How to Cope With the Gravy Strain

Gravy, the quiet brown menace that arrives on the table in its own boat is, without question, the root cause of most Thanksgiving Day snits. Yet the subject has been ignored by the media, leaving the repercussions from this congealed concoction to echo in the offices of therapists, divorce lawyers and persons of the cloth.

And, as usual, what will surely develop into a nationwide problem within three to five years is already a crisis in California, the Golden State being on the cutting edge of all life and cuisine.

Frankly, gravy is completely at odds with the basic California life style. Maybe cooks still make gravy regularly in Cleveland, but the brown stuff has virtually disappeared from the repertoire of the California cook. Gravy is nostalgia, along with home-baked apple pie, baking powder biscuits and Spam.

We prefer to occupy ourselves with salmon over mesquite or chicken with artichokes. Perhaps an occasional mustard caper reduction sauce, but gravy? Not in a pig’s eye.

Would a true Californian really want to fuse hot grease, white flour and water, or stand at a stove upwards of 15 minutes, stirring, scraping and straining, and then consume the end product? Let’s face facts. It’s just not our way. We’ve evolved to a higher plane.

Midwestern Tilt

Now this works fine for most of the year . . . until the last Thursday in November. On that day, the entire state executes an about-face and assumes a Midwestern tilt that holds that serving a plate of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing devoid of a thick brown blanket of gravy is to violate a basic tenet of Western civilization.

Thus, all cooks, regardless of age, race or sexual preference, will be expected to produce gravy on Thanksgiving.

And not just mediocre stuff. No, the gravy standards in this country are high. It must be the correct color (brown); consistency (lump free); density (not too thick, not too thin) and flavor (superb). In fact the flavor must not suggest that any of the actual ingredients have been used in its preparation.

The problems here are obvious. First, the instructions for the preparation of gravy have disappeared from modern cookbooks. Gravy has been squeezed out by goat cheese and Greek meatballs. And few California households have a resident Grandma who can impart the secrets for making gravy. (Besides, Grandma is probably a vegetarian who runs a pottery studio and does Rolfing on the side).

Then there are the tricky, interpersonal problems. This complicated cooking maneuver, performed only once a year and right before a five-course meal, is rife with possibilities for the aforementioned hissy fits.

Not even having a firm grip on the process guarantees peace. My husband and I invariably “have words” because he claims I take “too long” making the gravy while the rest of the food gets cold.

Intensity of Brain Surgeon

That’s probably because I learned to make gravy from my stepmother who came to cooking late in life. She prepared it every Sunday with an intensity that suggested brain surgery because after each meal my father would “grade” her gravy. He always compared hers with the apex of his gravy experience--that which was served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Another couple we know prepares Thanksgiving dinner together with the same degree of culinary zeal and ecstasy--until the gravy. Then with wooden spoons raised, they engage in their annual fight that asks or, in this case screams, the question: Do you put the giblets into the gravy whole or do you chop them up?

They usually eat in stony silence until the pumpkin pie or after two glasses of wine, whichever comes first.

Another friend came close to filing for divorce after she had spent the entire day in the kitchen alone, cooking a complete turkey dinner for her husband’s relatives while he tinkered out in the garage.

After everyone was summoned to the table and the food brought in, my friend lifted the cover from the gravy boat. She was rewarded with a stunned silence.

Finally her husband blurted out, “Your gravy is gray!”

“How could I help it?” she complained to me later. “Where was I supposed to buy Kitchen Bouquet on Thanksgiving?”

Ready to Ditch It

She told me that this year she’s having a migraine on Thanksgiving. It was either that or a prolonged and expensive program of therapy.

Personally, I’m ready to ditch gravy. My arteries don’t need it and it’s not on my nutritional plan.

Furthermore, my kids won’t touch it. Not since one of them asked me, “What exactly is gravy anyway?” When I told him, he looked at me, appalled, and said, “You’re kidding.”

Then he narrowed his native Californian eyes and said, “Just who invented gravy anyway?”

“I can just see it--a bunch of guys sitting around saying, ‘Hey, let’s just suppose we mix fat with flour and water and see what happens. Ha-ha!’ ”

I think he has the proper intellectual grasp of the situation.

Let’s ask ourselves: Is gravy really a tradition worth saving?

I say it’s time we jump ship and abandon the gravy boat.

A little kumquat yogurt sauce, anyone?