Gravy

Gravy is a sauce made from the juices of meats and vegetables that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with thickeners for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt (a mix of salt and caramel food colouring) or gravy browning (gravy salt dissolved in water) or bouillon cubes. Powders can be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Canned and instant gravies are also available. Gravy is commonly served with roasts, meatloaf, rice, noodles, fries (chips), mashed potatoes, or biscuits (North America, see biscuits and gravy).
One of the earliest recorded mentions of gravy is in a British recipe book entitled “The Forme of Cury”, dating from the 14th century. The term gravy originates from the Old French word for meat or fish bouillon, which in fourteenth century French manuscripts was “gravé” or “grané”. It is suggested that the French word grané is associated with grain, connecting grain’s usage in culinary terms as a sauce made from meat and served with meat.
Some think that the establishment of gravy as a British household staple came as a result of a long-running advertising campaign by the Oxo family, owners of the British food product brand OXO. The advertisements, which ran on British television from 1983 to 1999, featured a middle-class British family eating meals with Oxo gravy. Gravy is now an integral ingredient in the classic British Sunday roast.
The long history of British colonization and immigration in North America has influenced food production and consumption in Canada and the United States. In North America, gravy is considered a popular sauce to accompany traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations and food, such as turkey and potatoes.
In the Southern United States, gravy and biscuits are popular breakfast foods that originated in Southern Appalachia in the late 1800s. While the South has developed various types of gravy, most contain sausage, flour, butter, and milk, affordable ingredients for working class families.
Gravy is one of three ingredients in the famous French-Canadian dish poutine, made up of French fries, cheese curds, and a salty, light brown sauce combining beef and chicken stock. Poutine emerged in rural Québec in the 1950s and has become one of Canada’s most iconic meals.
In Italian American culture, gravy is sometimes used to refer to meat-based tomato sauce. Some believe that this originated from an Italian woman describing her sauce as “gravy” in a 1902 edition of the New York Daily Tribune.
The first instant gravy was developed by the British company Bisto in 1908, as a meat-flavoured powder that can be combined with water and served with meat. Instant gravy is now sold by various companies, including Heinz, Knorr, and McCormick.
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a Sunday roast is usually served with gravy. It is commonly eaten with beef, pork, chicken or lamb. It is also popular in different parts of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland to have gravy with just chips (mostly from a fish and chip shop or Chinese takeaway).
In British and Irish cuisine, as well as in the cuisines of Commonwealth countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the word gravy refers only to the meat-based sauce derived from meat juices, stock cubes or gravy granules. Use of the word "gravy" does not include other thickened sauces. One of the most popular forms is onion gravy, which is eaten with sausages, Yorkshire pudding and roast meat.
Throughout the United States, gravy is commonly eaten with Thanksgiving foods such as turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing. One Southern United States variation is sausage gravy eaten with American biscuits. Another Southern US dish that uses white gravy is chicken-fried steak. Rice and gravy is a staple of Cajun and Creole cuisine in the southern US state of Louisiana.
Gravy is a key ingredient in the Canadian dish poutine which is a combination of french fries, gravy and cheese curds. The dish emerged in Quebec and is associated with the province’s identity.
In some parts of Asia, particularly India, gravy is any thickened liquid part of a dish. For example, the liquid part of a thick curry may be referred to as gravy.
In the Mediterranean, Maghreb cuisine is dominated with gravy and bread-based dishes. Tajine and most Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) dishes are derivatives of oil, meat and vegetable gravies. The dish is usually served with a loaf of bread. The bread is then dipped into the gravy and then used to gather or scoop the meat and vegetables between the index, middle finger and thumb, and consumed.
In gastronomy of Menorca, it has been used since the English influence during the 17th century in typical Menorcan and Catalan dishes, as for example macarrons amb grevi (pasta).