Sauce here, NJ, also not the slightest bit Italian as far as I know. Friends with people on either side of this war from all over, so I'm curious how this wraps with your follows.
My Italian grandparents who lived in Schenectady NY always called it sauce, even the heavier Sunday sauces. I never heard gravy until I lived in the Philly area.
I don't use meat and call it sauce because of that but tend to still call it sauce when I do out of habbit. My family uses both names, we're east coast Italian Americans.
I'm not Italian but have been Italian adjacent for long enough that I've asked a few and formed my own opinion. For me a gravy is the kind you make on Sunday with the sausage, braccoile, meatballs etc while sauce is just sauce. It can include a meat a sauce but not the way a gravy does.
I make it with meat and it's still sauce. Or meat sauce to my vegetarian friends. Gravy is brown, for Christ's sake. Everyone's got to be special these days. Only one person gets to call it gravy and he's gone.
I have lived in Washington, California, North Dakota, Colorado, Texas, Missouri, Maine, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee and have never once heard anyone call spaghetti sauce gravy.
I would say that marinara is a sauce, but maybe half the time I would just use it as a standalone noun (e.g. "penne with marinara", as opposed to "penne with marinara sauce". Maybe 50/50 in terms of whether "sauce" is used or not. I'm from Illinois.
It’s absolutely called sauce. I grew up in a 100% Italian family in Pittsburgh PA and I never ever heard sauce referred to as gravy until I met people from NJ. And in Italy it is referred to as sauce not gravy.
i don't have a lot of spicy european in my family, it's mostly german, english, and hungarian, so it's only ever been sauce around them, but i've seen other families that do gravy and i always thought that sounded like a way more fun way of doing things, but i didn't feel like i came by it honestly.
Always called it sauce (parents from PA and Upstate NY, lived mostly in the Midwest). I'm sort of fascinated whenever I hear it called gravy; gravy to me is a hyper-specific thing, and that thing is meat or meat-echoing. What're we going to call gravy next, salsa?
“Sauce,” South Carolina BUT my parents are from Long Island. It took me longer than it should’ve to learn that gravy could be a synonym under certain circumstances. To me, “gravy” is brown.
My Italian mother in law from
Massachusetts called it sauce. My Italian father in law, also from Massachusetts, called it gravy. Me, I’m a Scot from Virginia, and I call it both. Or either.
Gravy goes on pasta but has no meat. Sauce has meat. Irish girl from NH, my best friend is Italian from Rhode Island and she taught me to make gravy in college.
They call it gravy in the Italian neighborhood of Nola, and there is a great restaurant in Inglewood known for its house-made pasta called, “Sunday Gravy”.
Gravy is *exclusively* meat drippings+flour+seasoning NOT tomato sauce with or without meat. I would be upset if someone offered me gravy for pasta. MO/KS.
More for you, I guess. For real though, I grew up eating beef stroganoff on noodles, which is essentially beef + beef gravy + sour cream, and gravy + gnocchi + cheese curds is basically poutine but also probably very similar any number of central or eastern European potato dumpling with gravy dish
I think roux + tomato it is part of French and related (Creole, Cajun) cuisines. But to a tradition Italian marinara... I can tell you, the Italians would try to have you tried for war crimes.
Lol, there is no good answer. In Jersey it’s probably gravy, in Florida I call it sauce. Also depends if it’s all tomato paste or fresh tomatoes with a little tomato.sauce.
It's not gravy if it doesn't have drippings. All my Italian friends and family from Philly to Boston call it sauce. I'm actually flabbergasted that calling it gravy is apparently a Northeast thing. Not in my neck of the woods.
Sauce. I am Scottish/Swedish with some lil hints of Dutch and Irish and English. No Italian, although I did take Italian for two years in university. I am from Canada. My man is from New Jersey so sometimes I call it gravy as a joke to tease him.
Sauce. Navy brat, so grew up on both coasts, Hawaii, and bases in Spain and Okinawa. Never heard anyone refer to it as Gravy. I will have to listen for it now.
I'm not Italian but hung out with bunch growing up. They called it gravy so I did non Italians called me crazy or inaccurate. That's tough for a kid. Chicago.
British Columbia, Canada - it's sauce here. In my book (cook book?) gravy has a thickener, like flour, which (again, in my book) a good marinara wouldn't need?
marinara is not a gravy, given it isnt primarily made of reduced meat drippings. anyone calling it such is taking the piss. native southern californian, living in phoenix for past 13 years.
Sauce if it’s just marinara, but when I do it on Sunday and pile the meat in, I’ll go gravy. Raised in Queens but spent every Sunday until I was a teen at my Italian grandparents in the Bronx where Grandma would spend the day making the gravy for more pasta that we could eat in a week. Good times.
Yeah. I’ve definitely eaten at a few places out here where they have gravy on the menu and I know without reading the description what’s coming my way when I order that.
Same. Long Island raised. Italian best friend so I was an unofficial son. Helped dad cooking Xmas eve. Two pots. One "gravy" loaded with meats for use on Xmas day(lasagna, bracciole etc). The other "sauce" for the seafood dishes of Xmas eve
Sauce as in pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce and pasta sauce. Gravy is made from roasted meat drippings thickened smooth w sifted flour stirred in a lil at a time. Salt.Pepper. lil water.
I hate the thought of strife in your family because of a question I asked earlier in the week. Do what you have to do to keep the peace. I don’t want that on my conscience.
Hey now. Some of us became Italian by proxy. Best friend of Italian from Cranston. She taught me to cook. Married an Italian from Brooklyn, somehow put in charge of Sunday dinner. I’m Irish, but my gravy isn’t.
WHICH I JUST FOUND OUT IS WRONG! 😂 I used to hear people pronouncing it correctly and think, “they’re not Italian. They don’t know.” All the time it was us speaking some weird dialect.
Hey, let’s not overdo it. It makes the zeal seem suspicious, like an ISIS sleeper cell in Paramus with three American flags flying outside their house. I was gonna have to boot you if you had thrown in a gabagool.
Sauce. Come on, we’ve been over this. And north Jersey. Although my mother’s side of the family had a gravy contingent that is no longer able to bother objections.
I can only comment on my own experience over the last 53 years, we are very strict about what is gravy and what isn't in the UK.
Gravy is brown meaty liquid we pour on chips and pies, it may contain onions, if you apply for the relevant permits, naturally, but only for sausage or liver & mash. 😬🤪
Comments
Long islander here but not Italian.
I heard it's a jersey thing to call it gravy.
Gravy is fat and flour based
War over lol
No gravies are marinara.
(I'm from Earth)
and I call it Protection
A jar is sauce.
Australia
And it's a sauce.
Rightsville, in Right county, Rightopia, on Planet Right.
Massachusetts called it sauce. My Italian father in law, also from Massachusetts, called it gravy. Me, I’m a Scot from Virginia, and I call it both. Or either.
SOME PEOPLE CALL IT GRAVY??? WHAT???
New York.
Still sauce 😇🌈🌴😎
Wild.
And I'm from Ohio
Gravy is a broth thickened with starch.
I'm from Michigan.
Gravy …
really the only tomato-based gravy I can think of would be for like Salisbury steak
I love gravy tho.
“Gravy” is a new one to me
Never heard anything Italian that goes with pasta called gravy here in England, it's always a sauce in my experience.
I do believe they have gravy dishes, but I've never had them yet.
Gravy is brown meaty liquid we pour on chips and pies, it may contain onions, if you apply for the relevant permits, naturally, but only for sausage or liver & mash. 😬🤪
Northern Norway. So 'pastasaus.'