BOOK/A TABLE - Cornbread with Sausage Gravy

Looking back, I scarcely imagine I was prepared to read Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms in high school. At the time I only knew Capote as that funny little man draped in silver fox with a lavender-gray fedora who appeared in my favorite movie Murder by Death and was also the celebrated author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Whether or not I understood exactly what was going on in Other Voices (I at least knew I was missing something), I was certainly transfixed by Capote’s use of language. In his coming-of-age story, the pages are filled with images of mouldering mansions and ghostly faces drifting through the languid summer afternoons at Skully’s Landing—pure Southern Gothic. I remember the mysteries our delicate young hero Joel Knox encountered; catching glimpses of cousin Randolph, for example, wrapped in a faded kimono and smoking something called asthma cigarettes while sipping on perfumed concoctions. I loved Joel’s vaguely threatening friendships with mule-driver Jesus Fever and Idabel, the feisty tomboy who would grow up to be the real Harper Lee.

All beautiful, stirring stuff, but as a teen I wasn’t quite sure what it could mean. The vivid fever dream (starring the diminutive Miss Wisteria) that takes over the latter half confounded me for years. I kept returning to the book until I was able to make head and perhaps tail of it. 

However, the breakfast that Missouri cooks for Joel always made perfect sense to me:

“With a cut of cornbread, Joel mopped bone-dry the steaming plate of fried eggs and grits, sopping rich with sausage gravy, that Missouri had set before him.”

I love cornbread and have had a fond appreciation for the Jiffy mixes since I was a kid, but I bet Missouri would cuff me upside the head for the store-bought sacrilege. Have you picked up Jiffy corn muffin mix lately? It’s still pretty good! Here’s a tip: add a can of creamed corn to the mix. And blend a tablespoon or so of honey into softened butter and slather it with abandon on your cornbread, hot out of the oven. Use a pretty pan!

Now, was there a mention of gravy...?

Sausage Gravy 
Adapted from sugarspunrun.com
Ingredients
1 lb (455 g) pork breakfast sausage I recommend using sage flavored
¼ cup (31 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
2 ½ cups (590 ml) whole milk
⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper optional
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Method
Place sausage in a skillet over medium/high heat.
Use a spatula or wooden spoon to break up and crumble sausage as it cooks, cooking until completely browned and no pink remains. Do not drain your skillet.
Sprinkle flour evenly over the sausage crumbles. Stir frequently until flour is absorbed (about 1 minute).
¼ cup (31 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
Slowly drizzle the milk into your skillet, stirring as you pour. Add crushed red pepper, if using.
2 ½ cups (590 ml) whole milk,⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper
Continue to cook, stirring frequently until mixture is thickened and desired consistency is reached.
Add salt and pepper to taste and serve warm with your cornbread!