Curly Fries with Cream Gravy (Schmaunt Fat)

I grew up in a strict Mennonite home in the 90s, which had more rules and harsher punishments than my peers. So once I hit my teenager years, and seeing as I was a bit immature, I started to rebel. One of the things that I would do to rebel, was to sneak out with my friends on weekends.

My foster mother would always sit in her chair in the living room until I’d get back home at curfew, which was 10:00pm, and then when I went downstairs to my room, I would hear her go to her bed as well. I would then open the basement window, and stick my head out to see if the glow of her lamp was still shining through her upstairs window into the backyard. When I saw it was off, I knew the coast was clear and I would climb out the window and go meet up with my friends.

But some nights, things wouldn’t go as planned. She would stay in the living room until 10:00pm when I would get home. I would say goodnight and go downstairs to my bedroom. And then I would wait. I would hear her walk to her room, and get into bed. I would stick my head out of the basement window, and the light would still be on. I would go back into my bedroom and wait some more, and then poke my head out again. And the light would still be on. At first, I would only sneak out in summertime, and therefore her window would be open so she would hear me climbing out the window. So I had to wait until she was asleep, which would sometimes feel like forever. If I poked my head out of the window and listened, I could hear her reading her bible aloud, praying in between. This would go on until 1:00am some nights. And then I would hear her put her bible away, and I would think that this is it! This is finally my chance to sneak out! And then I would hear her singing old hymns. Ugh! Not yet. I would pull my body back through the window and wait a bit longer for her to stop singing so I could sneak out without getting caught.

One night, I got impatient. My friends were all out, waiting for me. I could still see her light on and knew that she was awake, but I didn’t care. I figured that if I was quiet enough, I wouldn’t get caught. I put on my shoes, and a sweater as the nights were starting to get cool. I quietly opened the basement window, and slowly pulled my body through it. I decided that if I stood up and walked or ran across the backyard, she would definitely notice me, so I army crawled through the backyard until I reached the garden in the back. I realized that I couldn’t crawl through the garden, so I got up halfway, and sort of monkey-ran through the garden until I reached the back of the yard and the coast was clear. I was so proud of myself! I met up with my friends, and got into some trouble, like we did every weekend. (I’m not going to go into details, but let me tell you that nothing good ever happens when the sun goes down.)

Anyway, it was getting pretty cold outside, and the grass was getting dewy. My shoes were wet and my feet were cold, so I decided it was time to head back home. I retraced my steps through the backyards, and reached my backyard. I knew that everyone was asleep, so I didn’t bother trying to sneak through the grass. I walked through the garden, and through the yard and finally reached the house. I bent down to open the basement window, and it was locked! I started to panic, but then remembered that I knew how to get into the garage. No big deal. I’ll just break into the garage, and get into the house through the adjoining door. I went to the garage window, pulled off the screen, pushed it open enough to get my arm in, and turned the crank until it was far enough that I could get my body through it. Perfect! I went to the adjoining house door, but it was also locked. Ugh! This night was turning out to be worse than I could’ve imagined. Thankfully, the door to the van was unlocked, so I opened the door and jumped in. I got cozy in the passenger seat and fell asleep.

It felt like I had just fallen asleep, when I was awoken by my foster mother standing beside the passenger side door, staring at me through the window. I opened the door in a hazy panic, got out of the van, sliding past her. I muttered “I’m sorry, I must have sleep walked” and continued into the house. She did not reply, and we never spoke of this again.

This was just the beginning of my shenanigans. And it wasn’t the last time I would get locked out of my house after sneaking out during the night. But you’re probably wondering what that story has to do with curly fries and schmaunt fat? Well, nothing really. But…

On Saturday mornings, after our shenanigans were over, I would meet up with one of my friends, and we would go out for brunch at the Country Dining restaurant. We would each order the double mushroom swiss burger, and we would share a large poutine (this was the perfect hangover food). Eventually, it got to the point where we would walk into the restaurant on Saturday morning, sit down, and the server would pour us coffee, and automatically bring out our burgers and poutine without even taking our order.

One night though, my girlfriend (now wife) and I went out for supper to Country Dining together. I got my usual double mushroom swiss burger with a poutine, and she got an order of curly fries with schmaunt fat. To me, this was a strange thing to order at a restaurant. After all, we had schmaunt fat at home weekly (served with everything else under the sun, but never with fries), but why would someone pay for it at a restaurant? Anyway, she got her plate of fries, and insisted that I try it. It was so delicious! This schmaunt fat was not like the one that my mom made at home, and it paired so well with the curly fries!

That following Saturday, I met my friend and we went to the Country Dining restaurant for our usual brunch. We walked in, sat down, and the server came to pour our coffee and told us that our food was almost done and would be right out. I thanked her and asked her if I could order curly fries with schmaunt fat as well. She looked confused, and seemed displeased with me. And although she brought out my fries with schmaunt fat, that was the last time that our order was ready when we arrived at the restaurant on Saturday mornings. But this was definitely not the last time that I ordered curly fries with schmaunt fat.

I moved away from Grunthal, MB when I was 18 and hadn’t been back until I was 27. We agreed that one of the first things that we were going to do when we went back was to go to the Country Dining restaurant to order mushroom swiss burgers, with curly fries and schmaunt fat. But when we pulled into town, we saw that it had been replaced with some barbeque place. That was disappointing.

I had completely forgotten about the curly fries and schmaunt fat, until a few weeks ago when my wife mentioned that she was really craving some curly fries and schmaunt fat. So I bought a bag of curly fries from the grocery store, deep fried them and made some cream gravy to dip them in. Only this time, I used seasoning salt instead of regular salt to give it some extra flavor (kind of like a biscuits and gravy sauce). And it almost tasted like I had ordered it from Country Dining.

This is a perfect meal to make with leftover Cream Gravy!

Now to make the schmaunt fat (cream gravy). First, you’ll need to gather your ingredients. You’ll need 473 ml of heavy cream, 1/4 cup of butter, 3 tablespoons of flour, and seasoning salt to taste. Oh yeah, and a bag of frozen curly fries (you can either deep fry them, or bake them in the oven according to the directions on the package).

Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a saucepan on medium heat.

Once the butter is melted, add 3 tablespoons of flour and whisk continuously until it is thick and consistent.

Slowly add the cream while continuing to whisk the gravy. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Whisk continuously on medium heat until the gravy begins to boil and starts to get thick. Remove from heat.

Pour over top of cooked curly fries, on on the side to dip your fries in. Enjoy!

**22 years later, and I just realized that she wasn’t waking up, noticing I was gone because I was loud. It was probably because whenever I planned on sneaking out, I would take my shoes downstairs to bed with me…