March 2, 2025

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

It must have been just after humankind discovered fire that slow-cooking began, with a woman, natch. It was common sense that simmering soups and stews not only tenderize raw meat and vegetables but add flavor.

In my area of the nation, New York/New Jersey, there is the forever debate over “Sunday sauce” or “Sunday gravy.” This is the traditional weekend offering of Italian-Americans for what was more often a big, gathered family meal. Not so much anymore as families and times change. Nor is the old tomato puree, garlic, onions, etc., so often attended for hours by a nonna, usually the best cook in the familia.

The debate of sauce vs. gravy is ongoing. Which is it? In Jersey or Brooklyn, it seems it’s Sunday gravy. In New York State, beyond the roots of old Gotham, it can be Sunday sauce. The “experts” say it is sauce, but the mix becomes gravy if it includes meat – pork, beef. Sounds logical.

Whatever, something to stew about. And that’s the point. At a family dinner, especially the old-fashioned big ones, whether it’s Sunday sauce or Sunday gravy, who can beat the taste? Or the company, despite heated political discussion, prejudices, wild family stories, the crazy uncles. The dinner is a truly stewed affair, beyond the Sunday tomato concoction.

At such a dinner, people might go beyond a simmer over beliefs, but in the gathering, with shared history, with precedent, with older family and toddlers, there literally is a full pot of feeling, one of simmering emotion, from walking in the door to the big table, to the full stomachs, to the ball game on TV, to the fellow snoring on the couch.

No views may be changed. But tolerance remains. This is family – your family. For generations the pot that is family values, individuals, hopes, dreams, sadness, joy has been simmering in a full stew.

An allegory, I suggest, for the pot that began to simmer on September 16, 1787, when the United States Constitution was created.

However imperfect, however neglected too many of the “family” have been treated, even terribly, no matter the varied political views, this pot of freedom, of democracy in a republic, has long been simmering. The Constitution is the family recipe. We may argue over the ingredients but not the eventual taste. May the fire not go out in what are again threatening times. We are family.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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