National Biscuit and Gravy Day!

I came across a National Biscuit, and Gravy week, and it made me chuckle. I’m British and this is an American food. If you have never heard of it, you may have the same reaction I did when I first came across it. I was reading a book by an American author and they sat down for a meal and ate biscuits and gravy and I just went ugh! Biscuits and gravy, what a disgusting combination!

In the UK our biscuit is what the American’s call a cookie, a sweet baked treat. So you can imagine my horror at the thought of having gravy poured over it. Imagine Jammy Dodger and gravy, no thank you!!

I had to look it up and according to Wikipedia, it is ‘A biscuit in the United States and Canada, is a variety of small baked goods with a firm browned crust and a soft, crumbly interior. They are usually made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast.’

So it probably makes some kind of sense, and it certainly seems a very popular food because I’ve come across it many times since. However, I’ve never seen it or eaten one, so I can’t imagine what the British equivalent would be. There is nothing we eat with gravy that would cover it – pun unintentional – we have pie but I rather think a biscuit is crispy as opposed to soft like our pies.

This is what I imagined, gravy and pie. Yummy. And then I looked up a photo of biscuits and gravy and was surprised when I came up with this image.

I hadn’t imagined the gravy was white and to me; it looks like a white mushroom sauce And the biscuit looks like a scone, again a sweet treat. Apparently, I’m now told it is similar to our scones except it’s savoury. After writing this and pondering, it needs to be something I should try, should I ever get back over to America.