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Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.
The loosely defined region we call Appalachia stretches from western New York to northeastern Louisiana, and even before Americans moved around as often as they do today, its residents were a diverse lot. The image of the region’s stereotypic hillbilly culture, the poor white folks who lived in the hills and hollers making moonshine and feuding with their neighbors, was largely created by crusading missionaries and outsider journalists looking to sell papers. While the stereotypes were mostly fake, the widespread poverty was real, and Appalachians had to be creative to put food on the table.
Growing what you could eat was a no-brainer, and produce from big gardens was put up to last through the lean months of winter. Almost every pantry had a few jars of homegrown tomatoes, canned during the heat of late summer and offering a little taste of that sunshine during the short, cold days ahead. When there wasn’t much else to eat or hard times meant fewer trips to the store, a family could make something tasty from those tomatoes, some bacon fat from the old can on the back of the stove and a little flour. That tomato gravy made a meal out of a couple of biscuits or a bowl of grits.
You don’t need more than some kind of fat, flour and a can of tomatoes to make the gravy. It’s the first two ingredients that make it gravy instead of a simple tomato sauce. Cooked together for a few minutes to form a simple roux, they thicken the juicy tomatoes. But if you’ve got an onion or maybe some garlic, go ahead and add them to the fat for even more flavor. While I like to eat tomato gravy on grits, you could spoon some over rice, beans, almost any kind of cooked meat, or even a slice of good bread.
Recipe
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons flour
1 15-ounce can crushed tomatoes*
½ teaspoon kosher-style sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
*Crushed tomatoes make a smooth gravy, but any canned tomatoes work; you can blitz them in a blender or food processor if desired.
Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat for a few minutes, then stir in the flour, salt and pepper. Cook the mixture for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes. Let it come to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for about 10 minutes or until it thickens.
Note: Besides onion or garlic, other optional ingredients might include garlic or onion powder, the smoked paprika called pimentón, or a slice or two of bacon cut into small pieces (cook it first and use the rendered fat instead of the olive oil).