Sausage gravy- was Re: [Sca-cooks] gravy

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>:
>  > I probably would have gotten a mouthful and gone nuts trying to figure
>>  out how to spit it out or even hurl my cookies without offending
>>  anybody. *shudder*
>
>That's pretty much how I felt when I tasted the sausage gravy made with
>plain sausage, using the sausage-fat roux/milk method-- all I could taste
>was fat. I guess it's all in what you are used to.

True. But... traditions in the land of a dish's origin are a pretty 
telling point. As a random example, it's just plain dumb to criticize 
a perfect margarita napolitano made by that 1000-year-old bakery in 
Naples for not being Pizzeria Uno deep-dish pizza. While I'm not as 
offended by Italian sausage gravy as some (even though it's not my 
preference), a little respect for the Ur-version is definitely in 
order. You sort of have to assume that there's some advantage to 
doing it that way, and that if it's not good, it's probably more a 
matter of execution than concept.

>Now, mind you, I don't recall anyone complaining about our version in the
>past-- the one person who brought it up only complained a year later, and
>of course the lady who cooked it with italian sausage under duress said it
>wasn't as good as the kind she made at home. *shrug*

We would complain about breakfast at an event like the standard 
Southern Region War Camp? To you??? Especially when breakfast is a 
fund-raiser not really included in the event fee? How insane do you 
think we are??? ;-)

I've heard people commenting on the Italian sausage aspect (I have 
been one of them), but it doesn't stop me eating the stuff. To me, 
it's just kind of like seeing a brown block of something in a food 
setting, expecting the flavor of chocolate and getting beef instead. 
It's not that it's not good. Just... not what you expected.

>I guess we're just crass, down here in the hinterlands. :)

This is actually quite a funny line, on several levels. Too crass for 
proper sausage gravy in the hinterlands, huh? Visions of that scene 
from whichever National Lampoon movie, where the guy is making 
burgers with Hamburger Helper-type TVP without any beef, are dancing 
through my head. Now _that's_ crass.

But Eisental has something of a rep for being set in its ways, I gather.

Adamantius