Story by Daniel Schumacher
Photography by the Gravy Boys
About 10 years ago, a handful of guys in Lafayette’s food scene decided they wanted to spend some time together cooking, cutting up, and honing their craft. What started as a house party among friends grew into a rollicking late-night community-wide gathering on Thursdays (that may have gotten on the local authorities’ radar). The focal point of the party was gravy, a treasured Cajun comfort food that requires little more than roux, some protein, rice, and plenty of stirring. The gathering—which started off as a weekly event—became less frequent as the years went on, but the Gravy Boys, as they became known around town, still get together to bond over a cast-iron pot of rich, hearty gravy.
How did Gravy Thursdays get started?
Tanner Dimmick: I wanted to get better at cooking large portions, like for competing in the Blackpot Festival [&] Cookoff. To practice cooking for a large amount of people, you have to have a lot of people to feed, so that kind of initiated the whole thing.
Josh Mata: In the beginning, it was just a few dozen people. And then, I remember, at points, there were well over 100 to 200 people in our tiny house.
Derrick Savoie: So much of Cajun culture is gathering around with food, like when you think about boucheries. This is just a pot of food cooking and everyone gathering around a pot of food. So, [Gravy Thursdays] were more than just a party; it’s a part of our culture. You know, we’re keeping our culture alive, by gathering and eating.
Sullivan Zant: At the time this was starting, four of us were all working together at Dark Roux in Lafayette, which is no longer in business. We would get off of work—usually pulling double shifts until 10 o’clock, if we were lucky—and then we would just rush to the house as fast as we could. Then we’d go straight into cooking again at Gravy Thursday. Finally, we’d finish up cooking around 2 a.m. and then keep drinking and singing and dancing until like 4 or 5 a.m.
How has Gravy Thursday changed over time?
Sullivan: We do still get together and cook but not nearly as frequent as it used to be. More often than not, we’ll find ourselves at Tanner’s house getting together for bigger events like the Super Bowl and things like that. But that being said, we still talk on a daily basis, and anytime all of us are all together and in town, we’re cooking.
Derrick: We have such a close friendship. We all realize it’s very unique this late in life, where, you know, usually most people have two, three close friends, but we are such a tight-knit group. No matter what happens, we’re the Gravy Boys, you know?
“We have never written a recipe for this. We cook from the heart, not from a piece of paper.”
—SULLIVAN ZANT
What does gravy mean to you? What do you think it means to folks across Acadiana?
Sullivan: It’s comfort. It’s home. It’s something you can come home to at the end of the day and just enjoy. It’s not going to be the most expensive plate of food you’ve ever had, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s quite literally just a labor of love. There’s a process to it, but at the end of the day, it tastes like home. It tastes like love. It tastes like care and affection. The opportunity for us to be able to share that is, I think, kind of a microcosm of Cajun culture. We’re all about sharing, celebrating, and having a good time, but we’re also here to take care of our neighbors and bring our community together. It’s something that I’m damn proud of, and I know that everybody else here is, too.
Tanner: A cool thing about gravy in Acadiana is that it is such a technically simple dish—it’s browning meat, adding vegetables, reducing down—but everyone you talk to has a different way of making it. And they love trading their recipes about it, and there are a million different ways to cook this super simple dish. And that’s a really cool thing: how, even in this small region, there are a million ways to make rice and gravy. Exchanging recipes and getting together to cook symbolizes our culture, in a way.
Trey Delcambre: From a practical standpoint, it’s about resourcefulness in the kitchen. You know, if you’ve got rice, some protein, and some veggies, you can make it happen and serve plenty of people. Depending on how you prepare it, you can really stretch it and it’ll help get you through the week.
Derrick: Gravy is really like a universal thing, but for Cajun people in general, this is one of the last places in America with a really unique, regionally driven culture. We don’t just identify as American; we identify as Cajun.
Josh: Gravy is something that really grounds me to home, because I haven’t lived in Lafayette for six or seven years now. Just the smell—even before the first taste—it brings me back to what it’s all about: this community of friends we have and how fortunate we are to have that support around us.
Jordan Konow: For me, gravy is like glue. It really holds me together mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and from a community standpoint. It’s about the camaraderie while you’re making the food. It’s a tornado of reasons to hang out around a pot. It’s a lot of fun, man. It’s just about being warmed up from the inside out from your heart.
What makes a great gravy?
Tanner: Time. It’s about taking the right amount of time and not rushing. That was always the joke at Gravy Thursdays. People would be like, “When’s it gonna be done?” It’s gonna be ready when it’s ready. If you take the time to cut your onions, bell peppers, and everything else, like, everything’s gonna come out a little better.
What type of gravy do you make most often?
Tanner: Probably the pork steak. I call it the “recession gravy” since it has cheap cuts of pork in it. But I make chicken and sausage sauce piquant a lot. I find it to be one of my better ones to make. One day, we made alligator sauce piquant. For Gravy Thursdays, I would go to [Rouses Market] and get the “buy one, get four free” pork steaks—you know, the cheapest—because we had so many mouths to feed.
Tell us a little about your experience at the Blackpot Festival & Cookoff.
Tanner: To me, it’s like the Super Bowl of rice and gravy cooking. There are a lot more gumbo-focused cookoffs out there. I think 2024 was my ninth year competing. It’s really tough because everyone out there is a great cook. It’s just really fun. There’s, like, not a better way to spend a day, in my opinion.
Jordan: I was living out of town when I went back to the Blackpot Festival about two years ago, and it was the reason that I decided to move back. It was like being there for that day [at the cookoff with the Gravy Boys] was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I looked at my girlfriend at the time—who is now my wife—and I was like, “I want to go home.” So, we made it work.
Find the recipe for Pork Steak Gravy here.
