re: I've Been Here Too Long page 4

Maybe the guy meant to say "grated cheese" and he got tongue-tied and it came out sounding like "grave-ed cheese", and then you heard it as "gravy cheese".

And, maybe the guy said "gravy cheese" and I heard correctly. This was not a man from the downtown area of New York City - Manhattan - but a man from the outlying area of urban suburbia: Bensonhurst. A man that never liked pie by the slice or by the rectangle. A man that ate his sausage-and-peppers with his elbows nailed to the table. A man that follows a baseball team named after a windy day in Nebraska. A man that probably thinks that a swinging porch glider is a rickety stoop.
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Maybe the guy meant to say "grated cheese" and he ... "grave-ed cheese", and then you heard it as "gravy cheese".

And, maybe the guy said "gravy cheese" and I heard correctly. This was not a man from the downtown area of New York City - Manhattan -

If Manhattan is the "downtown area of New York City", how do you account for "uptown", which for most New York City speakers refers to (part of) Manhattan? Don't forget that Brooklyn itself has a downtown. (There's some evidence that at one time the outlying areas of Kings County were referred to as "uptown" by Brooklynites, but more research needs to be done on this.)

but a man from the outlying area of urban suburbia: Bensonhurst.

"Suburbia" is a strange word to use to describe Bensonhurst, to me, but I won't argue with you there, Coop.

A man that never liked pie by the slice or by the rectangle.

Coop, a Sicilian pie is sliced "rectangularly", yes, but each resultant piece is still called a "slice". Conceptually, the slices and the Sicilian pie are "square". People sometimes say "square pizza" instead of "Sicilian pizza".

All the 1st and 2nd Generation Italian-Americans I grew-up with (No. Jersey-Greater NYC area) knew - and still know - ... gravy; puttanesca, alfrado, pesto, olio and, of course, marinara, are not, they are sauces just as most ItAmers call them.

At last I get it. This explains why my late mother-in-law, who learned her Italian cooking from the sisters of her second husband (all being residents of the Bronx or lower Westchester), called her absolutely spectacular combination of stewed tomatoes, spare ribs, meatballs, sausage (both hot and sweet), oil, and spices "gravy." As best I recall, the meatless concoction (which I don't think she ever made herself) she called "sauce."
I believe I have mentioned before that she was wont to serve her gravy over zitis. And yes, she said "****."

Bob Lieblich
Working up an appetite

The priest that said the Mass was suitably Irish - but with a most unsuitable Protestant televangelist comb-over - and ... man indeed". I wonder if "lovely" and "man" are ever spoken in the same sentence by anyone that isn't Irish.

Yes. Used often in my family to mean someone who may not have been famous, or particularly good at anything other than being pleasant and helpful, and who was just a great person to know.

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England

"Gravy cheese"? How does that work?

Easy-peasey. "Gravy" is Italian-American for tomato-based pasta sauce.

So the gravy cheese is parmesan?

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Hertfordshire
England

Easy-peasey. "Gravy" is Italian-American for tomato-based pasta sauce.

So the gravy cheese is parmesan?

One should hope not. Sabato goys like Coop might use parmesan on tomato sauce for pasta, but I'd expect someone who uses that "gravy" usage to use romano cheese. ITIATAT.

So the gravy cheese is parmesan?

One should hope not. Sabato goys like Coop might use parmesan on tomato sauce for pasta, but I'd expect someone who uses that "gravy" usage to use romano cheese. ITIATAT.

Hell, it's outta dose little cardboart shakers,
what da hell diff does it make what dey call it?

What's perverse about being a Dutch sea captain? The Dutch didn't discriminate, and went by ability,

Not that this answers your question, but in the song "Waiting For the Day (The Wost Old Ship)," one of the many complaints about the ship is that "the skipper's half Dutch."

The Dutch, with a few exceptions, aren't half as bad as many make them out to be. I ran into a bevy of them yesterday something to do with a local football match, apparently and found, once again, they are a most civilized lot. The English of at least two of them flabbergasted me, even though I should have remembered from the time I've spent in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. You'd have thought you were talking with a man out of Oxford or some such institution, one of them.
Charles

It just occurred to me maybe Coop misheard "grated cheese" as "gravy cheese"?

That is the only possible explanation. No-one says 'gravy cheese', especially no Italian, lovers of food as they are. Ridiculous notion.

Charles