For this installment of our ongoing series, we thought the week before Valentine's Day would be the perfect time to explore the origins of chocolate gravy — a recipe submitted by a number of readers and described by one as having a rich chocolate taste that "rivals Godiva's best!"

(You, too, can share an heirloom recipe and honor a loved one. Go to ajc.com/food, under Recipe Restoration Project, click on Submit Yours and fill out the form. Or e-mail it to

Charlotte B. Teagle/Staff (ENLARGE)

Chocolate 'gravy' - basically thin pudding - on biscuits makes a memorable breakfast or dessert.

(ENLARGE)

Anne-Caroline Brown and her biscuit-loving Lab, Henry.

Family photos (ENLARGE)

This photo of Andy and Ethelinda Lowe was taken about 1919, around the time of their marriage in Tennessee.

(ENLARGE)

Rippeto

Archive of restoration recipes Anne Quatrano Co-chef/owner of Bacchanalia, Quinones, Star Provisions and Floataway Cafe in Atlanta  Even ketchup was made from scratch  These deviled eggs were made with loving care  Green Congealed Salad is perfect comfort dessert for summer  This spice cake takes extra time, but it's worth it  'Extra special' folks got to eat asparagus casserole  This strawberry cake is well worth the fuss  Sad Cake will put a smile on your face  Mother has real talent for handling hot potatoes  In big family, 'you always had a dessert'

savingsouthernfood@ajc

.com. Or mail it to Southern Recipe Restoration Project, c/o Food Editor Susan Puckett, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303.)

Contributor: Anne-Caroline Brown, a marketing strategist for Worldspan, who recently returned to her native Atlanta after several years in South Beach in Miami Beach. She lives in Grant Park with her 10- year-old black Lab, Henry, "who due to his canine status, cannot partake in the chocolate part of this indulgence, but he gets his fair share of the buttered biscuits."

The story: "This is something we used to have for breakfast at my house every Saturday and Sunday morning when I was a little girl. Of course, it made our house the most popular place to spend the night at on the weekends, and we all used to beg my mom to make biscuits and chocolate for us.

"It is a recipe from rural Mississippi, where my mother and her three sisters were raised by my grandparents. I have never known anybody else to make this, aside from my aunts and my sister. It is truly a dying recipe — and what a shame that is! The tangy taste of buttermilk biscuits which have soaked up delicious butter and then been drenched in this chocolate gravy is a taste you will never be able to forget. ...

"My Aunt Addie Laura and I want to open a real Mississippi Southern food restaurant — sort of a chicken and dumplings and biscuits and chocolate place — and we will make it happen one of these days."

Contributor: Lisa Stauffer, a freelance writer and mother of two teenagers in Roswell. A Chattanooga native, she says chocolate gravy has been a treat in her family for nearly 100 years. "I've seen it noted elsewhere as being served over biscuits for breakfast. We ate it as warm pudding for dessert. The rich chocolate taste rivals Godiva's best!"

The story: "My dad, Aaron Lowe, was born in Bartlebaugh, Tenn., in 1921. (Bartlebaugh was a little farming community just north of Chattanooga. It's now under Lake Chickamauga.) His father, Andrew Jackson Lowe, worked in a furniture factory, painting flowers and other designs on headboards, cedar chests, etc. About 1925 the family moved to Thomasville, N.C. — probably for the better work opportunities there. They moved back to Chattanooga about 1941."

Stauffer notes that "even though my grandfather worked at a furniture mill, the family kept a cow for milk, a few chickens and grew a big garden. I've always thought chocolate gravy was a dessert that may have evolved out of the ingredients they'd usually have on hand. So, even though Daddy grew up in North Carolina, this is an east Tennessee recipe, as his mother, Ethelinda Baker Lowe, grew up in Charleston, Tenn.

"Daddy attributed his cooking skills to his being a bachelor till age 30, but all the recipes I saw him make were dishes he'd learned at his mother's side.

"I've heard of chocolate gravy being used over biscuits for breakfast, but we always ate it as a dessert. The Lowes have always been partial to desserts! When I was growing up, we often ate an early dinner, and about midevening Daddy would say, "How about some chocolate gravy?" He'd get out his cast-iron skillet and in a few minutes we'd have the richest chocolate pudding ever. Sometimes we ate it warm as pudding, other times as a sauce for vanilla ice cream. It never stayed around long enough to get cold!

"Whenever he needed a dish for a potluck event, Daddy would add an egg yolk to thicken the chocolate gravy, pour it into a pie crust, and make egg white meringue for the top. His chocolate gravy pie was always a big hit.

"Unfortunately my dad's mother died before I was born, but we have several of her quilts, and other needlework pieces. I always picture her preparing chocolate gravy pie for the ladies who came to quilt together.

"I haven't made chocolate gravy in a long time. My dad passed away a year ago, but had given up cooking some years before as Alzheimer's took its mental toll. I recently brought home Daddy's old cast-iron skillet, though, and now that you've mentioned it, I think I'll go whip up a little chocolate gravy for my kids. ..."

Contributor: Vicki Rippeto of Dallas, a mother of two grown children, who works as an office manager for an architectural steel and aluminum company.

The story: "I grew up along the banks of the Mississippi River in rural Arkansas. There were seven children in my family, and this recipe was one that we all just loved. I remember the anticipation of the breakfast table being set as the smell of piping hot biscuits came from the stove and the table was filled with eggs and fresh sausage and this wonderful concoction we called 'chocolate gravy.' It is a true chocoholic's delight, served over biscuits and lots of butter."

Rippeto learned it from her mother, Willadean Thomas, and "now my daughter makes it. She called me the other day because she had lost the recipe and was afraid she would have to wing it."

Chocolate 'Gravy' for Biscuits

8 servings
Hands on: 12 minutes
Total time: 12 minutes

Tester Deborah Geering tried Anne-Caroline Brown's version of this recipe, which the Grant Park woman simply called Biscuits and Chocolate. It differs from the other two mainly in that it is made in a saucepan and the butter is added at the end. But for comparison's sake, we have included the other two methods as well. Geering agreed that all the versions are rich and addictive — well worth preserving. Serve this "gravy" — basically a thin chocolate pudding — over buttermilk biscuits that have been split and buttered. Garnish the plate with raspberries or strawberries, if you like.

1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups whole milk
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter

In a heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, flour and cocoa with a whisk until no clumps of flour or cocoa remain. Whisk in the milk until well-combined. Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture begins to boil and then thickens like gravy, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the butter until it melts.

Per serving: 202 calories (percent of calories from fat, 35), 3 grams protein, 32 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 8 grams fat (5 grams saturated), 24 milligrams cholesterol, 89 milligrams sodium.

Vicki Rippeto's variation: Melt a stick of butter in a skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat, then mix together 4 tablespoons each of cocoa and self-rising flour (using all-purpose flour won't produce the same taste, she says) and stir it into the melted butter until dissolved. Slowly add 2 cups whole milk. Turn up the heat, and stir constantly until desired consistency is reached. Then serve over hot buttered biscuits or toast. "Leftovers make an excellent pudding-type dessert," she says.

Lisa Stauffer's variation: Melt 1/2 stick margarine or butter in an iron skillet. Mix 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and 2 1/2 heaping teaspoons cocoa (eating spoons, not measuring spoons) together, then add to melted margarine. Stir until dry ingredients are moist. Add 1 1/2 cups milk. Cook at medium heat until it starts to thicken. At this stage it's pudding or fudge sauce. For pie, add 2 egg yolks by first putting a little of the hot pudding into the beaten yolks and mixing it before adding to skillet. Add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Pour into pre-baked pie shell. Make meringue with remaining 2 egg whites to top pie and bake/broil briefly to brown peaks of meringue.

"Making it in an iron skillet is the key," she says. "Otherwise, it's plain old chocolate pudding."

— Susan Puckett