Columnist John Moore takes sopping seriously. Courtesy John Moore

Southerner’s are big on sopping. We like to sop our biscuits in lots of things.

There isn’t much that’s better than sopping a cathead biscuit in gravy. Especially if your mom made both.

My mother worked culinary magic in that tiny kitchen on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas. She made biscuits and gravy most meals. 

We learned to sop at a young age. Sopping made sure we didn’t leave a drop of country goodness on our plates.

Gravy is good, but it wasn’t the only thing we sopped as kids.

Maybe it was a poor man’s breakfast dessert, but my sister and I sure enjoyed warm syrup and melted butter for sopping. 

This required a tiered plate. My grandmother’s china was perfect. It had a rim that sloped to the inside, and then a drop off that was exactly the right size and depth for the amount of syrup needed.

Our plates at home worked, but they didn’t work as well as our grandmother’s.

Mom would pull the bottle of Aunt Jemimah out of the icebox before we woke and place it on the table to warm up. She did the same with the butter.

After we got to the table and said the blessing, we’d both have one eye open and race to see who could grab the syrup bottle first after the, “Amen.”

We’d pour the syrup in the plate and then take a big pat of butter and plop it down in the middle. A fork was used to mash the butter up in the syrup until it was thoroughly mixed. 

That’s when the sopping began.

The biscuits were always light enough to soak up the syrup and butter, yet tough enough not to tear in half during the sopping.

An alternative to syrup and butter was molasses. My sister wasn’t a fan, but I was and still am. 

Molasses can be an acquired taste, based on how it’s made. There’s sulphured, unsulphured, light, dark, mild, and more. 

The process to make molasses comes from sugar cane or sugar beets, which are crushed and boiled. How many times you boil it determines what it’s called.

The molasses boiled three times is called blackstrap molasses. It’s dark and bitter. And it’s mostly what was available in our area 60 years ago.

I have a buddy in Arkansas who owns a general store in Caddo Gap and he makes his molasses the old fashioned way. He uses a mule-driven press. I need to order some from him. I’m out.

Sopping gravy is great regardless of how you make it, but sausage gravy is what most Southerners are raised on.

I learned to make gravy from my mom. There’s an art to it.

You have to learn the right amount of sausage to cook so that you have the right amount of drippings. Drippings combined with the correct amount of flour is the key to the roux.

Once you have the roux right, you add the milk. Not any milk. Pet Milk.

Pet Milk was as much of a staple in my mom’s fridge as potatoes were in her pantry.

Mixing the Pet Milk in the roux while stirring leads to the perfect gravy, which leads to the perfect sopping.

Another true Southern creation for sopping is chocolate gravy. 

I’ve dedicated space to this delicacy before, but it always merits mention.

Chocolate gravy is a sweet type of fondue. It’s made with sugar, cocoa, milk, and butter. We have our Aunt Maude to thank for bringing the recipe into the family. My mom and her siblings loved it, and so did my sister and I.

You haven’t lived until you’ve sopped chocolate gravy. Here’s the recipe:

Chocolate Gravy:

1 cup of sugar

4 tablespoons of cocoa

1 teaspoon of self-rising flour

1/4 cup of butter

1 cup of milk

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla

(optional)

Directions:

Mix sugar, flour and cocoa

together, well. Then add milk, butter and vanilla.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook on low until done to preferred consistency. Pour on a plate and sop with biscuits.

I try to vary up the sopping schedule with gravy, syrup, chocolate gravy, and molasses. But lately, I’ve been on a molasses kick.

If you haven’t sopped before, or it’s been awhile, give it a try. And let me know what you think of the chocolate gravy.

By John Moore

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