Greasy Grimy Goo

(From the perspective of my 10 year old self)

Grandma McDonald is known for many wonderful things: painting, quilting, making dried weed arrangements, gardening like nobody I’ve ever seen. Creativity just flows from her.

Cooking, not so much.

Luckily, this Thanksgiving it’s our turn to have Grandma and Grandpa McDonald. I love that so much. Grandpa will play cribbage with me. No one else does. He lets me win, but only once in a while. Our kitchen is small and the dinner table sits smack dab in the middle of it. So, Grandma and mom are two-steppin’ around each other getting the final touches on the turkey and all the fixins. My favorite part of the meal is mashed potatoes and gravy. Well, honestly I love black olives but those are long gone. You gotta put 'em on your fingers before you eat them. That’s tradition. Besides, Mom's gravy is better than anybody else’s in the family. So you can just imagine how my heart drops when grandma volunteers to finish the gravy since mom is busy with the turkey. I look to mom to tell her “NO” but she doesn’t. She has her hands full. Usually dad carves up the bird, but he is busy getting the road cleared of the freshly fallen snow so our neighbors can join us for pie later in the day.

Well, how hard can it be to screw up gravy. Really, there's the broth and then you thicken it. Right! Apparently not. There’s a couple of steps needed before getting to that point. You gotta skim the grease off the top first. It’s okay to leave just a tiny bit. You can’t always get it all. Once the grease is removed, then you taste the broth for flavor. Most of the time it needs some doctoring up. A little salt and pepper. Maybe a pinch of sage, thyme, or some fool-proof poultry seasoning. Occasionally more broth is needed if the bird wasn’t very juicy. After all these elements have come together and the broth tastes like Thanksgiving, then is the time to thicken.

This is an art form in itself.

If you’re using cornstarch, add in small amounts of the cornstarch whisked with cold water, until the right consistency is achieved. Too much and you might as well get out a knife and slice your gelatinous goo onto your mashed taters. It still tastes delicious but the pleasure of heaping a ladle full of gravy to cascade over your hollowed out pile of potatoes is denied. Argh! (Insert Snagglepuss voice over) What’s the point even?!?

If you’re using flour, you must not overuse it or the gravy takes on the flavor of the flour. It is gross. Today Grandma used flour and water. I saw her whipping up cups of the stuff. In her defense there is a great deal of drippings. So she prepared well. She didn’t even need to add more broth to make enough for everyone. It was a huge, juicy bird.

Once you begin adding in the thickening, you must let the mixture bubble to cook out the flour taste. This requires some patience. Grandma is not real big in the patience department. She just kept adding more and more paste to get it to thicken without waiting to see if it would thicken with what she had already put in. After she added in all the thickener she’d made she said, “Doris, this isn’t working. What do you want me to do?”

“How much thickener did you add?”

“All of it.”

“Oh my. Give it a minute or two,” mom says with serious doubt in her voice.

After a few minutes the gravy does indeed start to thicken and then some.

“Doris, it’s too thick now.”

“Try adding in some milk to thin it out,” was mom’s best advice. Grandma did so and apparently it was working. Before long it was time to dish up and put it on the table.

We have a clear glass container for the gravy and as she set it down in front of me, I saw it sloshing back and forth and thought that all was going to be well. That was until my eyes worked their way up. An inch thick layer of grease lay at the top. There was never grease on top of mom’s gravy. This is not okay.

Everyone else finally sat down with all the favorites our family loves for Thanksgiving set in front of us: Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, dad’s oyster stuffing (he can have it), green bean casserole, homemade rolls with fresh butter, jello salad, pickles, olives, cranberry sauce. You know, the usual fare.

And then there was the grease topped gravy.

Dad dished up his mashed potatoes first and asked for the gravy. I passed it and watched his face. He didn’t balk, just stirred it up real good and poured it on his taters. It went around the table to grandma then grandpa who each took a serving. Ken passed on it (smart guy) but Richard didn’t. It got to mom with the majority of the grease still floating on top. She quietly stood up, went over to the sink, and spooned out most of the grease into the empty cranberry sauce tin. She sat back down and poured it onto her mashed potato pile. I thought this is great cause I was next in line. I made a mental note to thank mom for her bravery later. I heaped the now grease-less gravy onto my substantial pile of potatoes, then added the turkey and all the other fixins as they made their way round the table.

My first bite was, of course, the mashed potatoes and gravy. I got just the right amount of gravy per taters on my spoon and blew on it to make sure it wasn’t too hot. As I put it in my mouth the flavors hit my tongue. They were all wrong. It tasted like greasy flour. There wasn’t a hint of turkey flavor to be had. It was all I could do to get that spoonful down my throat. I looked around and saw everyone else who had taken the greasy grime adding salt and pepper to their pile to try and improve it. They automatically passed it because they knew I’d need it.

Even grandma had to doctor hers up. I noticed she only took a small amount. Mostly we all just pushed the mass around the plate, but were able to enjoy the rest of the feast. The pigs sure wouldn’t mind the potatoes and gravy later that evening.

“Doris, I think from here on out, you should be in charge of gravy.”

And every head around the table nodded vigorously in agreement.