4.8.17

How to describe biscuits & gravy to a german woman who has never heard of either biscuits or gravy:

(1) biscuits.

a. biscuits are like muffins but not sweet…well, they’re kind of sweet…sort of like croissants but firmer…they have a bread-ish quality…you could eat them for desert or with your main meal or by themselves…you can eat them with butter…like hockey-puck-shaped croissant-muffins.

(2)  gravy

a. Liquid fat. American’s put it on everything.

This was my best attempt. I was able to distill biscuits & gravy down to hockey-puck-shaped\ croissant-muffins drenched in liquid fat. Judging by her face, this German woman did not comprehend the subtleties of this fine dish.

I think I gained from this exchange a deeper appreciation of the aspects of American culture we often take for granted. Are biscuits & gravy American culture? If not they should be. In any case, this whole project has brought to mind other possible hiccups in describing American cuisines; hot dogs seem like they’d be challenging to describe; ditto to waffles.