Community Corner

Patch Poll: Is Marinara Sauce Or Gravy?

This year, the Martinez Italian Street Painting Festival is featuring a pasta sauce competition as well as chalk paintings.

When you put together a delectable marinara concoction, enough to fill the entire neighborhood with its tempting aromas that drift the senses back hundreds of years, do you call it a sauce? 

Or do you call it gravy

This year, the Italian Street Painting Festival, on Sept. 22 and 23, is holding, for the first time, a marinara cook-off. You can submit your recipe for consideration for entry into the contest. Can your marinara come out on top? 

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According to Wikipedia, marinara is Italian for "sailor style," because in Italy the ingredients in marinara involve seafood. In America the term does not imply the use of seafood, but tomatoes, garlic, herbs and spices, and perhaps various kinds of meat.

But it's the word that comes after marinara - is it sauce or is it gravy? Wikipedia states that the word "gravy" is an "erroneous translation from the Italian 'sugo' which means 'juice.'

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Yeah, right. Tell that to generations of families who grew up pouring gravy on their pasta. 

Take our poll and tell us which it is for you - sauce or gravy? Got more to say on the subject? Tell us in the comments. 


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