[Sca-cooks] My Christmas dinner & LOOT

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Stefan li Rous:

>>Yes, it's a conundrum. If you either roast the vegetables in the same
>>pan as the beef, or cook the pudding in it (some older recipes
>>recommend this), gravy integrity can be compromised.

>Huh, why is the gravy integrity compromised? The vegetables or the 
>pudding soak up too much of the drippings?

Essentially, yes.

>  Or they do something to the drippings or something else?

In addition to sometimes soaking up all of the stock/flavorful/watery 
component of the drippings, they can also absorb excess fat and 
become somewhat greasy. They also can sometimes add sugars to the mix 
that caramelize easily, making the gravy bitter if you're not careful.

>Most of my gravy making still consists of opening a can or mixing up 
>a powdered mix.

That's a shame ;-). I've often thought gravy was a separate food 
group; essential for life (and I'm not even a Southerner).

To put things in perspective, I'll paraphrase a story from 
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's "Physiologie du Gout".

It seems Brillat-Savarin was travelling someplace or other (France or 
England; I forget which) with a small party of associates, and 
stopped at an inn which was packed full of clientele. They had almost 
run out of food. It seems a party of Englishmen at the next table had 
ordered the last leg of mutton to be roasted, and upon hearing 
Brillat-Savarin's group's dismay to discover there was no food left 
but a few eggs, they began to laugh heartily at this predicament. 
Savarin asked the harried innkeeper if his group could have the gravy 
in the dripping pan [thickening the gravy from a roast is basically a 
modern American thing; elsewhere and elsewhen it tends to be the 
skimmed drippings and/or the actual juice of the sliced roast, like 
the jus from prime rib]. The innkeeper said, "What-EV-ah!" More or 
less agreeing but not paying too close attention to what he was 
agreeing to. [In the original French text, I believe the term 
"Whot-EV-airrrre" is used, but remember this is in translation.]

Savarin approached the fireplace where the meat and drip pan were at 
work, and pointed to the back of the room, shouting, "Look! It's the 
Prince of Wales and Lady Caroline Lamb making the sign of the 
two-backed anaconda if you know what I mean and I think you do!"

[Sorry, I've been reading Joe Bob Briggs again.]

It seems that when everyone was looking around for this developing 
scandal, Brillat-Savarin proceeded to slash the leg of mutton to 
ribbons on the bone, causing it to lose mass quantities of gravy and, 
in the process, reducing the meat to dry inedibility.

Brillat-Savarin then took the very full drip pan and had a kitchen 
maid scramble the eggs with the gravy.

It is alleged that the meat was rather dry, but the eggs were excellent...

Let _that_ be a lesson to you, Stefan! I'm not sure what that lesson 
is, but you'll figure it out.

Adamantius