Anthony Bourdain's Sunday Gravy Recipe Was The 'Realization' Of His Childhood Desire To Be Italian

Anthony Bourdain was famous for his strong opinions. The word "artisanal" made him see red; he really, really hated Yelp; and his ire even extended to his own heritage. In "Appetites: A Cookbook," the star chef, writer, and TV presenter wrote he was "always bitter" he wasn't born Italian-American. "You know that scene in "Saturday Night Fever," where Tony Manero is eating with his family? All the yelling and the smacking? That looked good to me," he said. 

Over the course of his childhood in New Jersey, Bourdain must've seen Italian-American culture all around him. However, his own childhood experiences erred on the side of prim and proper. According to his brother, their mother was pugnacious and controlling. She worked hard to maintain a squeaky-clean, wasp-ish image — and often clashed with her rebellious son. "We were discouraged from talking with our hands at my childhood dinner table. Voices were supposed to be maintained at a reasonable level," Bourdain wrote in "Appetites." "Mopping sauce with bread — getting too physically involved with your food at all — was something my mom was unlikely to approve of." But Bourdain's bitterness had a silver lining. It inspired him to create Sunday gravy with sausage and rigatoni — which he described as an "Italo-American Jersey classic" — as  "a realization of all my childhood yearnings."

Sunday gravy is an Italian-American staple — and yes, the meat-heavy dish lends itself to slurping, smacking, and mopping with bread. There are no rules dictating the kind of meat you can use, but Bourdain's recipe uses oxtail and pork sausage seasoned with neck bones. Tomatoes, red wine, and an array of spices and seasonings round out the dish.

Bourdain wrote that the dish was a riff off the Neapolitan knack for "turning a bunch of bony, low-quality off-cuts of meat into something delicious." While the ingredients may be humble, the dish itself is anything but. The labor-intensive recipe calls for hours of broiling, browning, and boiling. It's a far cry from Bourdain's favorite pasta dish, the humble cacio e pepe. Sunday gravy requires a labor of love.

Bourdain might've been bitter about his heritage, but his own family history helped foster his love of food. While his French father rarely shared his own culture with his son, a family trip to France inspired Bourdain's culinary awakening. The trip exposed ten-year-old Bourdain to new and exciting dishes. The chef later cited a fateful experience with an oyster as the trigger that sparked his culinary career. Italian-American or not, it seems his passion for food was irresistible.