One of my favorite food writers is M.F.K. Fisher.
From the Introduction of How to Cook a Wolf
One less chilling aspect of the case for War II is that while it was still a shooting affair it taught us survivors a great deal about daily living which is valuable to us now that it is, ethically at least, a question of cold weapons and hot words. (In one week from the writing of this cautious statement, or one hour from the final printing of it, double ridicule can be its lot. Are weapons ever cold?)
There are very few men and women, I suspect, who cooked and marketed their way through the past war without losing forever some of the nonchalant extravagance of the Twenties. They will feel, until their final days on earth, a kind of culinary caution: butter, no matter how unlimited, is a precious substance not lightly to be wasted; meats, too, andd eggs, and all the far-bought spices of the world, take on a new significance, having once been so rare. And that is good, for there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the food we eat for life itself. When we exist without thought or thanksgiving, we are not men, but beasts.
M.F.K. Fisher wrote How to Cook a Wolf in 1942, when wartime shortages of food were at their height. Folks had to use ration books to buy the scarce amounts of food available and become as creative as they could to put edible meals on the table. Women's magazines in particular, were famous for their sometimes over-zealous instructions on food and food preparation. Fisher wasn't all that impressed with the standards of the day:
In spite of all the talk and study about our next years, and all the silent ponderings about what lies within them for our sons (Why only sons? Since I wrote this I have acquired two daughters, and they too shape the pattern's pieces and the texture of my belief!) it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones which can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.
One of the most obvious fallacies is that of what we should eat. Wise men forever have known that a nation lives on what its body assimilates, as well as on what its mind acquires as knowledge. Now, when the hideous necessity of the war machine takes steel and cotton and humanity, our own private personal secret mechanism must be stronger, for selfish comfort as well as for the good of the ideals we believe we believe in.
One of the stupidest things in an earnest but stupid school of culinary thought is that each of the three daily meals should be "balanced." In the first place, not all people need or want three meals a day. Many of them feel better with two, or one and one-half, or five.
Next, and most important perhaps, "balance" is something that depends entirely on the individual. One man, because of his chemical set-up, may need many proteins. Another, more nervous perhaps, may find meats and eggs and cheeses an active poison, and have to live with what grace he can on salads and cooked squash.
Of course, where countless humans are herded together, as in military camps or schools or prisons, it is necessary to strike what is ironically called the happy medium. In this case, what kills the least number with the most ease is the chosen way.
And, in most cases now, the happy medium, gastronomically, is known as the balanced diet.
...
What it boils down to is that for breakfast you have fruit or a fruit juice, hot or cold cereal, eggs and cured pork in any of about four ways, bread or toast and coffee (or tea or milk). For the noon meal you eat soup, potato, meat, two vegetables, or one, and a "salad," a pudding or cake of some sort, and tea or coffee or milk. And for supper, to continue the drearily familiar song, you probably eat soup again, eggs again, a vegetable again, and stewed fruit ... and tea, coffee, or milk.
Fisher goes on to provide her own ideas on how to "cook the wolf," decrying the notion that one has to have meat and potatoes each meal in order to feel nourished, that the rigid system of the times was the best. She always put enjoyment and aesthetics on top of the list when it came to nourishment.
Here's her notion of a "balanced" diet:
... instead of combining a lot of dull and sometimes actively hostile foods into one routine meal after another, three times a day and every day, year after year, in the earnest hope that you are being a good provider, try this simple plan: Balance the day, not each meal in the day.
Try it. It is easy, and simple and fun and--perhaps most important--people like it.
...
Breakfast, then, can be toast. It can be piles of toast, generously buttered, and a bowl of honey or jam and milk for Mortimer (ed., your children) and coffee for you. You can be lavish because the meal is so inexpensive. You can have fun because there is no trotting around with fried eggs and mussy dishes and grease in the pan and a lingeringly unpleasant smell in the air.
Or, on cold mornings, you can have all you want of hot cereal ... not a pale pabulum made of emasculated wheat, but some brown nutty savorous porridge. Try it with maple syrup and melted butter instead of milk and sugar, once in a while. Or put some raisins or chopped dates in it. It is a sturdy dish, and better than any conventional melange of tomato juice and toast and this and that and the other, both outside and within you.
If you want Mortimer to drink a fruit juice, you can almost certainly arrange to have it given to him in the middle of the morning or afternoon, when it will not war with the starches in his own middle, and will give him an unadulterated and uncluttered lift.
For lunch, make an enormous salad, in the summer, or a casserole of vegetables, or a heartening and ample soup. That is all you need, if there is enough of it.
And for dinner, if you want to stick solemnly to your "balanced day," have a cheese souffle and a light salad, or, if you are in funds, a broiled rare steak and a beautiful platter of sliced herb-besprinkled ripe tomatoes.
Fisher is an enchanting author to read. Even though times have changed and more healthy eating information is available to everyone, her aesthetic is, I think, unique. She beautifully illustrates the adage that we do not live by bread alone. Her books have a timeless quality of enjoyment of the moment, and her travels around the world give an intimate view of every aspect of unexpected delicious meals found in places both expensive and rustic.
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But now I'm going to blast all the above to hell and give my recipe for pot roast! I think this recipe is excellent for bloggers, as it requires plenty of tinfoil.
Pot Roast in Tinfoil
(Note: This is my adaptation of a recipe from The Settlement Cookbook)
Ingredients
3-4 lb. chuck roast
1 pint sour cream
1 package Knorrs onion soup mix
1-1/2 cans College Brand beef broth (or your favorite brand, or from scratch)
1 bag baby carrots
10 or so red potatoes, halved
5 yellow onions, quartered (or pearl onions, if you prefer)
Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees F.
First, get some heavy duty tinfoil, double it, and make a rectangular shape to hold everything. Do NOT use a disposable roasting pan, the tinfoil is necessary for how it heats up the meat.
Now you are basically going to coat the entire chuck roast with chip dip! Mix the sour cream with the onion soup mix, and smear all over the meat until it is entirely covered.
Place the meat in the tinfoil construction you have made. Add the beef broth and arrange the vegetables around it.
Make another rectangular shape from another doubled sheet of heavy duty tinfoil and crimp around the base, sealing it completely.
Put it in the oven and slow cook for 3 to 3-1/2 hours, it'll make your kitchen smell delicious!
Remove from tinfoil (and be careful when opening, as the steam will be HOT!) and arrange on serving plate.
I usually slice the roast before I take it out of the foil and allow it to soak in the juices a bit, but either way is fine.
Enjoy!