Maggie's Farm

My preference for a grits or biscuit smotherer is either red-eye or thick sausage gravy. Red-eye is an especial treat to be savored whenever found.

As for hot dog gravy: Sometimes you can't do no better and have to eat what you got. I have no soft spot for that All-American Treat, the hot dog. However, when the cupboard, the stomach and the wallet are all empty, a weenie can be some mighty fine dinin'. I am an epicure and extremely fond of gastronomic delight, but I must confess that hot dog gravy, though it sounds disgusting, can cover a cathead and be a savory treat. Not every day of course. Not even every year.

Some people call hot dog chili gravy, just as Paulie Walnuts called for gravy when he wanted tomato sauce. Guess it is where one is from.

Baloney (Bologna for some of youse guiz) also makes good gravy as necessity dictates. Fried up in a skillet baloney is good breakfast meat--or at least it was good when i was growing up. It's been a while though.

A lot of us MFer's parents grew up during the Great Depression and our mothers sometimes served up some poor folks food from the not so distant past. A lot of us were poor coming up and ate poor folks food. No shame in it.

Another kind of gravy that comes to mind is SOS but that may be more of a WWII thing.


Selah.

I met my father-in-law in 1990. He was teenager during the Great Depression, was blind in one eye and couldn't see out of the other and helped manufacture B-29s at the "bomber plant" in Marietta during the big one. After my mother-in-law (she was a sweet soul) died Paw ate supper with us most every night. When it was his turn to dictate dinner he would often call for some good ol' SOS. I ate my share. Armour canned dried beef--full of cancer causing sodium nitrate--delicious. My FIL lived to be 88 and only failed at the very end. He taught me so much.

My mother was a WAC in WWII and my dad was an armored infantryman. He rode a half-track and caught some shrapnel thrown buy a Panzer in France near Metz--million dollar wound. Both of them came up during the depression. Mama used to whip up some shingle from time to time.

My wife will get the craving for some chipped beef on toast and several times a year I am still served. I never complain about her cooking as it is the very best.

Fond memories.

I cannot vouch for U.S. Army or boarding school food as I neither served in the armed forces, nor was I a boarder. Thank goodness or God on both accounts.

I don't believe that I have ever ordered SOS in a restaurant. My experience with the stuff has only been at the home front, prepared by good ol' Southern girls that can really sling hash.

It is tasty and filling but I can see how a steady diet of it would turn one away from this simple delicacy.

SOS can be prepared with different meats (tuna comes to mind) and the shingle may be something as exotic as hashbrowns.

From the perspective of depression era cuisine, dried beef would be considered a step up from hamburger.

As an aside in re the PPPs: Ma would serve canned fruit as a treat. The sugary syrup was appealing to young taste buds. I still snag a can or two several times a year. Apricots and Queen Ann cherries are my favorites but peaches, pears, or Mandarin oranges will suffice. Fruit cocktail was not my first choice.

GWTW: Please don't get me started on biscuits. I purchased two when I was at the farmer's market this past Saturday from a dear old country gal. Fifty cents a piece; and she threw in an extra. She was practically giving them away. We split them Sunday morning, a cathead and a half apiece buttered up with a pat of Plugra and some blackberry jam. Yummy!

My wife makes great biscuits but she had no complaint when I brought these home.

Yes, sausage gravy is ugly. The original topic was disgusting hot dog gravy. It, too, looks unappetizing, previously swallowed and regurgitated. I don't hang with vegans much but when I do I order up some tasty animal products.

Other than bragging about my peculiar family and writing about food the best thing about this thread is that I learned a new word today!

"Any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments."


Where, oh where did I go wrong? I just wanted to alert the community of the commercial availability of frozen SOS; just in case they had never tried it.

respectfully,

red