The Hazards of Gravy-Making.

The English may only have two sauces, if the old saw is to be believed - but as one of them is gravy, and the other one is custard, and both of these are infinitely variable - no higher number is needed.

I understand that some of the hopeful ‘cookstove artists’ amongst you are afraid of gravy-making. Today we are blessed with an elegant sufficiency of instant everything and anything for the kitchen, including of course sauces, including gravy, in many forms – powder, cube, jar, or resealable plastic packet. Many of these will be purchased in the ensuing weeks to enhance or disguise the Thanksgiving roasts and Christmas puddings, so in view of my promise yesterday, I thought it might be fun to look back to a time when instant gravy was a novelty. Here are the enthusiastic words of a columnist in the New York Times of May 13, 1941.

Ready-to-Cook Gravy Latest Addition to Quick Aids for Harassed Housewife.

We are in a perpetual state of amazement these days over the endless parade of culinary short-cuts constantly coming into view. If things keep up at this rate much longer, filling the water glasses will be the most taxing part of preparing a full-course feast. Latest addition to the time-saving collection is a base that is said to eliminate the hazards of gravy-making – that Armageddon in which many a hopeful cookstove artist has gone down to a disgraceful defeat. The gravy base is the inspiration of a transplanted California couple who, in the little shop adjoining their Long Island home, have confined their previous experiments to herbs and new uses for them. Now, thanks to them, we can eliminate fussing with a pinch of salt, a tablespoon of flour, a dash of pepper – all these are right in the preparation. Included as well are a variety of herbs and spices that lend a full-bodied flavour to both soups and gravies. The sponsors of this newcomer declare that with very little effort you can produce at will a thin white sauce, a brown gravy, or a cream gravy. The cost of the preparation is 30 cents for a seven-ounce jar.

Gravy for Roast Meat.
Ingredients:- Gravy, salt.
Mode:- Put a common dish with a small quantity of salt in it under the meat, about a quarter of an hour before it is removed from the fire. When the dish is full take it away, baste the meat, and pour the gravy into the dish on which the joint is to be served.
Mrs. Beeton’s Dictionary of Everyday Cookery; Isabella Beeton, 1865

Quotation for the Day.

"....grease is not gravy. How often I have wished, from the depths of a loathing stomach, that certain well-meaning housekeepers - at whose boards I have sat as guest or boarder - who fry beefsteak in lard, and send ham to table swimming in fat; upon the surface of whose soups float spheroids of oil that encase the spoon with blubber, and coat the lips and tongue of the eater with flaky scales-that these dear souls who believe in 'old-fashioned cookery,' understood this simple law of digestive gravity!"
Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea, Marion Harland, (Mary Virginia Terhune) (1875)

Clubby Food.

Yesterday’s discovery of Cookery made Easy by the mysterious Michael Willis is too much fun to abandon after only one post, so today I give you a little more wonderful advice from its pages.

I would like to know more about Mr Willis but there seems to be a dearth of easily-discoverable information about him. There is a little more however on his place of work. The Thatched-House Tavern was no mere pub. It was in fact a rather posh gentleman’s club in the very posh area around St. James’s Palace in Pall Mall (home of the current royal princes). I understand that the Conservative Club is now on the site in St James’s Street. The Thatched House was already over a hundred years old (maybe a lot more) when Michael Willis became cook there sometime in the Regency era. It was a favourite venue for the male members of the literati and aristocracy of the time, so we can assume that Mr Willis was competent at the regular manly club food, especially broiled steaks.

Mr Willis included in his book some suggestions for bills of fare for each month of the year. For June (remembering that the ideas were intended for the northern hemisphere summer) he recommended for dinner:

Leg of grass-lamb boiled, with capers, carrots, and turnips; shoulder or neck of venison roasted, with rich gravy and claret sauce; marrow pudding.

Or, a haunch of venison roasted, with rich gravy and claret sauce; tarts.

Because it is always seasonal, in either hemisphere, I give you his basic recipe for beef gravy.


Beef Gravy.
Cut a piece of the neck into small pieces; strew some flour over it, and put them into a saucepan, with as much water as will cover them, an onion, a little all-spice, pepper, and salt. Cover close, and skim it; throw in some rasping, and let it stew till the gravy is rich and good; strain it off, and pour into the sauceboat.

Quotation for the Day.

It may not be possible to get rare roast beef but if you're willing to settle for well done, ask them to hold the sweetened library paste that passes for gravy.
Marian Burros.

Happy Birthday to Charles.

February 7

Today is the birthday of Charles Dickens (in 1812). This wonderful story-teller’s works are rich with images of food – not surprising for a man who had been a hungry boy forced to work in a boot-blacking factory at the age of twelve. Food quotations alone from his stories could give us fodder for this blog as long as I will be writing it, so my problem today was – which one to choose?

Gravy is under-represented in food writing, methinks. One day I might attempt the definitive book on gravy (and custard? England’s two main sauces, and who needs any more when they are done to perfection in one of their infinite varieties?)

Mrs. Todger, in Dicken’s Martin Chuzzlewitt, runs a boarding house. The job has taken its toll on her good looks, and she explains why:

“Presiding over an establishment like this makes sad havoc with the features… The gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one's age, I do assure you… The anxiety of that one item, my dears, keeps the mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen”.

Mrs. Todger was quite right to take gravy seriously. The preparation has a seriously long heritage, and the word an obscure etymology – two good reasons for reverence. The OED hazards a guess that the word derives from a mis-reading of the Old French word grané, meaning ‘grain’, meaning ‘anything used in cooking’ – which is as obscure and brave an explanation that one would wish. If grané refers to grain as in flour as in thickening for meat juices, then we have arrived at ‘English’ gravy, in which case it is a perfect explanation, for English gravy is a different dish from French ‘gravy’ which is merely ‘jus’.

There are recipes for gravy in the earliest English cookbook, the Form of Cury, written about 1390. It consists of the rabbit broth, thickened with ground almonds, not flour, and spiced with sugar and saffron.

Connynges in Grauey.
Take Connynges..and drawe hem with a gode broth with almandes blanched and brayed, do therinne suger and powdor gynger.

By the nineteenth century, when Charles Dickens was considering gravy, ‘when properly done’ it was an incredibly labour-intensive process. I blame progress and its accompanying serious dearth of servants for the decline of good gravy and the invention of boxed gravy powders.

Miss Eliza Acton devotes a complete chapter to Gravies, and I give you an extract from it, to show how serious gravy can really be:

GRAVIES are not often required either in great variety, or in abundant quantities, when only a moderate table is kept, and a clever cook will manage to supply, at a trifling cost, all that is generally needed for plain family dinners; while an unskilful or extravagant one will render them sources of unbounded expense. But however small the proportions in which they are made, their quality should be particularly attended to, and they should be well adapted in flavour to the dishes they are to accompany. For some, at high degree of savour is desirable; but for fricassees, and other preparations of delicate white meats, this should be avoided, and a soft, smooth sauce of refined flavour-Should be used in preference to any of more piquant relish.

To deepen the colour of gravies, the thick mushroom pressings of Chapter V., or a little soy (when its flavour is admissible), or cavice, or Harvey's sauce may be added to it; and for some dishes, a glass of claret, or of port wine.

Vermicelli, or rasped cocoa-nut, lightly, and very gently browned in a small quantity of butter, will both thicken and enrich them, if about an ounce of either to the pint of gravy be stewed gently in it from half an hour to an hour, and then strained out.

She decries gravy which is over-thickened and greasy:

“ … gravies, which should not, however, be too much thickened, particularly with the unwholesome mixture of flour and butter, so commonly used for the purpose. Arrow-root, or rice-flour, or common flour gradually browned in a slow oven, are much better suited to a delicate stomach. No particle of fat should ever be perceptible upon them when they are sent to table … ”

She gives a number of recipes, starting with:

A RICH ENGLISH BROWN GRAVY.
Brown lightly and carefully from four to six ounces of lean ham, thickly sliced and cut into large dice; lift these out, and put them into the pan in which the gravy is to be made; next, fry lightly also, a couple of pounds of neck of beef, dredged moderately with flour, and slightly with pepper; put this when it is done over the bam; and then brown gently, and add to them one not large common onion. Pour over these ingredients a quart of boiling water, or of weak but well-flavoured broth, bring the whole slowly to a boil, clear off the scum with great care, throw in a saltspoonful of salt, four cloves, a blade of mace, twenty corns of pepper, a bunch of savoury herbs, a carrot, and a few slices of celery: these last two may be fried or not, as is most convenient. Boil the gravy very softly until it is reduced to little more than a pint; strain, and set it by until the fat can be taken from it. Heat it anew, add more salt if needed, and a little mushroom catsup, cayenne-vinegar, or whatever flavouring it may require for the dish with which it is to be served: it will seldom need any thickening. A dozen small mushrooms prepared as for pickling, may be added to it at first with advantage. Half this quantity of gravy will be sufficient for a single tureen, and the economist can diminish a little the proportion of meat when it is thought too much.

At risk of drowning you in gravy recipes and wearying you of the gravy word, in order to briefly indicate the range of gravy offerings in the Dickensian era, I give you a small selection:

ORANGE GRAVY, FOR WILD FOWL.
Boil for about ten minutes, in half a pint of rich and highly-flavoured brown gravy, or espagnole, half the rind of an orange, pared as thin as possible, and a small strip of lemon-rind, with a bit of sugar the size of a hazel-nut. Strain it off, add to it a quarter pint of port or claret, the juice of half a lemon, and a tablespoonful of orange-juice; season it with cayenne, and serve it as hot as possible.
Gravy, ½ pint; ½ the rind of an orange; lemon-peel, 1 small strip; sugar, size of hazel-nut: 10 minutes. Juice of ½ a lemon: orange-juice, 1 tablespoonful; cayenne.
[Miss Acton, Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1845]

GRAVY TO MAKE MUTTON EAT LIKE VENISON.
Pick a very stale woodcock or snipe, cut it in pieces (but first take out the bag from the entrails), and simmer with as much unseasoned meat-gravy as you will want. Strain it, and serve in the dish ; but if the mutton be not long kept, it will not acquire the venison flavour.
[Murray's modern cookery book. Modern domestic cookery, by a lady 1851]

BROWN GRAVY FOR LENT.
Melt a piece of butter about the size of an egg, in a sauce-pan, shake in a little flour, and brown it by degrees, stir in half a pint of water, and half a pint of ale, or small beer which is not bitter, an onion, a piece of lemon-peel, two cloves, a blade of mace, some whole pepper, a spoonful of mushroom pickle, a spoonful of ketchup, and an anchovy; boil altogether a quarter of an hour, and strain it. It is an excellent sauce for various dishes.
[The practical cook, English and foreign, by J. Bregion and A. Miller, 1845]

On Dickens …

There have been previous stories in this blog on dinner with Dickens, the Dolly Varden Cake inspired by one of his characters, and also one on the menu book authored by his wife.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Pork Pie, without the Pork.

Quotation for the Day …

Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea. Charles Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge

Directions to Servants.

Today, October 17 ...

Old household manuals are full of advice on how to manage (and discipline) the domestic servants. Life “below stairs” must have been very unpleasant if the Mistress had a nasty streak, or the Master a wandering eye or hand. Even in households where the servants were well treated and well fed – although never as well as their employers, as we saw last week – the days must have been long and hard.

Humans have an amazing capacity for subversion however, and no doubt badly-treated servants found creative ways to retaliate. There is a sense of slight anxiety to be read behind much of the advice given to the mistress in those manuals, as if it was a given that they would be cheated or let down by their servants at any opportunity.

There were worse ways a disgruntled servant could retaliate than simply by stealing a bit of tea or not getting the laundry white enough – and the great satirist Jonathan Swift named them in his essay “Directions To Servants” in 1745.

"If you are bringing up a Joint of meat in a Dish, and it falls out of your Hand, before you get into the Dining Room, with the Meat on the Ground, and the Sauce spilled, take up the Meat gently, wipe it with the Lap of your Coat, then put it again into the Dish, and serve it up; and when your Lady misses the Sauce, tell her, it is to be sent up in a Plate by itself. When you carry up a Dish of meat, dip your fingers in the Sauce, or lick it with your Tongue, to try whether it be good, and fit for your Master's Table..."

To the cook, he said "...you are not to wash your Hands till you have gone to the Necessary-house*, and spitted your Meat, trussed your Pullets, pickt your Sallad, nor indeed till after you have sent up the second Course; for your Hands will be ten times fouled with the many Things you are forced to handle; but when your Work is over, one Washing will serve for all..."

* i.e the bathroom, restroom, W.C.,toilet, lavatory, dunny, loo …..

It sounds like saucy dishes were the subversive servant’s delight. Here is a recipe for gravy from Anne Battams’ The lady’s assistant in the oeconomy of the table: a collection of scarce and valuable receipts,... (1759).

To make gravy sauce.
Take a piece of lean beef, cut it small in thin slices and put as much water as will something more than cover it, with a little old black pepper, and a little onion or shallot, and let it stew till you think the gravy is all out of the beef, then put in a little salt; when it is cold, put in a quarter part claret, a little butter and a little flour, and shake it up for use.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Monsieur Buffet.

Quotation for the Day …

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage. Erma Bombeck.