Tomato Gravy Technically, tomato sauce cant be a gravy. Why? Because gravies (by traditional culinary definition) are meat-based: gravy A sauce made from meat juices, usually combined with a liquid such as chicken or beef broth, wine or milk and thickened with flour, cornstarch or some other thickening agent. A gravy may also be the simple juices left in the pan after meat, poultry or fish has been cooked. sauce n. In the most basic terms, a sauce is a thickened, flavored liquid designed to accompany food in order to enhance and bring out its flavor. ---Food Lovers Companion Q. Is there a difference between tomato sauces and tomato gravies? A. That is indeed an interesting question in semantics. But let it first be said that the word sauce has a lot more class than does the word gravy. Where hot, savory sauces are concerned--those that accompany meat or poultry, for example--the words are generally interchangeable. Gravies, for the most part, have been thickened, generally with flour. But that is not invariably true. I have known many first, second and third generation families of Italian origin who invariable referred to their tomato sauces as tomato gravies, although they were unthickened with any any form of starch. ---Q&A, New York Times, January 18, 1978 (p. C6) I recently offered the opinion that there was essentially no difference between the words sauce and gravy. I averred that term sauce had, to my ears at any rate, a much more sophisticated ring to it. Two readers who live in Manhattan had quite definate thoughts. One, Anne Mendleson, wrote: If I may amend your reply to the reader who wondered by her mother always spoke of tomato gravy, the reason undoubtedly lies in the existence of two Italian words for sauce.: sugo and salsa. Authorities on Italian food invariably say that the distinction is untranslatable, and in Italian-language cookbooks it is not always consistently maintained. But roughly speaking, sugo (from latin sucus) means juice, gravy, essence, and salsa corresponds to our word sauce. The family of salsa includes mayonnaise, roux-based preparations, salad dressings and other vinegar- or lemon-based sauces, and in general most of the sauces that might be used with meat dishes. Sughi are almost invariably served with pasta, and usually involved bringing out the essence or juice of their main ingredients through long or brief cooking. Sughi are intrinsic to the identity of the dish--in other words, they are not just mixtures of ingredients intended to gracer it. An Ada Bonis wonderful Il Talismano della Felicita, there is an entire chapter devoted to salse, but sughi are scracely even mentioned by name, being subsumed under the identities of such classic pasta dishes as spaghetti alla amatriciana and tagliatelle alla bolognese. Your correspondents Italian mother was unquestionably making a literal translation of sugo di pomodoro. And Joseph Duome stated: You replied to a listener that a sauce may be more sophisitcated sounding, etc. However, there is a diference to us of Italian origin who have had the ecstatic pleasure of smelling Mom or Grandmas gravy slowly simmering for yours on a Sunday morning. (You know, Sundays and Thursdays were traditional pasta days; not Wednesdays.) Gravy, as we learned was that sauce that had been highly elevated in taste by sauteing of the braciole, and subsequently, meatalls. (Some Italian families sometimes added sausages or pork chops for a slightly different tasting gravy.) Thus without meat we knew it as tomato sauce and with meats, gravy. yes, there is a difference despite the fancy marketing of the various brands of sauces, Some to my house sometime and take in the wondrous aroma of a real gravy! ---Sauces and Gravies: Theres a Difference, Craig Claiborne, New York Times, November 12, 1979 (p. D10 So why call it gravy? According to I Grandi Dizionari Sansoni (1979), the Italian word sugo has two definitions: (1) sauce (salsa) and (2) gravy (sauce with meat). Indeed, Italian-American cookbooks confirm meat-based tomato sauces are sometimes referred to as gravy. In Southern and Appalachian regions, milk-based tomato gravies sometimes accompanies biscuits. The earliest reference we find for tomato gravy, meaning meat sauce, in an American cookbook is this one from 1905. It contains ground beef. Note: the fact it is labled a Spanish recipe. This was a common moniker at that time for anything containing tomatoes. [1955] Food companies introduced the term to mainstream America: 15-Minute Meat Loaf...When Hunts home economist developed this recipe she said, Busy homemakers and career girls will appreciate this one! And you will! Because, besides being a quickie--just fifteen minutes cooking item--it is truly delicious with its savoury tomato gravy! ---Quick Stunts with Hunts Tomato Sauce, New York Times, May 22, 1955 (p. 265) [1962] Generals and colonels became mess sergeants--but only very temporarily--yesterday at Governors Island. They were particiapting in the first semi-public demonstration of new combat rations that are pre-cooked and dehydrated. The officers took turns adding either hot or cold water to produce such G.I. delicacies-of-the-future as chili con carne with apple sauce, beef loaf with tomato gravy, instant mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, hot tea, coffee and lumpy cocoa. ---New Dehydrated G.I. Rations Prove Satisfactory (to Officers), John C. Devlin, New York Times, November 9, 1962 (p. 37) [1971] I grew up in the Italian section of South Philadelphia, and there were set dishes in that neighborhood--four blocks in every direction families cooked the same things. On Monday there was soup, pasta on Tuesday, veal or beef on Wednesday, pasta on Thursday, fish on Friday, pot luck on Saturday and an elaborate feast on Sunday. Everybody made tomato gravy once a week. (Like what would seem to be a majority of first, second or third generation Italians in America, Mr. Paone speaks of tomato sauce as gravy.) ---When His Painting Goes Badly, He Turns to the Art of Cooking, Craig Claiborne, New York Times, March 18, 1971 (p. 34) [2002] There are many different opinons on what to call Italian red tomato sauce. When Italians make a meatless tomato sauce, we call it sauce or marinara sauce. When we make tomato sauce with pork, beef, sausage, and meatballs, or with any meat, we call it gravy. Our mothers and millions of other Italians called in gravy and it was probably because there was meat in it. ---Cooked to Perfection, Andrew Corella and Phyllis Petito Corella [iUniverse] 2002 ISBN 0-595-26122-1 (p. 23) [2004] Stories of Italian grandmothers simmering their tomato sauces for hours are familiar but probably untrue. Tomatoes that are cooked for too long lose their sweetness, and the resulting sauce tastes old and tired. Most likely those beloved none were actually cooking a ragu or sugo, that is, a meat sauce, which may or may not have included tomatoes. Meat sauces generally call for beef, veal, pork, or a combination...The term sugo is used for a sauce, a gravy, pan juices... ---Italian Slow and Savory: A Cookbook, Joyce Esersky Goldstein [Chronicle Books:San Francisco] 2004 (p. 48)
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:27:21 +0000
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