OT: Sauce or Gravy?

[RegisteredUconn]

Only place I ever heard "gravy" used was by some guys I worked with from Trenton. And they didn't simply call it "gravy" but "tomato gravy."

 

[Excalibur]

My grandfather used "sauce" and "gravy" interchangeably, but, as others have pointed out, only for the Sunday slow-cooked red sauce with tons of meat in it -- meatballs, sausage, pork, even lamb made its way into the pot. It's basically what you saw being cooked in prison in Goodfellas. And yes, there were too many onions in the sauce, mainly because it shouldn't have any f*$&ing onions at all . . .

I'll make a vat of it, feed 15 people, and then freeze the rest to use on weeknights when we don't have time to cook. It really is a 1-2 day process. A proper recipe is available upon request

Lastly, a ragu is not sauce, gravy, or anything close to it. Ragu refers to what most would call a Bolognese, which is a much more meat-heavy concoction using a beef-pork blend, generally cooked with wine, pancetta, shaved carrots, celery, onion, and just a bit of tomato puree. The Americanized version of this has waaay too much tomato in it.

Italian-Americans everywhere have disowned jleves for admitting to skimming the fat off of his sauce. Next he'll tell us that he doesn't brown the meatballs before putting them in the sauce.

 

[imno1]

If you ever had pappardelle and meatballs at Goodfellas you've probably heard of "Sunday gravy"

 

[Husky25]

My grandfather used "sauce" and "gravy" interchangeably, but, as others have pointed out, only for the Sunday slow-cooked red sauce with tons of meat in it -- meatballs, sausage, pork, even lamb made its way into the pot. It's basically what you saw being cooked in prison in Goodfellas.

And even they called it sauce.

"VINNY! Don't put too many onions in the sauce." - Big Pauly Cicero

 

[8893]

Ok, best Sunday Sauce in CT (I mean, other than that made and served at several of our houses, or at our grandparents' houses)?

Campania in Branford gets my vote. Their Macheroni alla Campania comes closest to "homemade" that I've had, and it has meatballs, sausage and braciole, all served over rigatoni.

 

[mauconnfan]

You want intelligent "gravy" discussions, well here ya go:

 

[huskymedic]

The other South Philly gravy: Crab

 

[David 76]

In our house, a mopine was not a dishtowel but smaller- some would call it a dishrag

But the colander was the scholla-pasta (Last "a" ignored). To other people it was a scholla-macharoni (same with the "i")
It was the thing for draining pasta or draining macaroni.

My Neapolitan family did not put onions in tomato sauce (Onions are for salads) I know lots of others do.

I like the puttanesca sauce at Lo Monaco's in Branford

 

[TXHuskyFan]

I have only heard it called Gravy once. I grew up in Milford. A good friend of mine through HS was half Italian (mother) and half Irish (father). Roughly 8th grade or so (so about 1983) I was eating dinner at his house and pasta was served. My friend looks at me and asks me to "please pass the gravy". I was like WTF, do you mean the spaghetti sauce?

I had never heard anyone call it gravy up to that day, and never have since. One of those crazy childhood memories that was brought back to like by a Boneyard thread.

 

[pnow15]

100% of my friends growing up were and are Italian, right down to the "made men" playing bacce in the driveway while we shot pool upstairs in the garage. Later I moved and lived in Westerly, RI, where the Italians still had prearranged marriages from the "old country." I dated a girl who was jilted by her boyfriend for this reason.
No Italian in my entire life has ever mention tomato sauce as gravy. Two of my Italian friends owned restaurants, one quite famous and the other made homemade tomato sauce fresh from his tomatoes from his garden and never used the word gravy.
Gravy to every Italian that I ever knew was a fringe benefit from another deal, like sleeping with a guy's sister who owed him money.

 

[Deepster]

I have a pretty amazing ragu/gravy recipe (whatever it would be called here) that was passed down from my Dad's Grandmother that I make about once a year that takes two days. Day one is lots of tomatoes and spices simmered with pork and beef meatballs, italian sausage, and beef and pork ribs. Day two is scraping a bunch of the fat off and resimmering the sauce and getting it hot enough to put on pasta - which was almost always ziti. I've given the recipe to @KembaSlice and @Deepster. Kemba told me he GF expected such great things all the time; Deepster never got around to making it or letting me know he made it.

If anyone wants the recipe, let me know.

Now I am infatuated with finding the best and most original recipe for pasta Genovese. I am going to make that. Thanks @B1GEast for that.

Oh, I made it. Everyone said it was the best sauce they've ever had and my Mom told me she ate the cold leftover sauce with a spoon out of the jar the next day. It's a labor of love though. Not a Rachel Ray 30 minute meal at all....but well worth the effort. Now I'm hungry...

 

[MexicoHusky]

I just saw a Ragu commercial on TV. I arrogantly thought to myself, Ragu is meat sauce. Thank You boneyard.