# Breakfast gravy
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 1, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733 "2015-08-01T16:14:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/21 "2015-08-02T00:21:34Z")
And as a member of the breakfast police, I’m going to need your address. Because of reasons. And I’ll need to know what time breakfast is. For reasons. And can I have 2 biscuits? Maybe 3? Sounds wonderful!
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### Author:  [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/22 "2015-08-02T00:34:15Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Growing up in New England, the words “breakfast” and “gravy” were never used in the same sentence. To this day, I’ve never had it. Nothing against it, it just seems so odd.
Same here , I never heard of this growing up in New England , breakfast gravy is a new one to me.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/23 "2015-08-02T00:47:51Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> ETA: Also - fried chicken and waffles? Yeah, that works too :).
Have not taken part in that trend yet, but it sounds good. Or fried chicken and popovers might be even better. 🙂 Ain’t nothing like a good popover!!
The breakfast and gravy thing, I’m sure, is tasty, and I might even try it one of these days. It just cracks me up thinking about it.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/24 "2015-08-02T04:18:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quoth **Spud** :
>
> Coming from the people who eat the giant bugs that they find in the ocean.
As opposed to the river giant bugs?
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/25 "2015-08-02T04:23:43Z")
My father used to order gravy to put on his pancakes. My mother always looked at it in total disgust, so I figured that it _must_ be good stuff. I had good sausage gravy in a couple of places, but it seemed like most of it looked and tasted like Elmer’s glue that someone had whispered "‘sausage’ over just before serving. The only solution was to make my own and create a recipe that was a killer. To me, at least.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/26 "2015-08-02T04:26:20Z")
Good sausage gravy is basically a pepper delivery method. My recipe says “grind pepper till you’re sure you’re done,” then “grind for that long again,” and finally “grind ten more times”.
Good sausage is important, too.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/27 "2015-08-02T05:09:07Z")
Since fried chicken has been mentioned in a thread about country gravy, have you ever tried making the gravy out of fried chicken instead of sausage or bacon?
After frying chicken in a good cast iron skillet, drain most of the fat off and make a roux with flour and add cream or milk. Strip a couple pieces of chicken of skin and meat and add that back to the mix. If the skin is moist, fry it a bit more before making the roux. Pepper to taste. Stir and finish gravy.
This is the original southern style gravy. People, mostly poor people, would just make the gravy out of whatever grease and pan fried bits were left after cooking whichever meat they had for dinner. If they were cooking sausage, it was sausage country gravy. Bacon is just a bit too oily and there isn’t usually enough crackling bits left in the pan, unless you add the bacon ala **Johnny LA**. But the cheapest meat was usually chicken.
Fried chicken, homemade biscuits, with country gravy made from the chicken bits on top. The secret isn’t in the meat of the chicken, but in the crunchy, already seasoned, skin parts that fall off and are usually discarded. Try it once.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/28 "2015-08-02T05:22:41Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> I had good sausage gravy in a couple of places, but it seemed like most of it looked and tasted like Elmer’s glue that someone had whispered "‘sausage’ over just before serving.
Yep. Back when dinosaur roamed the Earth and I was attempting to make gravy without any instruction, that’s what it was like. Well, I was making gravy from the scrapings and grease from Shake’N’Bake pork chops. This was before I tried making breakfast gravy.
Eventually I learned the importance of making a roux instead of just using raw flour.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/29 "2015-08-02T05:23:45Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#):
>
> Fried chicken, homemade biscuits, with country gravy made from the chicken bits on top. The secret isn’t in the meat of the chicken, but in the crunchy, already seasoned, skin parts that fall off and are usually discarded. Try it once.
With lettuce, tomatoes, and sweet corn fresh out of the garden, and fresh-baked brown bread. Are you my grandma? She turns 102 in November but she’s still sharp as a tack. Must be all the chicken gravy.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/30 "2015-08-02T22:07:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Growing up in New England, the words “breakfast” and “gravy” were never used in the same sentence. To this day, I’ve never had it. Nothing against it, it just seems so odd.
Some of my best friends grew up in Dublin, and emigrated to the U.S. as adults. The first time they saw “biscuits and gravy” on a menu here, they were, of course, very confused: they pictured cookies\* covered with beef gravy. They had to order it, just to see if that was really what it was. 😃
-
- since “biscuit” is the Irish (and English) term for what we call “cookie”.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2015, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/31 "2015-08-02T22:29:04Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> They had to order it, just to see if that was really what it was. 😃
Did they like it?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/32 "2015-08-03T03:21:45Z")
For what it’s worth, to **John Mace** and any of my fellow Northerners who are still ignorant of this matter: The South does have some things that they genuinely should be proud of, including their cuisine, and especially including biscuits and gravy. I don’t know how it didn’t migrate north sooner, but now that it has, we should rejoice.
**kenobi 65** , did you remind them that they came from the land of Spotted Dick and Toad in the Hole? Or Steak and Kidney Pie, which actually is what it sounds like?
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/33 "2015-08-03T03:40:51Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> Did they like it?
He did; she didn’t. But, that’s pretty much standard for them, as he’s much more “into” fatty foods.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-gravy/726733/34 "2015-08-03T03:42:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> **kenobi 65** , did you remind them that they came from the land of Spotted Dick and Toad in the Hole? Or Steak and Kidney Pie, which actually is what it sounds like?
It wasn’t that they thought the name was odd per se; it was that they weren’t yet really used to the idea that “biscuit =/= cookie”, the entire concept of gravy made from sausage (or bacon) drippings hadn’t even occurred to them, and the combination of the two was just so incredibly alien. 🙂
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