"Janet Wilder" > wrote in message
eb.com...
> On 9/6/2011 2:22 PM, Dimitri wrote:
>> I was watching Lidia the other day & I have a tendency to agree with her.
>>
>> If the meat in the sauce is served separately then it's gravy.
>> If the meat is an integral part of the sauce and is not separated out or
>> served separately then it's sauce.
>>
>> Thoughts
>>
>> Dimitri
>
> I think the term "gravy" for tomato-based sauce is something coined by
> Sicilian immigrants to the US. Having grown up with many
> Italian-Americans and having traveled in Italy, I have never heard the
> term "gravy" used by any group other than Sicilian-Americans.
>
> Maybe someone didn't know the term for tomato sauce in English and thought
> "gravy" suited well enough. Or maybe it was an English-speaker who
> couldn't understand the Italian cook and misused the term "gravy"
>
> Whatever the origin, it stuck.
>
> --
> Janet Wilder
> Way-the-heck-south Texas
> Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.


We are Northern Italian, and everything we put on pasta (other than pesto)
was "gravy". We never put red stuff on pasta, it was always meaty.
Marinara Sauce - never heard of it when we were kids. On the rare occasion
we went out, we went to Italian restaurant, only to complain how "tomato-y"
things were (vs. meaty stuff that had tomatoes in it, of course). I could
never figure out why we went to eat food we knew could never be as good as
home. We should have gone to a different type of cuisine.