Thursday, May 24, 2007

Folk Food

My friend, over at Mostly Cajun, has a post up about Pot roast. Cajun pot roast, which sounds suspiciously like the German pot roast I make on Sundays.

I suspect that someone in every culture has a pot roast recipe that is closely like it. Pot roast is fairly universal. Basically, you're just cooking a big chunk of meat in gravy. The difference varies in the seasonings.

Most folk food is like that. Stews, soups, what we call a gumbo someone else might call a stew. What we call dumplings, someone else might call noodles. If you can feed a bunch of folks with it, it's probably a folk food. If you can step the recipe up or down to make a little or a lot, it's probably a folk food. If you are able to feed those folks economically, generally with what is growing in season or what is walking, flying, or swimming past, it's probably a folk food.

It's good food, I know that. This weekend, I think I'm going to try a Boston Butt roast on the grill. I don't know what recipe I'm going to use, yet, but cooking over an open flame is even more basic than folk food. Men have been roasting big honking chunks of meat over a fire, since we tamed fire.
I may put that pork roast on the fire late Sunday nite and cook it all night, then trim it and get it ready for eating on Monday. Monday is Memorial Day, isn't it?

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