There would seem to be a division between those of us who like their foods lovingly prepared to their fullest possibilities and left unadorned thereafter in order to properly savour them, and those who love condiments and plenty of 'em.

Nail yer colours to the mast, people.


Extra points for the best analysis of GRAVY with its mysterious category-defying properties.

HA! Avast ye, over there ye! Prepare to be boarded.

Actually, I like certain foods one way and certain another. Steak, maybe a rub, nothing else. Absolutely nothing with ketchup. Mayo sometimes, but as part of something else. I love mustard and horseradish and garlic. Pork with a good salt/garlic rub, maybe rosemary. I make a killer pan seared chicken, dipped in ranch dressing, then bread crumbs and dropped into the pan still dripping. Aw, that's so good.

Chicken Fried Steak with cream gravy! Biscuits with peppered cream gravy (NO SAUSAGE! FEED YOUR SAUSAGE SWILL TO THE DOGS! PERVERT!) Grits in butter. Green beans cooked till you can eat 'em with a straw, and enough fatback that you can light the fuckers.

Tea, straight. And I love fruit. I go to this place that makes fruit crepes, with bananas and strawberries and sometimes lingonberries or blackberries, smothered in a yogurt sauce. I eat that once a week.

Okay. I'm hungry now.

Cream Gravy scares me. What's in it?

I don't understand the concept of Grits either, but one thing at a time...

I don't understand grits myself. I'm told that it's a corn (maize) based product. It's popular in the American South.

The odd thing is, most food gains status and gourmet respectability as it gets further away from where it was grown or caught.

Fishermen who net shrimp feel that shrimp are "poor folk's food". Where I am, they cost more than steak.

This is true for many other things, but not for grits.

Maybe someone who likes them will explain. Maybe they just don't cook the stuff right around here.

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There is no sig.

quote:

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Originally posted by SRu:
I don't understand grits myself. I'm told that it's a corn (maize) based product. It's popular in the American South.

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I only like fried grits, personally. My wife makes a mean fried grit. You cook normal grits, then put them in a pie tin, about .5 inches thick. You let it cool and thicken for a long time. Melt some butter in a frying pan under VERY low heat. Cut the grit cake in half horizontally (thinning it), and add it to the pan. Let it fry up VERY slowly, cutting it into pie slices and turning it to avoid burning. Eat it hot, once the outsides are crispy but the inside is still moist. Very tasty indeed.

When eaten in their natural form, grits are only slightly better than Cream of Wheat. Which means they are only slightly better than eating uncooked socks.

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"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code, does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code." --Major Napier, Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE

quote:

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Originally posted by Sentinel400:
Cream Gravy scares me. What's in it?

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Some kind of dairy product (either cream or milk), usually some flour, and either drippings/grease from some kind of meat (preferably bacon), or some faux meat flavoring. And plenty of ground black pepper. Mmmmmm.

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"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code, does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code." --Major Napier, Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE

Pass the hammer, I'd like to nail my colours to the mat. I've a few nails left over, from the building of the computer desk from hell....

quote:

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Originally posted by Sentinel400:
Cream Gravy scares me. What's in it?

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Given its prominence on the menu of restaurants from one end of the US to the other, it's obviously a staple American favourite. (As any Canadian who's had to drive across the country can attest, the roads, the rest stops, and other amemities are ALWAYS better in the States. Therefore, if you're going from one end of Canada to the other, the best way to go is via the US superhighway system. Errrr, at least it used to be, before the loonie went to hell.)

As for what's in it, given the nature of the item in question, in regards to both taste and texture, one would have to assume a fairly diluted yet thoroughly-cooked form of library paste glue.

Either that, or it's some unspeakable body fluid issued from an unidentified animal's sinuses that we had best not contemplate too long, lest we grow weak of stomach in addition to faint of heart.

Vile? You want vile? I can show you vile. There's a reason baby animals with the albinism gene are killed in the wild; white gravy is an abomination of nature, a mutation that should never have survived, let alone flourished. I'm not one to use teenaged pejoratives, but it's gross, it's just gross, there's no other word for it, it's gross.

Other condiments, however, are a must: Shadoth, I slather my steak with not only barbecue or HP sauce at any opportunity if it's dry, I also top it with onions. The Keg particularly has a dish I love, where a sirloin steak is topped with sauce, and grilled green and red peppers and portobello mushrooms. Now THAT is a hunk of cow....

Ketchup is good on fries and hamburgers, but that's about it. Mustard is essential for sandwiches, Miracle Whip not very much so. Butter, however, I can (and do) live without. The bread pudding my mother made does NOT have butter of any form on it.Butter on a sandwich? That's an insult to a perfectly serviceable piece of bread! (I'm a breadlover after all, so that's no surprise.)

Who's with me? Anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Yelena

YV, I kind of hear you on the mucoidally disturbing nature of the white gravy thing, although it was the gravy with which I grew up (and I grew up not so very far from you, geographically speaking, culturally, may be another matter)...I do have some pretty fond gastrorecall of my Grandma making a kind of fricasee deal where she pan fried chicken, made the White Stuff with the drippings and lots of black pepper, and then cooked the chicken in the oven covered in the gravy...pardon me while my salivary glands cramp up here for a moment...but subsequently, I generally have lost my taste for it, I think.
Surely you are a Friesandgravy fan, which, obviously calls for The Brown Stuff rather than The White Stuff (Chuck Yeager, anyone?).
You want a good laugh?
Try explaining gravy to a Chinese person whose never seen it.
The reaction is hilarious..."But, but, it's just...fat and starch!!!"
Well, um, yeah.
But it's good fat and starch...
And absolute word on the butter thing.
After being away from North America for so long, on the rare occasions where I encounter real butter, man, it is some stinky-ass shit.

Case, mon, Garvey a tug...

quote:

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Originally posted by the chief:

Surely you are a Friesandgravy fan, which, obviously calls for The Brown Stuff rather than The White Stuff (Chuck Yeager, anyone?).

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Does that answer your question, Chief?

Yelena

I'm generally an "unadorned" kind of person, but...

You HAVE to have gravy with a roast. (See the wonderful Paul Kelly song "How to make gravy" - now there's a man who understands.)

If I'm doing a lamb roast, I'll sit the meat on top of some sprigs of rosemary. When it's done, you take it out of the pan and rest it. Take out the sprigs, put the pan on the stovetop and add some flour, cook the flour while stirring constantly then add a little water or red wine, maybe some balsamic vinegar or redcurrant jelly. Gravy! Calloo Callay!

That image is deeply disturbing.

So, no mint sauce, then, Gromit?

YV, I guess we'd best not even start on la poutine grosse, huh?

Case, mon, Garvey a tug...

Why anyone would like to spoil a perfectly good lamb roast with that stuff is beyond me!

(Er - that's a "no", ok?)

I looove condiments. It's a dilemma I face when I got to this Make Your Own (sandwiches) franchise. I basically have a sandwich that consists solely of condiments.

Chips with sweet chilli sauce and sour cream. mm.

call me crazy, but that NY Fries works just made my stomach growl.

Nachos with guacomole and sour cream.

cauliflower with creamy white cheese sauce and cracked peppers/ mustard seed. maybe a taste of blue-vein cheese in it too.

ok. hungry now. bastards.

sick of sigs

Bake me a grape.

quote:

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Originally posted by Shadoth:
Chicken Fried Steak with cream gravy! Biscuits with peppered cream gravy (NO SAUSAGE! FEED YOUR SAUSAGE SWILL TO THE DOGS! PERVERT!) Grits in butter. Green beans cooked till you can eat 'em with a straw, and enough fatback that you can light the fuckers.
Okay. I'm hungry now.

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*drool*
It's good to be from the south. I think chicken fried steak is on every menu no matter which restaurant you go to. I was in a sea food joint the other night and yup it was there. I had it, and despite the fishy smell it had, it was delish.


The whole world is wild at heart and weird on top

I'm pretty pro-unadorned as a general rule. I would certainly never put ketchup (or *shudder* brown sauce) on a bacon sandwich or any of that sort of madness. With steak though I like a bit of sauce. Clove of garlic fried in a knob of butter, chuck a shot of brandy in, bit of double cream and, if I'm in the mood, a dollop of Dijon mustard, then reduce for a couple of minutes and slather. Excellent.

Oh, and if I'm eating them on their own a light drizzle of vinegar on me chips.

See, I'm enough of a steak nerd to even scorn sirloin. Worst cut of meat on the slaughtered cow.

SG, yes it's good to be from the south. But note, I no longer live in the south. Sometimes I visit my parents for the express purpose of eating.

I like almost all of them.

My ideal roasted lamb: Take a suckling lamb, divide in quarters, place in the oven (200ºC) with a slight parsley and garlic mixture over it, painted with olive oil. 45 minutes later turn it over, wash the meat with its own juices to avoid it becoming to dry, and let some 20-30 minutes more. Feeds one. You can put half a Kg of potatoes under the lamb to absorb the juice, and then it feeds two. The lamb is worse but the potatoes are delicious.

The I also eat steak tartar only with raw egg and capers. You have to trust your ingredients provider, however.

On the other hand if I have the time I like to add a roquefort sauce (roquefort and cream, basically, nutmeg optional) to a steak. Or a green pepper one, but I seldom keep green pepper at home, so it usually is roquefort.

Fish is usually good on its own, but a good mayonnaisse for boiled, and a romesco sauce for grilled (almonds, red pepper, dried tomatoes, olive oil, rosemary, salt and garlic) fish and shellfish.

And where would raw fish be without wasabi?

And pasta is just a vehicle for a good sauce...

What am I going to do for dinner, after all this food? Chicken "fajitas". With lots of chile.

José