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“Gravy Confidential”
From “Good Eats” with Alton Brown
SCENE 1
4 Million Years BC - Thursday
GUEST: Caveman
In the beginning, cuisine is, well, experiment.
CAVEMAN: [caveman picks up some kind of plant from the water and tastes] Blah, bluh, blah.
[begins walking, spots a deer, picks up a rock]
As for sauce there is but one.
CM: [chunks the rock at the deer (it's fake) and it falls over] WAAAHHHH!
And it comes conveniently packaged inside whatever unfortunate beast happens onto the menu.
SCENE 2
Rome
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Page
Ancient Rome. Pungent sauces mask the flavor
and aroma of foods considerably past their
prime.
1
GUEST: Buffet Maximus
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SCENE 3
Map
GUEST: French Chef
Espagnole
Mornay
Velouete*
Newburg
Hollandaise Perigueux*
Bechamel* Beurre Blanc
Bernaise
Beurre Rouge
Soubise
Bordelaise
1533. Catherine DiMedici moves from Florence
to Paris taking along the newly invented fork and
a battalion of cooks who soon teach sauces to
French cooks who eventually dominate the world
with their labyrinthine system of sauces.
FRENCH CHEF: ... Espagnole, Hollandaise,
Béchamel, Bordelaise, Béarnaise ...
SCENE 4
Somewhere in England
GUEST: Englishman
Meanwhile, while in England, a Chinese fish sauce finds
a new home.
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2
ENGLISHMAN: Ummm. Crakin' good sauce. We'll call it ...
hmm ... ketchup. Whaa ha ha ha ha ha.
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SCENE 5
Downtown Plymouth - Noon
GUEST: Indian & Pilgrim
As for the colonies the first Thanksgiving turns ugly.
INDIAN: Tatanka.
PILGRIM: Lumpy.
Who can blame us for being a little
sauce leery? After all who hasn't suffered
at the hands of a broken Hollandaise or an
insipid marinara? Join us as we peer into
the inner workings of the sauce that
American cooks love to hate, gravy.
I: Tatanka.
P: Lumpy?
I: Lumpy?
P: Keep working on it.
Don't worry about recipes. The right pan, a stout whisk and some honest science
are going to set you free. So grab hold of your gravy boat, kids. This is going to be
some good eats.
I: Lumpy.
P: Tatanka.
SCENE 6
Pool filled with Plastic Easter Eggs
Page
matter.
3
Clouds, lava lamps, gravy, fingernail polish,
paint, library paste, mayonnaise: all members of
a group that science types like to call colloids.
Now a colloid is basically any liquid or gas that
has another substance dispersed throughout it in
particle form. Now believe it or not, most
successfully thickened sauces are indeed colloids.
Some, like say mayonnaise, are actually thickened
by tiny little globules of fat while others depend
on nothing more than pulverized vegetable
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But in the majority of sauces the role of
particle is played perfectly by starch granules.
And if there is any mystery to sauce making—and,
well, a lot of cooks would say there is—well then
starch is the prime suspect.
Starch Granules
SCENE 7
Kroger - 9:30 am
GUEST: Shirley O'Corriher [sic], Food Scientist
Now there are a lot of starches to choose
from: a dozen or so flours, there's corn starch,
potato starch, rice starch, instant starch. You
know, what I need is a good food scientist.
Flours
Corn Starch
Potato Starch
Rice Starch
Instant Starch
AB: You wouldn't happen to be a food scientist
would you?
SC: Certainly am.
AB: Well, would you help us to find a nice sauce
friendly starch?
SC: Yes. What you probably don't want are the root
starches. They're crystal-clear hot or cold, they
freeze beautifully, but they're clear. So, you're
going to have a clear sauce or gravy.
AB: Would you eat a see-through gravy?
SC: No. No.
SC: Yeah. And flour, plain old wheat starch, is fine. They make specialty starches
just for thickening sauce and gravy but you can just use the flour you've got on
your shelf. Pick the lowest protein flour you've got there and go with it.
AB: Low protein. How come?
SC: Because the protein in flour, see it's got starch and protein, the protein cooks
and floats to the top. You can skim it off if it's objectionable.
AB: Okay. So a soft, southern or all-purpose flour would be best?
SC: That would be ideal.
AB: Well thanks. Do you have a favorite sauce?
SC: My mamma's good old milk gravy with fried chicken is out of this world.
AB: She was a good mamma.
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4
Potato Starch
Arrow Root
Tapioca
Page
AB: Okay, so that rules out potato starch, arrow
root and tapioca. Now at most grocery stores that
leaves, what? Flour and corn starch, right?
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So, why do starches make great thickeners? Well,
when individual starch granules rub up next to hot
liquids they kind of burst releasing all these long
chains of glucose which is a basic sugar. Now if
there's enough of these, they tangle up and trap
passing liquids and thicken the sauce.
Now, since all-purpose flour is the kitchen
standard in this country that's what I'm going to use
today for sauces. But if you've got pastry or cake
flour use it.
Low protein flours like cake flour are referred to as "soft".
SCENE 8
The Kitchen
GUEST: Gravy Maker #1 and #2
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5
Okay, so theoretically at least gravy is really not much more than starch and a
hot liquid, right? Well, let's make some gravy then because we've got starch, allpurpose flour, and a hot liquid, boiling water. So, gravy, right? [whistles] Making
gravy. Going to be smooth and tasty. Going to be ... uh oh. That's not gravy. That's
lump city. Birthplace of the gravy blues.
Here's what happened. See, when that big old wad of flour hit the water the
outside bits gelatinized immediately forming an impenetrable but incredibly gooey
outer coat. So when we cut into it, you see that nothing but dry on the inside.
That's nasty. So what we need is a method to get the flour or whatever starch
we're using into the liquid but still keeping all of those little grains separate from
each other. And there's a few different ways of doing it.
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"Slurry"
Some gravy makers favor a slurry, a
combination of flour and a cold liquid, wine,
water or stock, that's shaken together then
whisked into the base liquid. Then the liquid is
brought just up to a simmer to thicken.
Now both these methods will indeed thicken a gravy but the problem is it will
take about an hour of constant simmering to cook the raw floury taste out of these
sauces. Now during that time the liquid that evaporates has to be replaced and
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6
Beurre Manié
Page
Others knead equal parts of softened butter
and flour together into a paste called a beurre
manié. This is then whisked into the base liquid
and stirred over low heat until thickened.
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even then these sauces just aren't stable.
AB: Ooo, bummer.
GM#1: [shakes head]
If, however, you were to take equal parts by
weight of fat and flour and cook them together
before introducing the liquid you'd have a roux
and that, excuse the expression, would be a good
thing. But first, as always, the right tools.
Flour + Fat = Roux
The English have 42 religions, but only 2 sauces. -Voltaire
SCENE 9
Bed, Bath & Beyond - 4:18 pm
GUEST: "W", Equipment Specialist
Page
W: Don't touch that!
AB: Hello, W.
W: What you need is a saucier [pron: saw-see-AY].
AB: A saucier. I'm all ears.
W: Our newest model: heavy gauge stainless steel with a layer of aluminum
sandwiched throughout.
AB:
Impressive.
W: Whisk
and spoon
friendly
profile, oven
safe handle.
Perfect for
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gravies,
emulsions
and reductions.
AB: Well, it's nice but I don't see what wrong with my old pan ...
7
If you buy smart there's no reason you can't live a long, happy kitchen life with a
limited culinary arsenal. The trick is to have expert advice. [looks inside of a pot]
For students who were absent for the DVD. Please write 10 facts about gravy from the transcript and attach this transcript when you hand it in.
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*The French spelling for these sauces are Velouté, Périgueux and Béchamel.
**"It was the 19th-century French chef Antonin Carême who evolved an intricate methodology by
which hundreds of sauces were classified under one of five "mother sauces." Those are: espagnole
(brown stock-based), velouté (light stock-based), béchamel (basic white sauce), hollandaise and
mayonnaise (emulsified sauces) and vinaigrette (oil-and-vinegar combinations)."
-www.FoodTV.com, Encyclopedia section, sauce.
Page
8
***"To make a truly righteous mac & cheese, you'll need a lot more cheese and you'll need extra
sharp cheddar to cut through all the starchiness. I usually wake mine up with some hot sauce as
well. And don't worry, that sauce can take just about all the cheese you can throw at it without
breaking."
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