Friday, January 05, 2007

Yesterday I went to Mayberry for my weekly errand
day. It was the first time I had had a regular day
in town since before all the holidays began. Nothing
of significance happened, but it was refreshing to
be waited on by familiar faces and smile rather
tiredly at each other. I appreciated small town life
all over again.

Well, actually, one interesting conversation did occur.
When I was at Fred's the lady in front of me had a can
of gravy. So, of course, the checkout lady, and the
woman checking out got into a conversation over it. I
joined in, who wouldn't?

Edie Sue (checkout lady): "I hear that is really good
gravy. I always make my own, but I hear that is good."

Customer: "Well, I thought I'd try it. There's nothing
like good gravy."

Me: (You must understand, at breakfast, where we were
eating biscuits and gravy, my FIL was telling about being
a child and having an uncle fix smoked ham and black
gravy for him.) "My FIL was telling me today about his
uncle who fixed smoked ham and black gravy for him when
he was a child. I've never heard of black gravy."

Customer: "Maybe he meant red gravy."

Customer behind me: "We called that red-eye gravy, it has
coffee in it."

Me: "Could be. I think I'll google it and see what I can
find."

Customer behind me: "My grandma used to make chocolate
gravy with biscuits. It was delicious."

**This conversation has been modified to fit my memory as
much as possible. If I have slandered anyone, please forgive
me.

PS--I can't find a black gravy recipe. Maybe it was red-
eye gravy. Doesn't that sound yummy with ham. I'll have
to give it a go.

2 comments:

Susannah said...

I add a splash of coffee to turkey gravy to darken the color. Not so sure the flavor is enhanced, and I don't know who invented it, but somehow I inherited this trick from my family.

In Canada, my father always fried "black" sausage with our eggs for breakfast on weekends. An English tradition, the Brits also call it "blood" pudding. (Literally, a blood sausage... and I think a "no no" Scripturally). I wonder if there's a connection to your black and red gravy. :~)

Laurie said...

Maybe e-mom. Coffee in the turkey gravy sounds good. I've always been curious about the tast of blood pudding. Did you like it?