by Eve Odom
Gravy. Beautiful, velvet, mushroom colored gravy, made from the grease of fried pork, and if you don’t have that Crisco will work in a pinch, sprinkled with flour, salt and pepper, and browned to just the right moment. Milk is then added and cooked down to a luxurious viscosity, not too thick, not too thin, and simmered to glory. The spoon never stops moving until it’s done. This is the food of my childhood.
The word Gravy is derived from a 14th century Old French word Gravé or Grané.
When I was a child and my grandmother cooked breakfast in the mountains of North Carolina, she would call her grandkids and say, “Come up. I’m cooking a late breakfast.” A late breakfast I later learned was what others referred to as brunch. Biscuits and gravy was always the centerpiece of the meal, surrounded by bacon, sausage, eggs cooked to individual preference, and a biscuit with strawberry freezer jam that she made every summer and stored away.
“Over light.”
“Scrambled,” her little birds chirped.
The kitchen where the feast ascended upon us was not fancy. Brown and orange
linoleum covered floors, and laminate countertops provided the workstation. The cooking tools were primitive—a spoon, fork, and a spatula. The plates wore a brown flower pattern adorning the rim. It was the 80’s.
What I learned to call browning the flour, later, I learned is formally called making a Roux, which is a word derived from the French phrase Beurre Roux, meaning Browned Butter.
The biscuits she made were small, light, and airy, browned to the color of gold. The perfect complement to the gravy. Firm enough to stand up to the weight of the sauce with a soft interior.
To make the dough, a hole was formed in the middle of a bowl of flour. Milk and melted Crisco were added into the center, and with a turn of the wrist, mixed the flour into the center creating the dough. Then, rolled it out lightly and quickly so that it wasn’t overworked.
In the South, a dough cutter is individual to each person and occasionally passed down from one generation to the next. In our family we used a simple glass cup. Some people use metal biscuit cutters, and a friend of mine’s family used a perfectly round piece of an old Model T Ford. This step of cutting alters how high the biscuit rises because of compression of the dough edge. Some people bypass the step all together, simply dropping them with a spoon.
After cutting out the dough circles, the edges were hand patted and smoothed. Although cast iron skillets were widely used for baking at that time, because of my grandmother’s arthritis, she used lightweight cooking pans. When she demonstrated how to make biscuits, there were never any measuring cups or written instructions—she simply showed us how to move our hand. This is the food of my family.
The English word Biscuit comes from the French word Bescuit, but a more direct
translation to this type of biscuit would be Un Petit Pain Au Lait, which translates to a Soft Leavened Milk Bread.
As the world awakens to the flavor behind Southern food, I am often asked, “where do you get good biscuits and gravy?” An easy question on the surface that resulted in a lot of reflection after I initially responded, “I don’t order biscuits and gravy at restaurants. Sometimes I order it at Hardee’s.”
Later, I asked my sister, do you order biscuits and gravy at restaurants?
“No. I never order it out. Maybe at Hardee’s,” she said.
“Me too!”
I found it strange that we said the same thing, and felt there was more to it, so it stayed on my mind. I tend to lean into coincidences.
I started asking everyone. I asked a girl on a bachelorette trip who is from a small town next to where I grew up, “Do you eat biscuits and gravy at restaurants?”
“No. Just with my family.”
“Right! It’s a family meal.” I said, screaming over the noise of a busy Spanish restaurant in Nashville.
Another woman from my hometown chimed in and said, “But Hardee’s is pretty good.”
“I’m so glad you said that.”
I asked people at a poetry reading as I mingled amongst the crowd, “Did you grow up eating biscuits and gravy?” Some said no, others said they were overrated. My friend, Annie, said, “someone really has to love you to make you biscuits and gravy. But Hardee’s is pretty good too.”
“Right!”
Methodically, I queried people—how they ate it, how they make it, what they remember. I found myself talking about biscuits and gravy in random places, steamrolling conversations directly into breakfast saying, “it’s a straightforward meal- grease, flour, milk. Don’t make it complicated.”
Through it all, what I found is that biscuits and gravy is a culturally significant family meal. It’s a living piece of history and connection. Those biscuits my grandmother made were stamped with the signature of her hand and history. Some of the people I asked didn’t grow up eating biscuits and gravy, but they told me stories of a time when they ate it. They remembered it because it was special.
When I can, I share this family meal with my siblings. I eat biscuits that my brother makes and the gravy that my sister makes, and together they get very close to our grandmother’s recipe. And if anyone offers to make biscuits and gravy for me, I will eat it, ask questions, mentally log their process, and enjoy this piece of shared culture.
There is no compatible French translation for Biscuits and Gravy because it is culturally specific to the Southern United States. You can explain it as a leavened milk bread with a thick white sauce or a meat sauce. I would also add, don’t smother its simplicity. And if you’re ever in a bind, you can find a pretty good one at Hardee’s.
Eve Odom is a writer whose work can be found in various publications including the North Carolina Literary Review, Still: The Journal, storySouth, West Trade Review, and the Appalachian Women Speak Anthology.