Books'nSundries

     Self-Reliance, Plain Living
                    and Independence!

by Emil T. Miller

*Be sure to scroll down and check out the recipe for "Sawmill Gravy" and the story behind it farther on down.
...and take a peek at the picture at the bottom of this page too!

...These three go together like peas in a pod, and these are mine and my wife's basic philosophies of life. It wasn't always so - it took us some years to discover the merits of it. My Grandfather, "Papa" Miller, showed me the way early but I did not have eyes to see back then. And too, I was a young man in a hurry - places to go and things to do. You know the drill, a "mighty man of multitudes of magnetism" with "big ideas and moving fast". Well, we play the cards we are dealt at all points in life, but there has been times I doubt I was using the full deck. Anyway, here in our opinion is the best way through this life; living plain, living simple and unpretentious, living as close to God as is within us, living close to the soil as and when possible, and living frugally and without dependence on other people or services - OR on the "Guv'munt"... all to the fullest extent individually possible, ...and above all else... living DEBT FREE!

* "Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people." -- President Grover Cleveland (1887)

* "I place economy among the first and important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
--Thomas Jefferson

      None of this is to say however, that one should not expect to always go without those "toys" we especially desire. Indeed Jesus said, "I would that you have life, and have it more abundantly." Things other than warm clothes, enough food and a roof over should come in our view however, only when money is sufficiently in hand to pay for them and to the extent they do not lead us into nefarious lifestyles - all the rest going into the "rat hole" (or the bank), as you will. Put it on the cuff? Start making payments? No interest for how long you say? All bottomless pits into which Americans are digging themselves deeper and deeper. What would we say to our grandchildren and to young couples just starting out? Go in debt for a house maybe, but a modest one. Drive an older car and learn how to keep it up yourself, but first get a pickup truck of some sort. Handier than pockets on a shirt. A Redneck Cadillac don't you know.    Repair stuff, wear your clothes out, have a big garden and some chickens if you are where you can. Grow some tomatoes. Do stuff on the side to sweeten the pot - a handyman will always have plenty of beans and cornbread for the table, (still as good a meal as any), and if there is milk to crumble the cornbread into, you have a "desert" as well (Georgia Ice Cream)!
     Do as many such things as you can, it can be fun and rewarding. Be happy in doing them, and let the rest of the prissy old world pass right on by. No one else has ever even offered to butter my bread for me anyway, and they won't yours. Remember that God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it in the nest. Don't know how to do something? Just dive in and make a start because all things are easier than you think. This is our philosophy of life.    What care I what others think of me or the way I live? Zippadeedoodah! All these other things that we "want" will come, and after our "needs" have been met they will come in abundance, this I know for a pine blank fact. When a man can do for himself he will sail right through in the hardest of times and his skills will be much in demand. I have been up, down, and all around and have found that this is the surest way through life. And along the way, keep a little money and time available for others truly in need and who truly cannot help themselves. Give everyone you meet a smile. Be unpretentious, helpful, dependable and honest in your dealings with others and have a good word for and about them; otherwise have no word at all. Just be yourself and be patient! Steady as you go and take time to smell the roses along the way! Heck, you could even help old ladies across the street.
     I hope I can share some things I have learned the hard way about life and of practical, economical, self-sufficient ways of living, and if I never sell a book I hope this site will be an enjoyable, uplifting and beneficial place to visit for all of our family, grandchildren and others. Simplistically speaking, turn off the TV, get a computer with an internet connection, get all the news without slant or bias from the Fox News Channel website (http://www.foxnews.com), be closer together with your family, get acquainted with the Scriptures, associate with other like-minded folk, shun cigarettes, alcohol and drugs absolutely, and work hard with your whole strength at whatever you do; hey guys, such is the essence of happiness, contentment and fulfillment. One can live plain and economically even in town for instance, with a little forethought and planning. Want to get rid of that gas bill every month? The water, sewage, and garbage bills? Even the monthly bill for electricity?? There are ways to do it, you will find out how on this site, and be able to pocket the rest. He who laughs last laughs best!
   And here's something more. If you just must, go ahead and go for the brass rings that may have tangled your prospects all up. I did and I suppose all came out well enough, though sometimes I wonder. If it's burning deep inside of you and you can't put it out, you will always regret it if you don't follow your stars. But go after them as if the house was afire, with all that is in you.

* "The greatest mistake you can make in this life is to be continually fearing that you will make one." ...Elbert Hubbard

We have many wonderful Amish and Mennonite friends who live in this area of Tennessee and I have at times, lived closely with them. We had a wonderful farm about 45 miles from where we live now, but our son had Tachycardia, could not live very far from a hospital, and so could not even come to see us. After we sold it for this reason, medical science advanced to the point that an overnight operation corrected his life-threatened existence which had lasted 15 years and ruled his every thought and action. It is a long story, but had we not sold the farm and come to town to be near him our son would not have gotten this corrected or be in the fine shape all the way around that he enjoys today. It all happened for reasons we can all see clearly now, all was for the best and we praise God every day for all His watchcare and blessings.

                                      *   Jesus said in Luke 4:4:
   "It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God."

     The "Plain Folk" as they refer to themselves as, believe and actively integrate what Jesus taught into their daily lives. They have the most balanced view of life of any I have ever come across (even if I do think they sometimes depend a hair too much on their "traditions" for their spiritual well-being). They are honest, respectful, hard-working when it is called for, devout Christians and good neighbors to all - not just others of their own persuasion.   For instance, they refuse to have a television set in their homes because what is shown promotes vulgarity, immorality, vanity, and dependency on the material things of life (can anyone deny that?).   Believe me, these people live the healthiest, happiest, most fulfilled and debt free lives of any the world over, and I never saw a one who did not have as much or more hard cash "back in a sack" than the average person who works out at some town job (and who is more likely to be deep in debt). Most people think these people work hard and long hours, but overall, that just is not so. Even at the height of their two work seasons they take about a two hour nap after dinner (lunch to those up North) and quit in plenty of time to sit on the porch to watch the end of the day - truly a busy but leisurely, care-free and worry-free life.
     As I said, these folk "work" basically only during the planting and harvesting seasons (about 6 to 7 months of the year at most), and spend the rest of their time in virtual leisure, hunting, fishing, visiting their neighbors, going to church, and keeping up their school, repairing their equipment as needful, making their own furniture and this and other things to sell to us "worldly" folk. They are always busy at something, but I have never seen one worried or in a hurry! And don't worry about them. They have plenty of money for the things they need. One of these fine old men even thought enough of me (a "worldly" man at that) to offer me the loan of the full purchase price of a 250 acre farm I had my eye on which was adjacent to their community down on Cane Creek - and at NO INTEREST mind you (they don't believe in such as that), and I could take as long as I needed to repay it on no particular schedule! Indeed, most "worldly" folks who lived near about and knew him wouldn't have thought he had two cents to rub together. I did not accept his kind offer - had no need of it. I "practice what I preach", don't you know.
                                                                               ...©Emil T. Miller (Tony Miller)
                                                                                          (Click here for AUTHOR'S BIO)

* "...but in the end you have to decide for yourself. If it's free, it's advice; if you pay for it, it's counseling; and if you can use either one in your personal situation,
it's a miracle."
                                                                                               ...Tony Miller

            ► Click here to us know what you think of the above article:
                                 books-n-@books-n-sundries.com

                                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: For a very revealing article about our contemporary life in America today, click on this linked page: FEATURED ARTICLE for this edition.

I urge you to consider what I believe the very best newspaper in the country:

         TheWashingtonTimes-National Weekly Edition
                                     http://www.AmericasNewspaper.com

This excellent newspaper, published in Washington, D.C., is arguably the nation's foremost newspaper of record. Their National Weekly Edition costs little more than a dollar a week - only $59.95 for a full year. Coming in the mail once a week, it is a compendium of all the major World, National, and State news and articles which have appeared that week in their daily papers. The paper is editorially Conservative, but its articles are straightforward, without bias or slant and is non-selective. It gives ALL the news ALL the time, without agenda, and it keeps me up to date and completely informed. When I was introduced to this paper some years ago, I cancelled 5 magazine subscriptions as well as my local and Nashville newspapers because I received far more true and unbiased information in it than all the rest of the left-leaning, agenda-driven publications combined. Unaltered truth and facts are what I require, and I highly recommend this newspaper!
                                                                                                        ...ETM

* Jesus said in Luke 12:19-20:
"....And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him; Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?"

* "Failure is merely the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently."
...Henry Ford

We will be assembling some useful and practical articles and references on this page, for use in living good, self-sufficient, and independent lives. Bear with us. To start things off, here is a little anecdote of interest especially to our family but I think of interest to anyone. It comes out of our Miller/Pavliska Memorybook and Cookbook and I gave it there as an introduction to the recipe for "Sawmill Gravy" which follows it below. It gives a sense of satisfying self-sufficient living still eminently available today, as the lives of the Amish and Mennonites fully attest to:

                ~ SAWMILL GRAVY ~
                                          by Emil T. Miller (Tony)

A recipe of food and life from ELBERT and TINY (Bowman) MILLER ("Papa" and "Mama")
                                     - My Grandfather and Grandmother -

   This is A SHORT SKETCH OF MY MILLER GRANDPARENTS
                                   and EARLIER ANCESTORS:
                                     (Recipe follows)

     Our Miller family have been "millers" as far back as is known, time out of mind. This became our name back in the earliest of Biblical times, since we milled our own and others' grain as well, for a "toll" (ten percent based on the biblical "tithe", as far back as history is recorded), hence the name 'miller", one of the oldest names and occupations extant. All Millers were farmers as well of course, as ours were until my father’s generation in the mid-1900's. None in our family operate mills of any kind today (or farm) that I know of. Our Miller family history, by word passed down and partly verified, is that our ancestors came to this country from Ireland (Brocks) and Scotland (O'Millers) by sailing ship with the surname "O’Miller" (meaning "of" Miller). It is not known yet, exactly when the first of each one arrived, but our son Max has traced back to Charles Miller living in Glasgow, Scotland in the late 1700's. So far I myself have gone back to George Walton O'Miller (my Great Great Grandfather), who was born about 1827 in Georgia, as shown in the Census records of Haralson County. These records show a son of his of the same name living with him in 1852 in the same county (my Great Grandfather). Yet another Miller of the same original family it was told, (just who is not known exactly) came over to this country later, sometime just before or just after the War for Southern Independence (aka the "Civil" War), and being a frugal man, he came over on a sailing ship since it was the most economical passage (steamships were coming in vogue at the time, but passage was more expensive). It was anachronistic then, that this ancestor brought his steam mill engine over on a sailing ship. I myself when a teenager, saw a boiler (for this engine?) half buried in a bank and rusting away at my grandfather’s farm. The O’Millers settled in and around Tallapoosa, Georgia and one of George Walton Miller the Younger’s sons, Elbert, was my grandfather. Somewhere along the way in the early 1800's or before, the "O" was dropped from our name.
     My Grandfather Elbert (Papa), was also a miller in the true sense, and was born in 1873. Before my father was born (his son Emil - pronounced the German way "Amil"), Papa farmed near Tallapoosa as a young man, later moving to town. While living there, he owned and operated a livery stable (which later became the State of Georgia's very first Ford dealership before Papa sold it), and then he operated a café there for some time. He had a radio when few believed in those confounded contraptions, and he saw (and heard) the Great Depression coming and acted. He sold and cashed out in town, bought a farm over in Carroll County and moved his family into an old pioneer log cabin built many years earlier by Cherokee Indians. My father Emil Fernoy Miller had been born in Tallapoosa, just prior to this move, as had his older brothers G.B., Herschel, and Stanley as well as his sisters Ruth and Nettie. Siblings Ray, Lucille, Atha and Irene would come later.
     Papa established and operated a gristmill at his farm, along with a syrup mill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop and auto garage, in addition to breaking new ground and farming his 102 1/2 acres; land which had been previously owned by Indians. All these were still his activities during the time I was growing up, I myself being born in a little cabin on this very farm, built from lumber sawn at Papa's sawmill nearby. A religious and devout man of good and wide reputation, Papa died in 1957 of an apparent heart attack while plowing his mule in his "bottoms" (level, fertile land next to a creek). Grandmother (Mama) died six months later.

SAWMILL GRAVY:

     Few people make this gravy any more. Oh, more make it for their families than you might think, but not many nowadays. And it has been a long time since I’ve seen or even heard of it being served for guests. It is probably considered too old fashioned by those who still know of it at all, yet there was a time when eateries in the south and west, from small café’s to the fanciest restaurants, made and served it daily. Please allow me this space to give some background for it along with some Miller family anecdotes too valuable to my family I feel, to allow to pass into oblivion. For the sake of our progeny I will talk a lot about one of the simplest of things you can fix.
     Sawmill Gravy is the taste of old times for sure, but some would say it is the taste of hard times first and foremost. The depression years was its’ heyday. What would you fix if all you had was enough flour for six or eight biscuits and a little pork grease leavings from the last fatback, bacon or ham you had? Or if you had just biscuits, a tad of lard still left in the can, and a little hot coffee left in the pot?? Or maybe a little of all of those. There were several variations depending on what was on hand. But old times and/or hard times, Sawmill Gravy was just plain GOOD and much appreciated by common hard working folks, black and white, and by the rich as well at one time.
     Sawmill Gravy was a favorite of my Grandfather and Grandmother Elbert and Tiny (Bowman) Miller. Everyone, their sons and daughters (our mothers and fathers) and all us cousins, all called them "Mama" and "Papa." Mama fixed it most every morning for breakfast (in addition to "thick' or "brown" gravy), even though I never knew of or heard of them ever having less than a big plenty to eat, all of their own growing, raising, and preserving. After all, this and living a Godly life was the focus of all their lifes’ effort. It was what they worked at from sunup ‘til sundown six days a week their whole lives, their only diversion being to hitch up the wagon early and go to church on Sunday, resting the rest of the day. Unlike most of the Amish and Mennonites then and now, Papa did actually work hard and long at it, but still never seemed to hurry. That is why I suppose that for years after they died, kinfolk were still finding his caches of money buried about the place (he never trusted banks after they failed during the Depression).
     Enough to eat, warm clothes, and a dry place to live they could call their own. They maintained that no one is promised more than this, they themselves truly coveted no more, and if more came they felt extraordinarily blessed. Papa and Mama never depended on anyone else for any part of their living and take it from me I knew them well. They would most certainly have starved before accepting "charity", as they put it (it’s called Welfare Dole nowadays by those whose tax dollars pay it and "Public Assistance" by the Tax Collectors, the Tax and Spend Party, and those leaches on the receiving end).
     Some back then, even in the family, looked down on Papa and Mama and their "old-timey" ways. But I can clearly see now, these many years later, that everything they did brought them satisfaction, fulfillment, peace, and contentment. Can self denial, hard work and sacrifice bring these things? You better well bet they can. In fact, I believe they are prerequisite and necessary. Without such, how are ease and plenty ever to be appreciated?
     Remembering that this was in the 40's and early 50's as I grew up, and most people, even country people, had a car of some kind, Papa and Mama Miller were thought a little strange by some. Yet they were never in debt as most others were. Papa had a good car, but it gathered dust in his garage/shop and he rarely used it - except like for the time he broke his arm when a T-Model engine backfired when he was cranking it to run his gristmill. It was a compound fracture and he drove himself to town to have the bones set. Electricity? They would have none of that either. The REA brought a line right up to their house in 1930. Papa said, "Thankee, much obliged," and there it remained, right up there on the pole where it had been left, when 27 years later Papa died. Papa Miller died at the age of 86, apparently as I said, of a heart attack while plowing his mule, and Mama died six months later.
     Let me digress here even more and give you, our own children and grandchildren and any others who might read this, a bigger snapshot of perhaps some of my fondest memories growing up. Of summers and weekends there on the farm. Especially in wintertime, and especially at breakfast at Mamas’ and Papas’ (gettin’ closer to the gravy all the time). Even though they had a dining room with a large, long, 'store boughten' table and chairs, a Serving Table, a China Cabinet, Buffet and a Pantry given them by their grown children, they used this only for Sunday dinner. Breakfast and all other meals were in the kitchen, which was a big room that had a fireplace with a mantle on which sat Papas’ straight razor, his shaving lather cup, a box of matches and a kerosene lamp. Above, in a frame of blue painted wood, hung a mirror, no telling how old (the glass had wavy lines), and above that hung an old double-barreled 12 gage shotgun (the one I shot my first rabbit with) on two pegs. It was so worn that it had to be held closed just to shoot it, and it always flew open when shot. On the left side of the fireplace hung Papa's razor strop and on the right end of the hearth was the churn. A big blue and white enameled wood cookstove with a large oven, a warming oven, and a hot water tank was catty-cornered on one end of the room, the woodbox on the left side of it. There was a walk-in Pantry, a Pie Safe, and by the stove was a long, wide shelf about hip high with a large dishwashing pan on it, and dishes were kept on a sturdy shelf above that, some on the top of the warming oven. Next to the dishpan on the same shelf sat the water bucket with a dipper, and beside that a small wash basin with a bar of the lye soap which Mama had made. A towel hung above it on a nail in the wall.
     The kitchen table and chairs were handmade by Papa, with chair seats woven by him from strips cut from willow saplings. The table was long enough to seat Papa on one end, Mama on the other, 8 or 9 adults in straight chairs on one side and from 12 to 14 children on the handmade bench on the other side. Me and my brother and our cousins sat on the same "banch" that our fathers had as boys themselves. Daddy had ten brothers and sisters, so maybe you can imagine how at times meals were served in shifts on these weekends, grownups eating first, children last, and woe be unto you if as a child you spoke at table without first being spoken to. The saying, "take an old cold tater an' wait" was not strange in those days.
     Mama was the first one up in the morning, way before first light, and in short order on winter mornings she had a fire going in the kitchen fireplace as well as in the wood cookstove. At first light all in the household were expected at table (they seemed to converge all at once) for a huge breakfast, all hand prepared by Mama from scratch and no tin cans ever opened. No one was ever late that I remember. Had they been, they would never have heard the last of it (nor would they have been fed).
     Papa and Mama were kindly, but solemn. They brooked no laziness and did so not by word, but by their example. And Papa never had to say a thing a second time. He was the respected Patriarch of the family in the truest sense, in that by an honest upstanding life, using strict judgment according to the Bible, never shirking responsibility or hard work, he was always accorded great respect by all he came in contact with, especially his family, and he was known and respected far and wide in that part of Georgia. Even when us cousins (their grandchildren) were there on weekends and summers, we all knew what was expected of us and we had our chores to do before we could romp and play all over the fields, creeks and woods. Then when we sat down to eat, we all felt good about ourselves knowing we had done our part in the common effort, and that we had a place to come back to if the world caved in on us (which we did on one occasion).
     Such were our Saturday and Sunday mornings. The evening before, I had filled Mamas’ wood box with stove wood from the shed next to the smokehouse. Other cousins had split the blocked slabs from the sawmill into stovewood, taken out the ashes from the cookstove and fireplaces, another had drawn a bucket of water for the wash stand and another two or three bucketfulls drawn and poured into the wooden box on the edge of the well casing which then ran through a pipe about 40 yards down into the water trough in the barnyard coral for the mules and cow. Yet another cousin gathered eggs, and there were such chores as feeding and watering the chickens, taking and bringing the milk cow to and from pasture, cleaning manure from the stalls in the barn, throwing hay down from the loft, slopping the hogs, splitting firewood from the blocked wood from the rejected logs from the sawmill, weeding the garden, and for the bigger boys there was plenty of work in the fields, since Saturday on the farm was little different than weekdays. Papa always did the milking on weekends as during the week. We grandchildren vied with each other as to who could do the best job at their chores because we wanted Papa and Mama to be proud of us. The menfolk (our fathers) usually went squirrel hunting late Saturday afternoons when Papa indicated it was okay to quit work early, and this always meant squirrel dumplings or rabbit stew - and all of it we could eat!
    Many years before, they had moved out of their log cabin into a house papa built of sawn lumber from his sawmill. The house was large and two-storied (actually 1 1/2 as I think about it) and if I remember correctly, no part of it inside or out ever received a drop of paint until the last year or two when one of my uncles finally painted it on the outside. The girl cousins were not exempt from chores either. They filled the kerosene lamps, trimmed the wicks and washed the globes, swept the house with mama’s broomsage broom made for her by Papa, helped Mama build fires under the wash-pots on wash days, gathered vegetables from the garden, helped her with the canning by snapping beans, pealing apples, potatoes, etc, and went berry picking. Papa himself always selected and brought in the meat from the smokehouse as well as the sorghum syrup he kept there also (he pronounced it 'surp'), which he had made and packed away the fall before.
     In writing this story and recipe I think of Papa because I took particular notice a time or two when as a gentle reminder he said, "We haven’t got Sawmill Gravy on the stove, Tiny." On the few times when Mama either did not fix this gravy, had forgotten it, or had not had time to fix it, Papa never failed to gently remind her that he would soon be ready for it. Breakfast was a ritual for him, he ate a huge one, and at a certain point after he had finished his main meal he fork-split two or three biscuits in half, spooned the thin red/black Sawmill Gravy over them, then cut and ate them with a fork. He followed that with the same amount of biscuits split the same way but this time he spooned over the brown gravy, "thick gravy" as they called it. Papa ate a big breakfast because it lasted him all day - until suppertime.
     As to the rest, some things were changed or added, but there was always Sawmill Gravy and certain other things Mama always fixed for breakfast. In the center of the table along with two or three kerosene lamps, there was a huge platter of great big biscuits (replenished often from the oven), and another huge platter mounded up with thick sliced salt cured ham, rashers of bacon, patties of sausage, and crisp fried salt pork. Yet another big platter was mounded up with scrambled eggs, and a large plate next to it had several ‘over easy’ eggs.
     The bowl of hot Sawmill Gravy sat on the edge of the stove-top to keep piping hot, and was passed when asked for. Sitting next to the biscuit platter was the bowl of "thick" gravy (Brown Gravy). There was a dish of fresh butter which had been molded in the wooden mold Papa had carved for Mama with a flower design, a quart jar of sorghum syrup, a quart jar of preserves (huckleberry was my favorite), a huge pitcher of fresh cows’ milk (refilled often from the milk bucket drawn up from the well and brought in while it was still dark). There was cornbread left over from supper the previous night (Mama always made too much on purpose), and a big pot of boiled, steaming hot coffee on the stove.
     No one ate the cornbread for breakfast except Papa, as I remember. He ate it last, like a desert. He sliced it in two, and covered it with syrup into which he had carefully worked butter with a fork into a smooth rich, creamy consistency. Papa never drank coffee from his cup. He always poured it into his saucer, and holding it to his mouth with his elbow on the table he blew across it to cool it, then slurped from it (Emily Post would NOT have approved).
     As I sat there, warm as toast, full as a tick, listening to the intimate talk of Papa and the grownups, (we kids did NOT talk at the table), I was at peace with the world. In my mind I can still hear the gurgle of papas’ voice as he talked. How I wish I could hear it once again. It seemed that he never cleared his throat you see, until he had finished eating. And though it may not sound too good to you as you read this, in reality it had a very soothing effect. I think because we sensed that it meant that Papa was at peace too. Little did we then understand that he was indeed at peace because he was reaping the bounty of his hard work and in the company of his children and grandchildren as well.
     Those breakfasts out on the farm were so very peaceful, special and wonderful to me, and full of well-being. I was family. I had done my part and more. I belonged. Papa’s gurgling, droning voice, the clink of utensils, the sizzling simmering crackling noises from the stove and fireplace, the good food, (we ourselves had little and were barely getting by in town), the intimate family conversation and fellowship with our large extended family out there on that altogether self-sufficient farm . . . my dear God! . . . if I could be there just once more!   My confidence was renewed and I felt everything would be alright after all. I had a place in the world and was at peace in it. Not since those times have I known such utter contentment.
     But back to the recipe, this gravy goes by different names, depending on where in the deep south or southwest those of my era grew up. Even during my childhood it was an 'old-timey' thing fixed mostly by country folk. Town folks fixed “thick” gravy or milk Gravy (though we did not, others had plenty of flour and milk I guess). There in west Georgia everyone called it Sawmill Gravy and the fact that Papa owned and operated a sawmill (he cut logs into rough sawn lumber for a house and barns for himself, as well as for his neighbor farmers close around), had nothing to do with my grandparents calling it that. Just over the state line in Alabama, they called it Coffee Gravy whether they used coffee in it or not. I have heard it called Ham Gravy in Louisiana, Shotgun Gravy in East Texas, Red-eye Gravy in West Texas and Tennessee, Thin Gravy in Florida, and Black Gravy in Mississippi. I have eaten it in all those places as well, and it was all more or less the same thing:

INGREDIENTS:

     A little of that last strong coffee left in the first morning pot of coffee, along with those flavorful, highly concentrated drippings left in the skillet after frying country ham, bacon, salt pork, streak-o-lean, hog jowls, pork chops, or fatback. Salt-cured ham drippings are the very best.

HOW TO DO IT:

     Can’t get much simpler. Just bring the heat under the skillet back up until the leavings just begin to smoke, then carefully pour in a little of the hot coffee while keeping away from the steam that sizzles up. Don’t get burnt now. Can’t give any measured amounts - it can’t be written down, but it won’t take much of either one, and a little goes a long way. Stir well, scraping the skillet. Take off the heat and pour into a soup tureen.
     Most times you won’t have much, and how much you will have will depend on the amount of drippings you have, and it is best eaten poured over split halves of hot biscuits. Pure grease will rise to the top and if there is too much it can be spooned out with a tablespoon. A little of this thin red/black gravy, like salt pork, gives a burst of flavor, goes a long way and has a specially good and unique taste. After the first time you fix it you will know just how much coffee to add to what pork drippings you have. This is truly a taste of "olden times." A delicious taste!

P. S. - I just had to come back and add that just today a new little café here in our little town in Tennessee opened up, and would you believe? They serve biscuits and "RED-EYE" GRAVY!

                                                                                                             ,,,©Emil T. Miller (Tony Miller)
                                                                                          (Click here for AUTHOR'S BIO)

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                            mailto:books-n-@books-n-sundries.com

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

* FACTOID:
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

* "While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.".
                                                                    . . . President George Washington.

                     (I just wonder what he would say if he were alive today)

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