OK... What do you call Tomato Sauce... "Sauce" or "Gravy" ???

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Technically

Gravy refers to a sauce thickened with starch; often based on meat drippings or deglazed pan contents. Tomato sauce is definitely 'sauce'.
Macaroni is a shape of pasta, known to be commonly used for mac'n cheese. Wildly guessing, probably originated from Italian 'maccheroni'.
Generally noodles are made out of dough (mostly wheat; Asians however use rice and soy flours too). Easiest way of making them would be rolling out the dough thinly, rolling it up and cutting into narrow strips, which is why the term is widely used now for products shaped like linguine or similar.
'Pasta' refers to noodles made with durum wheat or semolina, the latter almost always used in commercial dry pasta production, very often without eggs.
It's all just "technically" today, unfortunately. Heard and read those terms being used interchangeably.
 
Washingpowder...

Don't let our Rhode Island contingent hear that! For most of them, the tomato-based topping served on pasta/macaroni/noodles, especially on Sunday, is gravy! LOL

We generally call long strands and shapes by their name (spaghetti, linguini, angel hair, farfalle, etc). Macaroni was usually elbows. Noodles were usually of the egg variety like for stroganoff. The term pasta for us is usually generic- "Wanna have pasta for dinner?" not referring to anything in particular. Could even be ravioli!

And the tomato-based topping is sauce.

Chuck
 
I'm from upsate New York originally...

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">And a good old Italian Boy.  I echo what Chuck (perc-o-prince) said:</span>

 

We generally call long strands and shapes by their name (spaghetti, linguini, angel hair, farfalle, etc). Macaroni was usually elbows. Noodles were usually of the egg variety like for stroganoff. The term pasta for us is usually generic- "Wanna have pasta for dinner?" not referring to anything in particular. Could even be ravioli!

And the tomato-based topping is sauce.

 
 
I too want to generally echo perc-o-prince & chachp

 

 

I generally refer to most all as “pasta”, i.e. a possible option for dinner.   But when I’m cooking for example, I use its specific name (spaghetti, penne, fusilli, etc).   I tend to think of any "noodle" with roots going back to Italy as "pasta".

 

I do not refer to Asian rice based noodles as pasta, for the above reason.

 

Tomato based (whatever) over/with pasta is a "red sauce" or "pasta sauce".

 

Gravy to me is served with meat, has meat juices in it, is thickened with flour and is void of tomatoes.

 

=    =    =    =    =    =

 

Tom, funny that you brought up skabetti and pasketti!  I remember pronouncing it skabetti and some neighbor kids or friends pronouncing it pasketti.

 

Kevin

 

[this post was last edited: 4/1/2015-17:03]
 
La sauce et les pâtes in this neck of the woods!!  

 

En anglais, tomato sauce is called just that - sauce.  Pasta is often identified by the type of pasta (spaghetti, rotini, penne, etc). 
 
I'm Italian and my family is from NJ. My Gram always called tomato sauce "gravy", though my dad never did. We called pasta "macaroni" for the most part. From watching the "Frugal Gourmet", he discussed this as well. He said gravy is a tomato sauce that is slow cooked for hours. That's what my Gram did!
 
I myself refer to gravy as in Turkey, Chicken, Beef Gravy etc.

 

I just started this thread to see what different areas of the Country (World as well) called their Tomato Based ... Sauce. I always called it Sauce. From the Culinary Institute of America it is called Tomato Sauce.

 

Yes, and Chucks description of Pasta, Noodles, Macaroni et al is my same line of thinking.  I just find it amusing when some parts of the country, state, neighborhoods called Tomato Sauce "Gravy".

 

Or when they call any shape Pasta "Macaroni".

 

Now one step further... What kind of Cheese to you like ?

 

Parmesan, Romano, Asiago, Pecarino, Green Kraft Shaker, Store Brand ???

 

And do you grate your own or do you buy pre grated/shredded ?

 
 
In the middle of Illinois it is called tomato sauce. Pasta is the over all term and then specific terms such as macaroni etc. Noodles are called noodles. Pasta salad is the term used for that particular dish as opposed to lettuce salad, gelatin salad etc.
 
Pasta with Sauce and Rice with gravy

In South Louisiana: Pasta has Sauce and Rice or Potatoes are usually served with gravy. Cajun make gravies (pan juices that are thickened and tomato is added in certain dishes for flavorand/or color. Smoked sausage with tomato gravy is popular and often served in schools for lunch. A variation of Shrimp Creole that is popular here is Shrimp Sauce Piquante (it literally means spicy but is really flavorful, and not due to being overly peppered). Sauce Piquante is made featuring any seafood.
 
Never heard anyone refer to spaghetti sauce as "gravy" until I heard a character on The Sopranos say it. I thought it very odd.

 

And lately around this house it's not really gravy unless it's made from a roux.

 

LOL.

 

 
 
In Connecticut

many, many people call it gravy. And lasagna is served at all holiday meals--Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving...

They also call mozzarella cheese "mootz" and ricotta "rigut". And along the shoreline, the first letter of "pizza" is "A". (Apizza--pronounced uh-PEETZ)

I'm from the midwest, so I call the red stuff "sauce" even if I have picked up mootz and rigut in my speech. And I can't throw stones, because I use words like "hamloaf" and "goetta" that have no translation here. And yes, I say "pop" in reference to carbonated soft drinks.
 
Tomato sauce here. I have never heard anyone whom I know use any other label.

I think I use both "pasta" and "noodles". Pasta is probably the "default." But I might sometimes say "spaghetti noodles." I can't say for sure, but I think "noodles" might be the "standard" when I was quite young.

As for cheese, I almost never bother these days. Years back, when I was cooking more (and more of a snob), I liked getting parmesan and grating it. The choice of parmesan was possibly influenced by A) commonly called for in one cookbook I liked and B) easy to come by. (This was 20 years ago. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think the variety of cheese was as diverse in the average grocery store as it is now.)
 
My ex's family always referred to what they made as "sauce". it was generally light and cooked fairly quickly, 20-25 minutes. If meat was added, it was usually cooked separately and added to the sauce in the last 10 minutes of simmering.

"Gravy" referred to thick, heavy meat based sauces in which the meat did most of its cooking (simmered 2-3 hours) after having been seared/braised/browned beforehand. This was regarded as a 'southern' style of sauce and generally made for holidays or other special events when time allowed. It was not part of the region's regular cuisine.

'Pasta' was the word used, but more often the name for the specific type of pasta was used. IIRC, 'macaroni' referred to an American style pasta dish.

Cheese? Pecorino Romano is my favorite.

As to pronunciation differences one finds here, there are several general trends one finds in Italian. As one moves south in Italy...

1. the vowel at the end of the word tends to disappear.
2.hard 'c' picks up a voice if it's near the stressed vowel and becomes hard 'g'.

So #1 and #2 combine to make 'ricOtta -> 'rigOt'

I'd guess that the 'a' in 'a-peetz' is a leftover/semi Anglicized 'la' (the).

Italian has an amazing number of dialects, many of which are not mutually comprehensible. The dialects of 2 cities 100 miles apart can have major differences in both vocabulary and grammar. Incidentally 'Italian' as we think of it here, is actually a fairly new invention. It was designed by committee as a second dialect that all Italians would learn in school so everyone in the newly united Italy of the 1800's would (eventually) be able to talk to each other.

Jim
 
Well I grew up near New Haven and we were basically surrounded by Italian-American families. Never heard any of them refer to spaghetti sauce as gravy. But maybe they were deferring to the non-Italians. I don't know. We left CT when I was 11 years old, so my exposure to alternate word choices may have been age-limited. We moved to San Francisco where the main ethnic fare was Chinese (Cantonese).

 

 
 
Here in the Twin Cities we call it Pasta and Sauce:

While My red sauce could be technically a gravy: (I fry the meat and then deglaze the pot to release the fond and finish the sauce from there). I still call it pasta sauce.
Any red pasta sauce that does not involve the deglazing of a pan of meat drippings is NOT A GRAVY! To be a gravy it has to contain the drippings/fond from cooking meat.
WK78
 

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