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Super Contributor
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Re: Italian sauce

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I worked in Boston for over 5 years and everyone is either Italian or Irish.  The Italians always referred to their sauce as 'gravy'; in fact that is where I first heard the term.  I thought everyone, regardless of ethnicity, called it 'sauce'.

 

This appears to be a regional term, depending on what part of Italy you're from.  Kind of reminds me of the American term for soft drinks.  In my part of the country, it is called 'soda'.  In the Midwest they call it 'pop'.  Southerners tell me that they refer to every type of soft drink as 'coke'.  😉

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@Flatbush    My paternal grandparents came from Italy.  They first lived in Pennsylvania but eventually moved to Brooklyn, NY.  They always called it gravy.  


@Flatbush wrote:

All the Italians I knew in Brooklyn, NY called it sauce. When you put it on white bread, it was called "sauce bread". Of course, what else would you call that concoction? :-) BTW, delicious.


 

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In watching shows that are based in New Jersey and New York, I've heard both gravy and sauce used by Italian Americans.  Here in my small town in the midwest, I've never heard it called Gravy.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, but Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
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Valued Contributor
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Registered: ‎03-09-2010
Growing up in our house, it was always called gravy. If you had distinguish between the two, then you would say either red gravy or brown gravy. Also, all pasta was called macaroni .....I still call it gravy, but I’ve learned to not call all pastas macaroni.
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My brother-in-law's Italian family is from Boston and they call it gravy.

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If you call tomato sauce "gravy", then what do you call gravy that you eat with mashed potatoes?  Is that gravy too?

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@Carmie wrote:

I am Italian and grew up in an Italian neighborhood, went to an Italian grade school and went to an Italian church.  

 

It was always sauce.  I never heard tomato sauce called gravy until I was an adult and heard the term while watching a movie.

 

To me, gravy is made from pan meat drippings with flour or corn starch. I live in south central PA.

 

It must be a regional term.  In the Italian language it is called Salsa de pomodoro...how anyone got gravy out of that beats me.


Same here! My family lived in a little town,  and the closest big town was Pittsburg Pa.  Never heard it called gravy. In fact this is the first time I heard it called gravy.