• ¼ cup shortening (sausage grease is best)
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 pint milk
• ½ teaspoon salt (if grease is not salty)

1. Heat grease until fairly hot. Slowly add flour, stirring until smooth.
2. Gradually add milk, stirring until gravy thickens.
3. If necessary for proper consistency, stir in a little more flour.
4. Stir in salt if needed for flavor.

This is a very simple recipe, and most Southern cooks probably know it already. But it's a central part of any decent Southern breakfast (we didn't eat grits where I grew up), so I think it belongs in our family cookbook. I learned the recipe from my mother, and she learned it from hers, and so on back up the line. We just called it "gravy" when I was a kid; how white it is depends on what kind of grease you use and how much flour and milk you add to the grease. Sausage gravy is best if you include bits of crumbled sausage with the grease.

I've given exact portions, but with experience you learn to add more of one or the other ingredients by sight, depending on how thick the gravy is getting and how fast. Of course it's good served on biscuits, but we also liked tearing slices of store-bought white bread (which we called "light bread") into small pieces and mixing them up in the gravy on our plates.

It's not necessarily just a breakfast dish, either. I enjoy having it once in a while for dinner -- or, as we used to say, supper. All you need is gravy, sausage patties, white bread or biscuits, and fried or scrambled eggs, and you've got a good solid meal. If you're worried about cholesterol, tell yourself you eat this kind of dinner only once or twice a year anyway. Then have a piece of pecan pie for dessert!

Alan Elms