I’ve never been able to make good redeye gravy. Mine mostly tastes like what it is — coffee-flavored grease. As with most everything I cook, I’m trying to achieve the impossible, my grandmother’s perfection. That woman could make salty country-cured ham grease and stout coffee taste like ambrosia from the gods. Of course, she used ham that was cured in a smokehouse only steps away from her kitchen door, and even though I always thought the ham itself tasted like bacon-flavored shoe leather, the drippings turned into a treat that is truly Southern, simple in theory, but hard to perfect.

And you do have to use country-cured ham, nothing else will do. If my granddaddy had but known the future market in jerky, he would have been on billboards all over the world today. Because that’s exactly what that ham tasted like. You had to work to cut it up into small pieces with a knife in order to eat it, and you were still chewing it when you got off the bus at school, an hour later.

 But, most true Southerners will agree, there is nothing like redeye gravy, the result of frying that salty, tough ham.

My daughter, Dominique, and I were recently in Athens, and on our way back we stopped at a little farmers’ café in Tanner, well known for its country cooking. I spied redeye gravy on the menu and immediately decided to order breakfast. She ordered a BLT, with a side of grits.

While we waited, I explained to her what redeye gravy was, and of course, that sounded awful to her. She’s been raised on, “sawmill gravy,” about the only gravy I could ever make with any kind of consistency. (Well, that and chocolate gravy, which is in another category, altogether.)

When our orders came, she watched me close my eyes as I tasted that first bite. The waitress hovered over us, waiting to report my response to the cook, who was fairly new to the process of pouring coffee into grease to make gravy and was waiting anxiously for a critique.

The cook had done a fine job — much better than I ever could — and the waitress rushed off to tell her that the customer was well pleased.

Dominique, seeing all the fuss that this watery-looking little bowl of greasy gravy had caused, tentatively spooned a small amount onto her grits. I waited for the verdict. Then she dipped the pointed edge of her BLT into the bowl, and to my delight, she poured half of it into her grits, saving the rest for her, “au jus” BLT. It was hilarious; she’d fallen in love on the spot. It was a novelty to see her enjoy something so much. She’s normally a picky eater, monitoring every calorie that passes her lips, but that day, she dug in and savored every bite.

I’m not sure what it is that makes eating something that sounds so bad such a rite of passage among we Southerners. Maybe it’s an inherited taste…. maybe we were born to it the way we were to the sound of cicadas, the smell of magnolias, and the feel of bare feet on spring grass. Whatever it is, there aren’t many people I know who were born south of the Mason-Dixon Line that don’t have a little redeye gravy running through their veins.

Perhaps that salty, greasy component is embedded in our DNA, so much so, that it adds the flavor to our accents, the blues and country to our music, and the flair to our personalities. Maybe that’s one of the reasons you never see a sign inviting you into a restaurant that proclaims “Northern Home Cooking” on any highway in the United States. Redeye gravy is a Southern staple, and, as Cousin Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say, “It’s finger lickin’ good!”