Those that grow for sauce making in northern zones

[camochef]

Originally Posted by Mischka

In 2002, I made a huge batch of tomato sauce (gravy ) strictly from Lillian's Yellow Heirloom and Burracker's Favorite varieties... nobody would even taste in my family, never mind eat it over macaroni.

I ended up having to mix a jar of customary red with a jar of yellow each time I served it, which disguised the color sufficiently enough for their eyes and appetites.

Mischka,
I have also made sauce from Lillian's Yellow Heirloom tomatoes (8 qts) and other yellow tomatoes (7 qts) in 2008 season. Also found that some didn't like the color, so I simply added a little ancho chili powder. It turns a pot full of sauce red, almost instantly. No-one could tell it wasn't a traditional sauce.
Also, I grew up in north Jersey, right across the river from downtown NYC. Almost everyone called tomato sauce...gravy!
Here in south central Pa. most call it sauce, I don't care what you call it...it's good!
Camo

[Mischka]

Originally Posted by icelord

If you want to be accuarte about tomato names,also be accurate about what they produce, there are no meat juices in a tomato therefore it can not be called {GRAVY} It is SAUCE that is how people get misinformed about things using incorrect names or spellings,Mishka I would like the family to come to your place when you serve Gravy, HeHeHe Oh yeah, what size shoe do you wear? Lol

Icelord

Italian-Americans on the East Coast often refer to tomato sauce as gravy, "tomato gravy", or "Sunday gravy", especially sauces with a large quantity of meat simmered in them, similar to the Italian Neapolitan ragù.

As for my shoe size - click here

[RiverRat]

How interesting to hear all the different approaches to tomato sauce! It would never have occurred to me that there would be a different taste once cooked than when raw. The fact that I mix all of mine together probably contributes to my not noticing, though.

A couple of years ago a friend gave me some Big Mama tomato plants. They seemed to be good for sauce - large, meaty, very little juice and they also tasted good raw - but because they were hybrids I didn't want to grow them again.

[catwabbit]

RiverRat, I'll bet someone in your family knew someone in my family. MY Hungarian grandmother and her family lived on N. 5th Street in Philly, where my great-grandfather was a barber. How cool!

Camo, it's funny, when I was finishing nursing school about 6 years ago, I was considering places I'd like to live since I knew I didn't want to stay in Minnesota. I didn't want to move back to Philly, since my family is pretty much deceased; I really would have liked to live someplace with real history to it -- and Gettysburg was tops on the list. I've always been a real Civil War buff since researching family history, and my husband loves history too. Of course I ended up in Texas... dang, I keep wanting to go to the right and end up going left!

Now I need some real Italian sauce, simmered for hours with beef and pork roasts, or like my Irish grandma made with chunks of chicken breast.

[darwinslair]

Originally Posted by RiverRat

How interesting to hear all the different approaches to tomato sauce! It would never have occurred to me that there would be a different taste once cooked than when raw. The fact that I mix all of mine together probably contributes to my not noticing, though.

A couple of years ago a friend gave me some Big Mama tomato plants. They seemed to be good for sauce - large, meaty, very little juice and they also tasted good raw - but because they were hybrids I didn't want to grow them again.

If you have the room, and like them, de-hybridize them.

Plant out a bunch, see what you get. save seeds from the best of those, and over the next couple of years start selecting for the traits you liked in the original. You can end up with something pretty much like what you had, and maybe even better.

Tom

[disneynut1977]

A couple of years ago a friend gave me some Big Mama tomato plants. They seemed to be good for sauce - large, meaty, very little juice and they also tasted good raw - but because they were hybrids I didn't want to grow them again.

If you have the room, and like them, de-hybridize them.

I wanna say I have read that somebody has already started work on de-hybridizing Big Mama? Do a search and see what comes up if you really want to grow them again.

It is NEVER GRAVY it is sauce!! Being a Sicillian and having realatives in NewYork and sicily I am here to tell you that is how fights start. Hehe

Not that I'm Italian, not even 1% (I'm 75% german & 25% Dutch), but I have also read that tomato sauce is not gravy.......and the subject can become quite a heated debate. I think I recently read it on somebody's blog or such searching for good saucer's.

[darwinslair]

as far as the gravy debate goes:

I have quite a few Italian friends, and they have to different names for it too.

Red sauce, or Salsa. The Salsa tends to be a bit more watery I have noticed. Red sauce tends to be poured over the top(of the pasta), Salsa tends to be heated and mixed with pasta that is not quite done, then it finishes in the salsa, taking on much of the water from that.

Lynn Rosetto Kasper details salsa making in her book The Italian Country Table. In it, it is generally cooked in a cauldron outside, funneled into cleaned wine bottles, corked, cooked again in a large boiler, and then just stored on shelves in the home. They figure the need at least one wine sized bottle for every meal from harvest to harvest.

The only reference I have ever heard to it being called gravy, is a friend who calls the meal made from cooking beef or pork neck bones IN salsa until all of the connective tissue has broken down and the meat has fallen from the bones. He calls that gravy, but it is simply a modified salsa. About a gallon of salsa to 5# of bones, simmered for 12 hours in a covered pot. It is good stuff, and they call that gravy.

Tom

[darwinslair]

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Tomato-Gravy

this is a definition of tomato gravy, with a recipe, and it is nothing like red sauce or salsa

Tom

[RiverRat]

Originally Posted by catwabbit

RiverRat, I'll bet someone in your family knew someone in my family. MY Hungarian grandmother and her family lived on N. 5th Street in Philly, where my great-grandfather was a barber. How cool!

It was a lo-o-o-ong time ago, Catwabbit! They must have moved away from Philly in the 1950's. Their house isn't there anymore, of course. But I'll bet if the time periods coincided at all that they would have known each other. There was also a cousin who had a junk store; I remember her giving me a kewpie doll from her stock. That was in the same neighborhood. When we spent the night we could hear the streetcars passing as we dozed.

[camochef]

Originally Posted by catwabbit

RiverRat, I'll bet someone in your family knew someone in my family. MY Hungarian grandmother and her family lived on N. 5th Street in Philly, where my great-grandfather was a barber. How cool!

Camo, it's funny, when I was finishing nursing school about 6 years ago, I was considering places I'd like to live since I knew I didn't want to stay in Minnesota. I didn't want to move back to Philly, since my family is pretty much deceased; I really would have liked to live someplace with real history to it -- and Gettysburg was tops on the list. I've always been a real Civil War buff since researching family history, and my husband loves history too. Of course I ended up in Texas... dang, I keep wanting to go to the right and end up going left!

Now I need some real Italian sauce, simmered for hours with beef and pork roasts, or like my Irish grandma made with chunks of chicken breast.

We came to G-burg in 78, from Bergen County, N.J.; it was still fairly rural then. The past thirty years has seen some major changes, not all for the good either. I guess that's happening everywhere.
Gram lived on Uber St. between 19th and Ontario. The Reading RR tracks were right behind her yard. They moved to Jersey in the late 50's.
Had aunts and uncles in South Hampton, Foxchase, Germantown, and other residential areas in and around the city.
To add to the coincidences... the family names were Whitney, O'Hara and the like till my mom remarried and my step-dad was Hungarian! and we called it tomato sauce!
Gotta go put some sauce together for later today!
Camo

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by yotetrapper

Nothing a shotgun wont fix. Not sure about your area disney, but I do know NY offers deer damage permits if they're eating your garden!

Not quite true.

I have a herd of about 12-15 deer that hang out on my 30 acres. I cannot get a permit if they damage anything and no one else can either, meaning those who are just plain ole home growers.

However, several of my commercial farmer friends can and do get deer permits when the damage is reported and observed by DEC and they would like to keep it from happening again. And we have many large commercial orchards in NYS and those folks can also get deer permits.

But no, not we home growers who are not commercial. And it would make no difference if I were selling fruits from a small farmstand or delivering them to a local restaurant. And that's b'c my sole income is not from a full time commercial venture.

Side note:

River Rat, I wasn't brought up solely on a white plate of food, after all, I was brought up on a farm where we raised vegetables and fruits commercially so had them fresh as well as canned and frozen. But those white meals do give me memories.

All:, gravy does not equal tomato sauce in my mind, but then it's interesting to see the backgrounds of many you re ethnicity and what words you used or still use to describe that which one slathers on pasta of any kind.