Biscuits Sausage Gravy and Other Heart Healthy Food

Posted: February 16th, 2010 | Author: Dr. Bill | No Comments »

As many of you know, I worked as a cook many moons ago and I recently sat on a plane, next to a truly gracious southern gentleman, who also happened to be a chef. We had a rollicking discussion, about about what constituted “real southern” food, and settled on biscuits and sausage gravy, as one of the classics.

Another friend of mine, who also happens to be a chef, had this discussion with me today, over breakfast, at a place we both like. I was eating healthy and he was eating “the usual,” which is biscuits, sausage gravy, eggs over easy, hash browns, grits and a gigantic cinnamon roll. The funny thing thing is, even after my weight loss (now slightly over 50 lbs), he is still smaller than I am.

But what was funny was his story about making authentic sausage gravy. It’s funny, in a heart attack kind of way. When he was a kid in southern Alabama, he learned to make the real deal, from a very large black woman, who cooked at his family’s farm. He says that he learned more about cooking from her than in culinary school, or from other chefs, and still consults with her today, when he gets home. She’s in her 80′s, now.

Now, I have to admit that I have eaten biscuits and sausage gravy on occasion and I was actually fond of the dish. However, living in New York didn’t give me the opportunity to eat it very often, so I indulged, mainly whenever I traveled south.

My friend says he was 10 or 11 when he watched her make the make biscuits, for the first time and then, move on to the sausage gravy. Biscuits were made with lard and White Lilly flour, those two ingredients being key to true southern biscuits. Then, they were slathered with butter.

Sausage gravy started by rendering bacon fat, another staple of southern cuisine. Then, onions were added to the fat and cooked down. Then, sausage was added and browned and flour sprinkled over all that, to make a roux, to which cream was added, along with black pepper and hot sauce. His eyes lit up, describing the process and how it tasted. Especially over the biscuits.

He went on to tell about being out somewhere in southern Pennsylvania, with a friend, and seeing a sign that said biscuits and gravy. They braked hard and went into the place and ordered. The biscuits and gravy were almost exactly like what he ate as a kid. It turns out the cook was also Alabama, born and bred, and had been taught to make the sausage gravy, exactly like he had.

These days, very few people make the dish that way, which is why I don’t order it. Now, it may be that thousands of lives have been saved and fewer people have had heart attacks. But every few years, it wouldn’t hurt to eat it the way God intended, with bacon fat, onions, sausage, lard, cream and some eggs, to wash it down. And maybe a fried pork sandwich, to go.

I’m not positive, but I have information from a reliable source that you can get this breakfast plate in heaven.

If you can get there before Elvis.

The thing with losing weight is, nobody is perfect, or can follow a very rigid diet, for very long. So every now and then, you eat whatever you want and give yourself absolution, along with a couple of extra soft gels of my Powerhouse Omega Formula, to ease that stuff on down the road. Then you get back to your regular routine and life goes on.

It’s not what you do at one breakfast, or one lunch, or one dinner. It’s what you do most of the time that counts. If you eat well most of the time, exercise most of them time and take my Powerhouse Omega Formula.

…You can take a meal off, every now and then.

And tell the cook how good the real sausage gravy is.

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