The Kitchen
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‘Heritage’ recipes
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‘Heritage’ recipes
Has anyone else noticed some foods/recipes that you grew up with and thought everyone knew, are becoming rare now? My example is Tomato Gravy. I knew it to be a generally deep south type of food not commonly known, but I’ve met a lot of people lately it seems who have not heard of it at all, especially young people born and raised here, who are here in the deep south like I am. I’m almost 40, so not even that old yet! Here is a picture of the tomato gravy we had last night, on top of biscuits and meatloaf.
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35 Replies
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I never heard of tomato gravy. I will have to look into that as I am not curious.
~ Laura-
Your post says you are ‘not’ curious haha! I do typos all the time here without catching them. At least I hope you wouldn’t have commented if you weren’t curious.
It is delicious to me, though not everyone likes it. For instance, I made the meatloaf last night for it, because my husband does not like tomato gravy as used on biscuits with breakfast food, as it is more traditionally used in the south. But, he does like it on meatloaf which brings another layer to it he says. My husband is actually a chef, though I cook at home more often than he does.
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LOL…oh my, I am tired LOL I have been doing a lot on my husbands father’s estate, as he passed a few weeks past. My brain is not where it should be. Then again, sometimes it just happens. I noticed it in some of my video’s too…yikes…but I’m human and appreciate the gentle/kind manner in which you shared.
But YES I AM curious.
Sorry for my delay in response.
~ Laura -
I totally understand, no worries! My condolences to you on his passing, may he rest in peace, and I hope you are able to find peace, too. ❤
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Thank you ❤
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My husband loves tomato gravy. His mama and MamMaw made it.
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Food is life! I enjoy trying new things. 🙂
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Yes it is! And food is my life. I’ve been in the food service industry for many years. Experimenting with new ingredients is exhilarating to me!
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We love tomato gravy here in southern AL and eat it often. A different twist I use is to cook some ground sausage (could use ground beef if you don’t eat pork). Remove the sausage/ground beef and make a milk gravy with some of the grease from the sausage/ground beef. Add some diced tomatoes & I will sometimes add some of my crushed tomatoes for a more tomatoey gravy. If I want an extra RICH milk gravy I will add some heavy cream to it, if I have it. Add the drained sausage, and stir til well mixed. Serve open-face on biscuits THEN add fried eggs (of the person’s preference) on top. You have a complete meal that is super filling that we eat sometimes when we want BREAKFAST FOR SUPPER or on a cold winter morning before heading out to do chores. I call it Sausage Tomato Gravy.
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That sounds absolutely delicious! 🤤
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My crew prefers the Sausage Tomato Gravy now over just plain tomato gravy.
A few years ago we had some guys coming over to help us with building our cabin (raising the huge half logs for the ceiling that we couldn’t do by ourselves). They came over EARLY (at daybreak) so none of them had eaten breakfast. So I went to my makeshift OUTDOOR KITCHEN & made a big pan of biscuits & the Sausage Tomato Gravy. I cooked fried eggs over easy & another plate of medium over easy. I rang the dinner bell, which was my husband’s cue that BREAKFAST was ready. Those guys ate until there wasn’t even enough sausage gravy to sop another biscuit! LOL!! From then on, they were always eager to come over & help when we needed them but ONLY if I cooked that delicious Sausage Gravy & biscuits with eggs on top (as they referred to it)! I even had some of the wives calling me for the recipe as their husbands RAVED at how delicious it was and wanted THEM to learn how to make it! LOL!
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I make chocolate gravy quite often, leave the butter out and you have chocolate syrup. Its great on ice cream.
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I love tomato gravy. My son talked my daughter in law into trying it. She immediately begged me to teach her how to make it.
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Tomato gravy, Chocolate gravy, Tuna gravy……going to have to try these. They all sound good and I love trying new things. Especially reaching back to heritage recipes.
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Apologies for being so absent from the thread for a while, have had a lot going on, family-wise lately. I am loving everyone’s responses and recipes 😍🥰
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Tomato Gravy is a recipe to use your canned tomatoes generally, rather than fresh ones. I’ve never used green tomatoes for it, though something could be adapted I’m sure, with experimentation. There really is no hard recipe so to say, as I was taught to cook by my Granny who didn’t use recipes by a book. (She would always say, ‘cook to taste, use a recipe when you’re baking’ lol)
It starts with a basic ‘roux’ which is just fat and flour, like you would start any other ‘gravy’. Instead of adding broth or something, you add canned tomatoes, and then water to desired thickness while it cooks. I use salt and pepper and onion powder with mine. Maybe some pepper flakes for a slight ‘kick’ if you wish. For this one I did use my own canned whole tomatoes, and mashed them up while I cooked it, for a more even texture.
I’m learning to expand my pallet as I go along. My best friend is from Mexico, and she has shared with me some amazing food way outside of the TexMex box, which is what so many of us think is Mexican food. Barbacoa for instance, which is traditionally made with beef tongue and cheek, and shredded and put into a ‘taco’ with seasonings, has been my favorite so far. I will look up those dishes you said!
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When I was a child we had neighbors who’d move to Michigan from Alabama and they made us chocolate gravy on biscuits. Your mentioning of it here is the first time I’ve heard anyone who’d ever heard of it since then. 😂
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My husband’s mother is from Missouri, and she taught me how to make chocolate gravy! I had never heard of it before then either. I have never heard of Tuna gravy at all! I guess gravy can truly be made with just about anything!
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My mom used to make creamed tuna…basically the same but no peppers or onion and add a few sliced up hard boiled eggs and serve over toast. I can put away some of that. Hubby doesn’t like hot tuna so I don’t get to eat it anymore.
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I’m in southern-coastal AL and we make chocolate gravy. Haven’t made it as often as I once did when the grands were younger but it is a common gravy we make. The kids/grands LOVE it.
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This is the one I have always used. Not even sure WHERE I got it from but have had it for years. LOL!!
CHOCOLATE GRAVY RECIPE
Ingredients
¼ cup cocoa
3 TBSP all-purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups milk
1 tbsp butter softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
Biscuits
Instructions
In a medium mixing bowl mix the cocoa, flour, sugar and salt together.
Add the milk and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the texture is similar to gravy. About 7-10 minutes
Remove from the heat and add the butter and vanilla. Stir.
Spoon the chocolate gravy over warm biscuits Or pancakes for a different twist.
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Not quite as thick as pudding and when you put it over a warm biscuit, it sort of melts even more. My grands love it on pancakes, too.
Yeah, we southerners have our own way of cooking & those of us that grew up in the 50’s-60’s in rural areas didn’t always have ingredients needed to make something so we USED WHAT WE HAD and I guess sort of developed our own recipes that were then handed down to the younger generations. To be honest, there were SOME recipes I’m glad were actually FORGOTTEN, LOL! We even have our own “language” or words for different things…just a SOUTHERN THANG…LOL! Nowadays, it is supper for our evening meal. CIty folk call supper dinner. Lunch is lunch (Mid-day meal) here in the south now. Guess we kinda graduated a little in that respect!! 😄 Now if you want to add a bigger twist on deep south language, add the backwoods Redneck slang to it. That is a whole different ball game! But, different strokes for different folks and we can always spot a southern TRANSPLANT by the way they talk until they ADAPT to our usual way of communicating.
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LOVE Patara on Appalachia Homestead!! She has it down on our SLANGUAGE! Now y’all know & Bless Your Heart (we use those a lot), too.
As far as the word pecan. I call them puh-cons, some call them pee-cons, and some say pee-cans. Just depends on what part of the SOUTH you are from or live. I don’t like to use the word pee-can because it reminds me of something totally off this subject, lol. But to each his own. We use the word DIRT instead of SOIL. I could go on & on with the different words we use for things but in the end, it all means the same thing. We just have to put our brains into another mindset when talking to folks outside our areas.
I have to laugh at Danny on Deep South Homestead when he sometimes uses the word DIRT and quickly changes it to soiSOIL to try to keep the language barrier politically correct for everyone.
We also refer to GROUPS OF PEOPLE as “GUYS” and that includes both guys & gals in our mindsets. Heaven help us if the Politically Correct patrol latches on to that one! This bull crap happening now with changing words like MOTHER to Birthing Person, etc., is plain STOOPID and just further confuses the children coming up these days. But that is their plan…to keep everyone confused so we won’t know whether to poop or get off the pot!
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I tried to read it but my old eyes couldn’t squint enough to make it out. I tried one of my programs to try to enlarge it but to no avail. Do you have a PC where you could type it up on NOTEPAD and copy/paste it on here? I would REALLY like to try this since we love ANYTHING tuna and this would be a change from the normal tuna casserole.
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Sounds good! I have not tried it this way, I might have to soon!
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