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The kind of spaghetti sauce that Kim Severson writes about is called "gravy" in my home. I thought that was an Italian-American tradition - that she doesn't use the wrod gravy makes me quite wary of her recipe.

While drooling over the Minimalist's pudding recipes, an old question cropped up. What is heavy cream anyway? I go into the grocery store and see cream in a few forms: 10% cream, 15% cream, 35% cream and whipping cream (all with disturbingly long ingredient lists). Which do I buy?

MoM-I think heavy cream means 35% cream, but I often use the 15% cream marked Old Fashioned Style instead of 35% cream. In the vanilla pudding recipe linked above, it says half-and-half or whole milk-I'd use milk. I like to avoid fat where I can.

Michelle, my vote is to buy the cream with the shortest list of ingredients (hopefully just cream!). I think it tastes better when it isn't homogenized or ultra-pasteurized.

Cream labels tend to vary from country to country. Here in the States heavy cream is usually just cream and must be more then 36% fat, while whipping cream is between 30 - 35% and almost always has added stabilizers and thickeners.

regards,
trillium

GA, not all Italians call it gravy. I never heard it called that until I got married and my mother-in-law called it gravy; my father-in-law called it sauce.

I always thought it was an Italian-American thing as no one "from home" called it gravy.