Authenticity

I love good gravy. My mother is an excellent cook and I grew up eating homemade gravy and I know how to make good gravy from scratch.

My mother is German and I grew up in the Deep South mostly eating homemade German food. I learned to make Southern style gravy when I married a Southerner whose extended family mostly lives in Alabama and Georgia. 

I knew people who bought gravy packets and used that to make gravy. I never did and I react pretty negatively to the idea that you would.

Like WHY????

I rarely order gravy at eateries. Generally speaking, I make it myself or I don't eat it. Most eateries cannot produce the quality of gravy I expect and my mother mostly cooks for herself and turns her nose up at restaurant food.

In my teens when I was fond of Japanese tempura vegetables, I liked them enough that I sometimes bought tempura batter in a package from the store and made my own. And I was perpetually disappointed. 

I couldn't make tempura vegetables like they did at the Japanese fast food place at the mall. It was baffling to me because "fast food" places do not have a reputation for serving anything especially good.

But this was before YouTube videos and I had Korean friends but no Japanese friends because there aren't as many Asian immigrants on the East Coast where I grew up as the West Coast and my mother is German. She never could master certain Southern dishes while living in the Deep South though she's an excellent cook and cooks a whole LOT.

A few thoughts:

1. Authenticity is part of why ethnic restaurants are popular. 

2. If you've never had the real thing and found the cheap knock offs unappealing, give it another try if faced with the option to try the real deal.

3. Sometimes you can do parts of it adequately well and buy the sauce or purchase a gadget to help fill in the parts you can't quite master.