OT: Sauce or Gravy? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: Sauce or Gravy?

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I only heard spaghetti sauce being referred to as gravy in the Sopranos.
 
My maternal Sicilian Grandmother, whose family settled in Brooklyn, called it gravy. My paternal Grandmother who was from Potenza called in sauce. Oddly my mother calls it sauce.
 
My mother is 3rd generation 100% Italian American. I also knew both sets of her great grandparents, who lived within walking distance of my grandparents in upstate New York. In nearly 39 years, I've never heard them refer to sauce as anything but sauce.

People who call it Gravy have seen The Sopranos and Jersey Shore one too many times.
 
Husky25 said:
My mother is 3rd generation 100% Italian American. I also knew both sets of her great grandparents, who lived within walking distance of my grandparents in upstate New York. In nearly 39 years, I've never heard them refer to sauce as anything but sauce.

People who call it Gravy have seen The Sopranos and Jersey Shore one too many times.
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I would agree, but the first time i heard Red Gravy predates both of those shows.
 
geohusky said:
My maternal Sicilian Grandmother, whose family settled in Brooklyn, called it gravy. My paternal Grandmother who was from Potenza called in sauce. Oddly my mother calls it sauce.
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Obviously your mom is not politically correct otherwise she would call it sauce on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and every other Sunday and gravy Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and every other Sunday.

I'm with @jleves. Name is unimportant outside of my interest in the historical derivations of the words. I'm purely into the taste factor. If I like it I don't care what it's called. If I dislike it than Fuhgettaboutit!!
 
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I'm 2nd generation 100% Italian- American. We always called it sauce but I have always noticed that people from NYC and NJ call it gravy. Funny thing is I have never heard anyone refer to alfredo gravy, marinara gravy or puttanesca gravy.
So they are wrong
 
TasteofUConn said:
I love it when some guy posts a thread entitled, "My Cat has Worms/Butt Bleeding - Need Vet Help"

And some second guy gets upset that no "OT" was used in the title.
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i think scout has a bleeding cat a** forum. So that topic clearly should not be on the basketball site.
 
I thought this was just a preference question until clicking through... I've never heard anyone call red sauce gravy.
 
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I'll second the notion that "gravy" seems to be limited to NYC/NJ.
 
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This is from Urban Dictionary:

Red Gravy
(n.) A mixture of red sauce, (Spaghetti, Marinara, etc.) and period blood. Found primarily in African American culture. Red Gravy is used to put a spell on a man which keeps him from leaving the woman who gave him the Red Gravy.
 
Seems like the Urban Dictionary thing could backfire. What if the woman grows tired of the dude. Then you have a stalker on your hands. Careful what you wish for ladies.
 
IMind said:
I had never heard gravy for red sauce until I moved to PA and weird Italian people from Jersey started saying it... as far as I know no one else calls it gravy.
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I grew up in an an Itlaian family in an Italian neighborhood in Ct.
and I never heard sauce referred to as gravy.
Actually sauce was meat or Plain.
But Ironically I didn't like tomato sauce as a kid.
Mom would put a mix of Butter and my Grandmothers homemade Cheese on my pasta.
I just paid 7 bucks for a tiny wedge of Peccorino Romano which would have been about a tenth of a cake of Nonni (Derby's ) homemade cheese which she gave us.
She also made Liquors ,along with wine.She might even distilled some Grappa. A cup of coffee at her house was very special. Two cups could result in a DUI.
As good a cook as she was she wasn't even in the same class as my mom.
My moms Pasta was homemade , and her Roasted Chicken was to die for
She could even make spinach delicious.

We have made great advances in my lifetime almost everywhere accept the Quality of Food I grew up Is almost impossible to replicate.
My two cousins in Italy came the closest to providing the quality of a normal meal at my house. But they went all out for my visit.
 
huskiesouth said:
Agree with the Alfredo sauce - but IMHO the clam pizza at Frank Pepe's is one of the great meals available in the USA.
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Oh, hell yes.
 
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I forget the 'used in a sentence' part of urban dictionary. Which is always the best part.

she a crack ho but I can't leave her. tha bi*** gayme da Red Gravy!
 
huskiesouth said:
Agree with the Alfredo sauce - but IMHO the clam pizza at Frank Pepe's is one of the great meals available in the USA.
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Whoa. Hold on there. Pizza is in a different thread.
 
huskiesouth said:
Agree with the Alfredo sauce - but IMHO the clam pizza at Frank Pepe's is one of the great meals available in the USA.
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Do you think the clam pizza holds up at the branches? I will be going to Fairfield Pepe's this week and want to try it.
 
My grandmother (whose father was born in southern Italy) grew up in Bridgeport in the 20s and was calling it gravy since way before I or the Sopranos existed. My dad will call it that occasionally, but usually just says "sauce".

Probably just a relic from a certain wave of Italian immigrants adopting an English word to describe their cooking.
 
My Nana is an 85 year old, 1st generation American citizen, and she is the only person I've ever met that calls it gravy.
 
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zymurg said:
The terminology is pretty common among Italian Americans in the Northeast. It was more common a generation ago, and it was particularly used for special Sunday preparations where the sauce/gravy cooked for half a day or more. It is of course a Southern Italian tomato based sauce.
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Yeah. "Sunday gravy"... I heard that a lot growing up in Stamford and later in Boston. That was red sauce with the kitchen sink - meatballs (using the beef/pork/veal mix), sausage, short ribs - cooked all Sunday morning. I don't find that pretentious at all. Opening a jar of Ragu and calling that "gravy", that would be pretentious.

And yeah, alfredo sauce doesn't do much for me. But a good carbonara sauce... yum.
 
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walker11 said:
Do you think the clam pizza holds up at the branches? I will be going to Fairfield Pepe's this week and want to try it.
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Was there last December, night of the Columbia game, all was great including the clam pie - if they clams have the night you are dining.
But watch out for the trick curbs on the exits - I drove over them as we were exiting to head for the Webster Arena, everyone gets jostled, my four-year old grandson pipes up to his Uncle Adam "This is why we need to put on our seatbelts when Grandpa is driving", everyone thinks this is funny - except me.

I wrote both of them out of my Will before halftime.:)
 
Nothing to do with pretension, it's simply tradition. Like @storrsroars said - it's not just tomato sauce, it's the meatballs, sausage, pork, braciole all simmering away for hours on Sunday morning - that's Sunday Gravy. The house smells amazing. It all transforms to something greater than the sum of its parts. And then when it's ready, it's all about eating together as a family. If calling it gravy isn't your tradition... So what? Call it whatever you want.
 
UConnDad said:
A good puttanesca sauce is the best. Over some nice fresh pasta, preferably pappardelle!
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Unfortunately a lot of restaurants in CT have a fuzzy grasp on what should be in a true puttanesca. Went to a new place in Cheshire that had a chicken puttanesca as a special. It was NOT anywhere near a puttanesca. You cannot just toss a few Kalamata olives into a pasta and say it's puttanesca. You need capers and for God's sake you need anchovies.
 
Love puttanesca sauce, love the back story.
 
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