We ate a lot of gravy meals growing up, not just from stuff that was fried.
Roast beef, the pan drippings were turned into gravy.
Roast turkey, of course.... gravy!
Pork chops......gravy
We ate brown gravy with hamburger over rice quite frequently as it was inexpensive and stretched good for 5 kids/2 adults/1 earner.
Guess it trained me, now if I cook some sort of meat in a fry pan and there is some juice and little crunchies in the pan, it gets turned into gravy or at a minimum "au jus" and poured on whatever I have.
At one time when in my mid 20's and "poor", bacon drippings became gravy and went over bread to stretch my budget.
As someone else mentioned, the older generation (who went thru the Great Depression) wasted nothing. I learned "waste not/want not" from my folks and guess I learned it well.
Geno
PS, my wife didn't grow up with gravy on everything, really doesn't like it much, and can't seem to understand why I do it with everything.
PPS, if it wasn't gravy we were using we had sauce on it, as in sugo.........spaghetti sauce that is, known as "gravy" in some households.