TRANSCRIPT
REPORTER: Vegetarians might want to sit this one out … It's the 7th annual World Gravy Wrestling Championships -- Yes … there is a competition that requires contestants to roll around in meat juices. And while roast is traditionally served on Sundays in England, there was plenty of Lancashire gravy to go around at this showdown on Monday. Referee Ken Claxon explained that it takes a certain kind of person to win the title.
REFEREE KEN KLAXON: "A good gravy wrestler has got to have a sense of humour, got to be willing to make a fool of themselves and got to be willing to throw themselves around."
REPORTER: As the knockout tournament came to a close, men's champ Michael Jarrett offered his take on pan juices.
MEN'S CHAMP MICHAEL JARRET: "The gravy is warm, heavy and tastes like sausages. I think all sports should be done in gravy. Everything - boxing, football - would be much more entertaining if it was done in gravy."
REPORTER: Now that's food for thought.
VOCABULARY
Gravy is a brown sauce made by adding flour to the juices that come out of meat while it is cooking (see here for recipes).
COMMENT
As usual in Reuters' "Oddly Enough" reports, there are a few double meanings ...
1. To get dirty also means to have sex (according to Christine Aguilera, in any case)—though I'm not sure that was the intended meaning here!
2. Beef is an informal word for 'complaint', as well as being a source of juice for making gravy. • What's your beef? (see here for the origin of this expression).
3. If something gives you food for thought, it makes you think seriously and carefully. • The programme certainly provides plenty of food for thought.
However, I'm surprised they missed the opportunity use the idiom ride the gravy train, which means to live a life of luxury. Pink Floyd used the expression in the song 'Have a Cigar' on their 'Wish You Were Here' album:
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it riding the gravy train.
