The great debate
The great debate in Linden isn't about women bishops or the virgin birth or gay priests; it's about how you make gravy.
The evangelicals (including moi) swear by the Bible according to Mrs Beeton and by the methods passed down by generations of grannies. That means using the fat of the roast meat, a little flour and stock, preferably home-made. I have to confess to not being a purist and using a stock cube, and even a little gravy browning on occasion.
The post-modernists (including Chris) make their gravy ... from a packet. I can hardly bring myself to write such heresy.
Which side of the gravy-boat do you stand?
posted by Linden @ 10:20 AM
10 Comments:
I think I'm slightly to the left in a time where the left and right are increasingly closening (is that even a word). I guess we've all experienced that in modern times the gravy boat has become thinner. The home made stock purists often flirt with 'just add water' granules in their kitchen hour of need. It’s an interesting point that however strong our values and traditions if our gravy goes wrong our kitchen pride leads us to crumple and run for the ‘emergencies only’ instant gravy!
I’ll make no secret of the fact that I have a couple of tins of Tesco’s super quick and easy, just add water and bob’s your uncle gravy granules. I’m a fraud and a fake in the kitchen but I’m happy to live with that if just for smooth, thick and tasty gravy every time.
I think you might have timed your roast to perfection, Tim, when you say that, however strong our values, we can all have our weak moments.
Why only yesterday I was tempted to add Ribena to my gravy as I had no gravy browning and nothing else a closer colour.
On this occasion I resisted but you are wise to point out the folly of pride.
I think you'll find that the production of gravy fails to correlate with an inverted blade-center uptime matrix, thus neatly sidestepping one of the failsafe principles of quantum physics. Far from being an indicator or socio-economic elasticity it reverberates with the all too convincing Quasi- modoish Marxist-Leninist propostional heresy. Such folly begs belief and shows as much chance of becoming as obsolete as a futtock in a canoe!
Chris Matthews you are bang out of line. Any forward thinking post modern quantifier knows that gravy production falls directly in line with an inverted blade-center uptime matrix and thus under pins the raw foundations of quantum physics. While neo orthodox thinkers may tend toward the traditional methodology of stock production we are in fact seeing that it is the classical liberal stand point which are pushing the resergance in granule usage.
I feel your comments are misleading and it is indeed your thoughts that are as well placed as a futtock in a canoe!
I strongly suggest you stop and think before banding about your thoughtless folly!
While many are decrying the hedonistic, pick and mix philosophy of instant gratification endemic in the granulated methodology, there are many who feel uncomofortable with the rigid, outmoded, authoritarian approach characteristic of the traditionalists.
However, it seems to me that these antagonists share more in common than first meets the eye. Both are reliant upon the dominant identity constituting narrative that permeates our Sunday Roast Culture. These unlikely bedfellows share the a priori assumptions entrenched within the dominant story of the era of gravy.
As many sociologists and philosophers have astutely observed, we live in a time of great cultural transition. Many leading theorists are beginning to question the inherited wisdom and shake the foundation of our methodologies. Many are now beginning to question what lies beyond the Roast Dinner. What would a truly post-gravy mealtime look like?
I believe that we have before us a great oppurtunity. We have the chance to shape and mould the philisophical and cultural world that those coming after us will inhabit for many years. I fear that if we don't rise to the challenge, history will view our contributions as meaninglessly redundant.
Let us move forward, lest we be accused of debating the number of angles that can theoretically dance on the head of a pin.
What would a truly post-gravy mealtime look like?
Bread Sauce?
I can't bear to consider a post-gravy mealtime: will there be gravy in heaven?
Proper gravy?
Well Linden when you get to heaven you can make the gravy, I'll give up the instant stuff and you will supply me! How's that for heaven?
(well for me anyhow)
I make proper gravy at christmas, when it's sooooo good my husband reckons we could have it as a soup starter,and my kids say it's disgusting, and when we have beef, which is probably as frequent as Christmas!
I feel there is little to add that could be more apt than Kevin Gould's comments in The Guardian on June 25th 2005 in his review of Sam's Chop House, Manchester M2:
"The quart of soup was crowned with a giant cheddar-topped crouton that proved to be better than the oversweet onion gravy that it covered. As postmodern deconstructions go, the hotpot salad left me cold."
Aut disce aut discede.
Just to confirm the truth of Andy Hunter's comments - the meal was, indeed, a pleasure to eat.
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