If somebody told me that biscuits and gravy would become my go-to comfort food, I’d have laughed in their face. When I moved to Durham from Australia a year ago, I had a hard enough time thinking of biscuits as savory (biscuits are cookies where I’m from), not to mention getting my head around the idea of gravy-soaked dough. For me, American biscuits are equivalent to the British scone, which we eat with jam and cream.
Though queso filled the void in my late-night snacking routine (one I didn’t know existed), in my frequent bouts of homesickness, nothing edible came to mind.
But a couple of months ago, I found myself unable to politely resist when my friend offered me a taste of what I had written off as an unappetizing beige breakfast—and everything changed.
It was the ham-and-cheddar biscuit with Neese’s sausage gravy at Durham’s Joe Van Gogh coffee shop. Only available on weekends, the creamy gravy with sausage chunks literally smothers the soft biscuit halves. Surprisingly, the dough, baked with tender bites of ham and cheese, never gets soggy, perfect for mopping up the last of the gravy.
It dawned on me that the gravy reminded me of home. As a child, I’d suffered terrible tonsillitis, right through to my early twenties until a doctor finally agreed to remove them. As my throat swelled and swallowing proved impossible, my mother prescribed an aspirin gargle chased with a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy, a tradition I continued when my two boys suffered the same affliction.
My father’s auntie used to make gravy by adding lard to porkchop pan juices, while my mother’s mother made gravy with drippings from our Sunday roast. But the real gravy clincher for me is my mother’s pies.
My mother passed away unexpectedly in October 2009. I had visited her three weeks earlier (at the time, we lived in different states, she in South Australia and me in Victoria) and she had made piping hot homemade savory pies for dinner: a classic beef one with brown gravy filling, and my favorite, chicken and vegetables with a white gravy (not unlike Alabama white sauce). Had I known that this was to be the last time I’d get to eat her pies, I might have enjoyed them more, perhaps less, but regardless, it was a taste of home. A taste of my childhood. A taste of my mother.
Recently, I started making my own gravy in my Southern kitchen, playing around with online recipes and ones that were gifted to me by fellow gravy connoisseurs. I ladle country-style sausage gravy over pork, bake savory beef pies simmered in gravy, make classic chicken gravy with the roasting juices, and plan to try my hand at redeye ham gravy. Yet my favorite way to eat gravy is poured over warm biscuits.
Having recently suffered a career setback, I found myself sitting at the counter at Joe Van Gogh with a plate of biscuits and gravy before me. Nursing a mild hangover, I sipped a black coffee before shoveling in a mouthful of comfort. I was pleasantly surprised that it had extra kick this time, thanks to the addition of hot sausage and hot sauce—just the extra boost I needed to get me through till next time.
