[Sca-cooks] gravy

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach John Kemker:
>Sorry, Ranvaig, but that just ain't Red-Eye Gravy.
>
>Grew up in Houston.  Once a year, we'd go visit "Uncle Ray" and 
>"Aunt Sue" in Sulphur Springs, TX.  (They weren't really related, 
>but close friends of my parents.)  Ray and Sue lived on a dairy 
>farm.  One of the highlights of our visit was breakfast:  Sue would 
>make the most delicious Red-Eye Gravy.  It's made just the way it 
>was described to Stefan:  Fry bacon or ham-steaks and collect the 
>grease.  Pour a cup of black coffee into the grease.  Add black 
>pepper.  It's called Red-Eye because the coffee sits at the bottom 
>and the grease floats on top, making it look like an "eye" in the 
>bowl.  You stir it up before putting it on your biscuits or grits.

I think, as Ranvaig suggested, there are some regional differences at 
work here. Now bearing in mind that they don't do redeye gravy here 
(or for that matter much else besides brown/beef, chicken, mushroom, 
etc., generally), and my father used to joke with us as kids about 
fried chicken with polecat gravy, which he apparently thought was the 
funniest thing in the world, I seem to recall my first exposures to 
redeye gravy involved milk or cream, but _also_ coffee. I wonder if 
Ranvaig's recollection of a creamy gravy might have involved coffee 
to some extent, but between the ham drippings (which are generally 
more than simply grease, I would have thought) and the cream or milk, 
somewhat disguised. It does seem to me that not including coffee 
would be like making chili without chile peppers, which is something 
people also do, so it's a tough call.

I was actually surprised to learn of the coffee-only school of redeye 
gravy (from a book called "Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, And 
Scuppernong Wine"). That source mentions repeatedly the 'eye" effect 
without giving as clear an explanation as you did, though. It says to 
cook it briefly, until it "winks its eye" at you, or some such. Now 
that I know we're talking about a grease layer floating on top, I can 
deduce this means something like bringing it to a brief boil in the 
pan, and probably opening a hole in the fat layer, if only briefly. 
Like, say, the wink of an eye ;-)

But before Stefan gets all upset and asks why anyone would want 
coffee and grease on their food (does anyone want a little side bet 
on the remote possibility he _won't_ react this way?), I should say 
that in my humble (literally, as in uninformed) opinion, the idea is 
to do what European cooks would call deglazing the pan: to add the 
coffee right into the frying pan, from which you've removed much of 
the grease but left behind a sort of sticky film of solidified ham 
juices, and bring it to a boil, scraping occasionally to dislodge and 
dissolve those solids, which are a big part of the gravy's flavor. 
The gravy is thickened partly by the slight syrupy-ness of the ham 
juices, and probably partly by having a small amount of fat mix in or 
emulsify into the main liquid.

Adamantius