Where did my infant go?

Rockin' the Gravy Boat

Southerners pride themselves on the process of making sausage gravy.  It is an art form that has been handed down through the ages and within my own family it is a staple my grandmother was taught by her mother, and Granny taught my father, who taught me. It is a protected and coveted process that requires patience and great attention. A person takes a great deal of pride in their gravy, and it can become a bit of a contest between family members as to who has the best. I can stand next to my dad, use the same kind of pan, same sausage, etc. and his always tastes better than mine. Always.

It tickles me to watch Food Network and see famous chefs make a "rue." Every time I hear one of them say the word I always whisper "gravy." I guess "gravy" is too "pedestrian" for them. But even the most classically trained chefs make gravy the same way I do, and even though there are instances of the occasional ingredient addition, I never worry that they have a technique better than what I know to be true.
But an episode of The Pioneer Woman has changed my view on this process, and quite possibly torn a hole in the fabric of this Southern woman's time space continuum.

I am a big fan of Ree Drummond but, sadly, I don't get to watch her show as much as I would like.  When I do manage to be home to see it I feel like a giddy teenager--food and cowboys, it doesn't get better than that! But last month I happened upon an episode in which she was making biscuits and gravy, and at first it didn't seem too unusual. The biscuits were in the oven and the sausage was browning away in the skillet... then it happened.  She didn't remove the sausage from the pan, but instead added the flour to the sausage and cooked it for a minute before adding the milk.

My world stopped. I even gasped.

Flash forward two weeks and I'm across the river in Sikeston, Missouri visiting my in-laws when a commercial for the Pioneer Woman comes on. My wonderful mother-in-law, Margaret, and I exchange a few words about how wonderful Ree is, when she adds, "But I saw her make gravy not long ago and I have never seen anyone do that before."

My world stopped again. And again, I gasped.

Margaret learned her gravy from her mother, who worked most of her life as a cook and died at the age of 92 the year my husband and I were married. Undoubtedly she learned the process from her mother. There is tradition in our gravies. Generations of voices reciting every step. Gravy is a legacy and the only inheritance our poor ancestors could leave for us. We can't merge corporations, enact laws, fly to the moon, but by golly we can make gravy just as it was made hundreds of years ago.

Last night I was debating about what to make for dinner. It had been a long day and the last thing I wanted to do was cook a big meal, so I decided it would be a breakfast-for-dinner night. I had sausage, I had flour, milk and butter, and I had a hankering for biscuits and sausage.

My sausage was happily browning away in the pan when I made the decision to do it like Ree did, just to see the difference.  I sprinkled the flour over the browned bits of goodness and instantly felt this act of rebellion was being watched by my kin folk from the great beyond. I asked for forgiveness as I stirred the contents of the pan.

Then it was time for the milk. My pan was a little hotter then I would normally have it, and once I hit it with the milk I achieved thickness within seconds.

I repeat, seconds.

Normally I would slowly stir and stir until the moment of consistency perfection came. It is a tedious process, and often involves second guessing on whether you got the flour to fat ratio correct, have the heat on too low, or just have stubborn gravy they doesn't want to thicken because it doesn't like the temperature of the room. But this gravy was done in seconds.

And lo, it was good.

I thought about calling my dad but instead called Margaret to let her know that I deviated from hundreds of years of tradition. It was a confession that unburdened my guilt, and she was lead to try it in the near future.

I now know what Eve must have felt as she handed the fruit to Adam...

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/03/drop-biscuits-and-sausage-gravy/