce at our house, but I would be more than happy to come over yours and try some of your "red gravy" : )
I am very much looking forward to dinner with you someday, Susan! I'll show you my gravy if you show me yours! :)
Gravy in my home was Brown gravy or country gravy, which was the white stuff. You also had sausage gravy, which was country gravy with sausage in it. We didn't have that very often. As for the red sauce, that's what we called it, I'm Irish so we had whatever you call Ragu from a jar.
Susan, Oh how I can relate! ...and maybe be related! I am 100% Italian and my husband is Irish and German. He once put catsup on my parents "homemade sausage". I thought my mother would kill him. And, he has to add red pepper flakes to every dish I create - while watching tv. We didn't call it gravy where I grew up in Syracuse, but many people do here in the Poughkeepsie area. They also refer to pizza as "pie." As for me, I became very un-domesticated over time as I got too busy to cook and clean. I still make a mean sauce when I can squeeze it in. Funny, my mother is 83 and she wakes up every day and starts making dinner at 11am. I never did figure out why dinner can be an all day project with Italians?
Hey Susan, Does this meal come with plenty of Wine?
Susan, great blog from fabulous memories. i remember the first time I heard an Italian friend call red sauce gravy - that was in Chicago where I grew up. I thought they were nuts, couldn't fathom how they could think of red sauce as gravy. But over the years I came to love it because it evoked for me an ethnicity that was so much a part of Chicago growing up - we were all different and we learned about other cultures from each other. Very cool, making me hungry, I think I need to go check the fridge for some gravy!
Susan...
Usually, the base is a roux ...flour, butter or lard, and thinned with milk, often with sausage or another breakfast meat! It's used on biscuits and country fried steak!
Gary, the table is set.. just waiting on the company!
Chris, I have a feeling we could talk till the early morning! We have so much in common! It will happen and you can meet JJ and Scat... and the humans here too!
Amanda, I would love it if my favorite Red Head and friends converged here at my home for a giant party. I'd cook for a week getting ready!
Sandra, you are on the list for our giant pj party... homemade lasagna and meatballs in gravy is on the menu!
Hi Susan-What a great post. It shows depending where you grew up and what your nationality is. Everybody has their own terminology for food. I grew up in NY and only recently moved to the southern states. We call the red sauce "sauce" and the brown stuff "gravy". I can't get used to the idea of sausage gravy for breakfast or tomatoes with my eggs. Lot of real good cooks here though. I think Italians are born wonderful cooks. Have a great evening and week.
JL, my grandmom called Ragu from a jar poison! This summer, I was at the beach and really didn't feel like making gravy, so I bought jarred sauce. Both of my kids wanted to know what "this slop" was that I was feeding them. Spoiled Italian brats!
Carol, no matter how busy, I usually cook dinner every night except for one or two nights a week. I don't put a whole lot of thought into it, but when my mom is here, she is thinking about dinner at breakfast! It would be so nice if we were related!
Cam, of course, this meal comes with wine. And plenty of it!
Joanne, I'm glad you have happy Italian memories.
Richard... lard? Yikes!
Sharon, I'm not so sure about tomatoes with eggs either! Thanks for the comment! xxoo
Susan,
You are just a little saucy woman... or is it a little gravy woman...;-)
Ann Hayden in lovely Wildwood, Missouri
Susan,
As an x Philly girl I can tell you that the thing I miss most about Philadelphia is south Phila. food, Pat's Steaks, Gino's Pizza, and GRAVY!!!!
Marcy
I am not Italian but know what gravy is! If any Italian invites me for dinner it is an invitation I cannot refuse!!!
Susan,
I love the post!!! I could have written this word for word, making allowances for gender specifics!!! Thanks, Fran
Gravy is gravy and it goes over meat and you get to sop it up with bread. YUMMO or is it YUMMY? Now don't get me wrong sauce is pretty good too. Food my favorite meal!!
I had no idea there was red gravy or crab gravy anywhere in the world! See what you can learn here on AR? I loved your story and hope your husband lays off the pepper relish every now and then so he can actually taste your food ;-)
Ha Ha !!
My wife is a feisty Italian from the Bronx.
When she first asked me if I wanted 'gravy on my pasta' I almost gagged thinking of beef stock brown gravy on spaghetti !!!
...even after she explained that her family calls marinara 'gravy', it was tough for me to accept !
..... 11 years later ..... I still prefer to call it sauce for pasta !!!!!
Ann, I prefer a saucy woman! xxoo
Marcy, Pats or Ginos... I always thought they were comparable. I really miss the old neighborhood too, although I am only 45 minutes from there, most of my friends have moved away and most their parents have passed on.
Mel, you are invited for dinner. Get a plane ticket and get your butt over to my house. I would love that!
Fran, thanks! Did you read Richard I's comment about the sweet and low? That was so right on too!
Don, food is my favorite thing too. Gotta go do more sit ups now to burn it off!
Colleen, crab gravy is to die for over Linguine!! Of course, my husband wouldn't know that because his tastes like pepper relish!
Sheldon, see, now I know why I like you so much! I am a feisty Italian woman from Philly. Your wife and I would get along like a house on fire!
... lol ... I think if your character is how it appears on AR , then you and my wife would definitely have a blast ! ha ha !
Susan - I love everything that is Italian - Wine, Food, Shoes, and Clothes. When I was growing up in D.C. my family called it sauce.
Dear Susan,
Call it sauce or gravy, as long as it is good!
I am sad about our need to combine dining and TV! The food doesn't taste as good--you don't pay attention to it. You eat more because your aren't tasting it and are eating fast.
You don't enjoy the show. You can't here it over the clanging of food utensils, so you turn up the volume!
We need to try to separate these two!
Barbara
Susan,
I am Italian and we always called red sauce "spaghetti sauce" but I have heard other Italians call it gravy. Food was the center of my Italian family and whenever it was almost time to eat my dad would do the "chow" dance, standing near the stove and waving his hands around and bobbing up and down, actually excited for the food that was coming....
Susan,
GRAVY!
There is gravy and there is red gravy. I'll take either one if it means I don't have to cook :)
Susan~I thought of something while making dinner tonight (we had spaghetti and meatballs btw). What do you call Alfredo sauce? Is that sauce or gravy?
PS, I've already got the "Fattening Up" done! ; )
You had me at gravy!
I grew up eating salad first, but now have to wait 2-3 course for it (French in control of kitchen now...), and no TV !
This non-Italian, Northwest Philly girl, learned a long time ago that tomato sauce is always referred to as "gravy" in South Philadelphia. Years ago I worked with a lady from South Philly who loved to cook and would occasionally treat us to the best Italian food for lunch! I am drooling remembering her escarole soup, chicken cutlet sandwiches and "gravy".
The first time I traveled to the South and saw white gravy, I was shocked. Always thought gravy was red, brown or tan (chicken gravy).
Thanks for the great memories! I miss the great restaurants: Triangle, Philip's, Little Italy, the "original" Saloon.
Go Eagles!!!!
Update! Lorraine Rinalli posted this on her blog on facebook as a guest blogger!! http://www.gravywars.com/cucina_chatter.asp I am so excited!!
You know, the first time I ever hear of the ragu and or pasta sauce called "gravy" was on the Sopranos so you will not get any argument form me, gravy is just fine. In Texas we also have a side of cream gravy for our Chicken Fried Steaks! I love your lament about the fact that your husband puts hot relish in everything. In Texas we have so many different hot sauces and salsas that its a whole other industry!
Sheldon, my character is the same here, at work, at home (maybe a little grumpier at home) and if I were invited to the White House... same character. I yam what I yam.
Hi Sharon, I love everything Italian too! Can't afford the shoes though!
Barbara, I lobbied long and hard to get rid of the TV in our kitchen. Then, it broke. I announced when it did that it would not be replaced. My husband and I had been spending the last 20 years disagreeing on whether we should get a dog, he said no, I wanted one desperately. My husband decided to override me. He told the kids he was going to get the TV that day. I told the kids to call him back and tell him that if he brought the TV home, I was going right to the SPCA and bringing home a dog. No TV, no dog. Married 24 years now and I have a dog! And no TV in the kitchen!!
Diane, I love your father and his chow dance! That made me smile!
Kari, with the last name Battaglia, I would expect nothing else!
Lisa, come on over sweetie, and I'll cook for days!
Pam, we called it alfredo sauce!! Lol! And I've seen the pictures cutie and you did not get to the fattening up part!
Patrick, you are the better man for the french woman in the kitchen! And no TV!
Camille, for a minute I thought you may have worked with my Mom!! But she wasn't big on making escarole soup!
Russell, was I lamenting? Lol! It's okay to put hot sauce on things that are supposed to be hot. But when I make a delicately spiced Italian dish, it's an insult to be hot pepper relish on top of it. Why not just get the ketchup bottle out? Lol!
Susan, you are a pretty Italian woman, and you can make me gravy any day! but I am still going to call it sauce!
Thanks for the laugh. Great story. It brought back memories of the 60s when I was in the service with some Italian genlemen from South Philly. The care pacages they received from home were..... special.
Ron Tiller - Grand Rapids MI with a high today of 10 degrees Farenheit
I grew up mostly in the Poughkeepsie area and whether it was called sauce or gravy was different in different families. I concede that since I was not Italian, that some may have called it sauce so I wouldn't be confused but I was at least aware of it being referred to as gravy. As an adult in Maryland, the first time I met my friend's mom, a first generation Italian-American who grew up in the Bronx, they had invited me over for dinner. Mom, who was almost 80, was very impressed when I commented on her "Red Gravy" and launched in to talking about all the silly people who called it sauce. From that moment on, I was one of "Mom's" friends and was called on to help whenever they had to be out of town on business and needed to have someone "look-in" on her.
Mom passed away last year and is fondly remembered by all for her quirky sense of humor and of course her gravy. Funny how food connects us all and brings back memories from the past. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Susan,
I read Rich's sweet & low comment...very true!!! My grandmom always wore an apron...it had two big pockets in front...one for her rosary beads and the other with some goody for the kids like Jordan almonds and Confetti (not the paper stuff)...the wedding candy...!!! LOL, Thanks, Fran
I love ethnic food conversations! Did you drink some nice red wine with your South Philly Italian meals?
My grandfather was from West Chester where you office, but the ethnicity is German, My grandmother (Scottish and Manx and a ranch girl from the West) made something I've never had since - salted fish made into balls with chopped potatoes and fried served for breakfast. It was understood that this was Papa's kind of food. Can't remember whether it was cod or mackrel. More on the gravy thing. My husband went back home to Ohio to visit and was totally shocked when his shrimp was served with white cream gravy. These regional and ethnic differences are one thing that makes being an American fun!
Sauce is red, gravy is brown !!! I argue with my Italian husband and his family all the time!! From New Jersey. Darlene Olivo ABR-North Myrtle Beach, SC Buyers' Choice Realty
Susan, I don't care if it's gravy or sauce, but I'm waiting for the invitation!
Susan - It makes me miss my Grandparents that much more. And I'd accept the invite in a heartbeat:)
Jason, it's an open invitation! I cook almost every night for my family. When your lovely Jenn finally moves here, it will be a gold engraved invitation! Can't wait!
Gabe, I love to cook for people who love to eat!
Darlene, don't fight it. Just go with the gravy!
Kathy, thanks for the comment. I love the differences too and believe that is what makes the world go around!
Kelsey, I rarely drink wine with dinner at home. I do out at a restaurant. At home, I like a glass of red wine about 9:00 PM while I am reading or watching TV.
.... pssst! .... it's 'sauce' .... gravy is brown !!!!
Susan,
You are a saucy woman! LOL
Gravy to me is what you put on mashed potatoes... Sauce is anything I can dream up to put over noodles.
Ann Hayden in really windy Wildwood, Missouri
Ciao Bella,
sometimes we called it sauce sometimes we called it gravy, always called it maccaroni. did you have "little hats" in S. Philly? Soup always first Salad always last, and I so totally agree for me eating is about the experience, and the lingering over to much wine and laugh over old stories untill you cry. Did your Noni always want to share a beer with you? You are making me so home sick. I remember the first Thanksgiving meal i cooked for my x's family, I was a young bride and so excited to have the china and crystal table set. By the time I served my own plate half of them were up from the table and already in the living room. I ended up being the only one at the table, while my sister in law started the dishes. Who starts dishes when there's still someone eating?? especially the hostess. Any way I remember just sitting there bawling my eyes out.... and know one could figure out why..
Sheldon, I love that little green man you posted, but it's still gravy.
Ann, I keep telling you, it's gravy!
Sheila, I can see why they are your x in-laws! Good grief. All of that work and they didn't even wait for you to sit down with them to eat it? On Christmas Day at my sister-in-laws.. who is a lovely Italian woman, I had to tell my husband to put his fork down until she got to the table!! He said everyone else is eating! I said yes, and everyone else should be waiting for Mary Anne to sit down!
Susan,
Gravy....gravy...repeating...gravy. G-R-A-V-Y! ;-)
Ann Hayden wishing for the 40 degree temps of last week in Wildwood, Missouri
Gravy or sauce, the more I get these comments in my email the hungrier I get! : )