Pot Roast vs bacon and corn mush

I've been sitting here reading "A Breath of Snow and Ashes." Being a
rather detailed book taking place in Colonial Pre-America, food is
mentioned repeatedly since it's a rather common aspect of human life,
which is painted almost too well by Diana Gabaldon. So, I got
hungry, and creative.

The Creamy Crock Pot Roast was already put to heat hours ago in
preparation for my lunches this week. My tastebuds have been wanting
chocolate and sugar, so I began feeding them meat instead as my
mother taught me. Now they want more meat. Mother was right; when I
want sugar, I'm lacking in protein. I'd been starting to think that
I'd tricked my body into accepting a more vegan lifestyle without
meaning to by eating spinach and other greens and soups and things,
but apparently my meat intake was scarcely sufficient to trick me
into thinking I'd tricked my body. Hmph.

Anywho, a pot roast needing a few more hours to roast in the pot de
crock wasn't going to help me whilst reading my food-laden book. Nor
was it going to help my creative streak any. I recalled the corn
meal that I'd purchased today. Corn mush didn't sound particularly
appetizing, however. So I went through the fridge and discovered,
much to my delight, an unopened, scarcely expired package of bacon.
Oh, goody!! As I opened the package, my mind went inquiringly to the
grill. "?" it asked me. I glanced over at my mind as it dangled its
legs over the edge of the railing, looking down at the grill with
extreme interest. "Uh... I don't know," I admitted, and promptly
left the bacon to search the 'net. Can one grill bacon? It seemed
logical. Even with the fat... it seemed logical. I mean, you can
roast a whole pig over a spit, right over the open flame. Bacon's
still pig, right?

Right. But the site I found that confirmed this also mentioned pan
frying. In this pan frying section, it mentioned making stuff with
the fat. My mind jumped off the railing and came over to read with
me. "You can make stuff with bacon fat?" it echoed. "Apparently
so," I told it, clicking a link to read more.

In the end, I pan-fried my bacon (OMG, I'd forgotten what pan-fried
bacon tasted like... it's sooooooo much better than the microwave
when cooked just right!!) and then added some green onions and a
couple sprigs of cilantro to the grease. I then reserved those and
added a small amount of flour to the grease as an experiment. Once
that looked "done" I added corn much to the grease, pushing the flour
stuff out of the way. Then I combined some of the flour mixture and
the greens with the mush and flopped it on my plate with the crispy
bacon. Not bad. I sampled the fried flour. Crispy, nothing I'd
want every day, but I can say this - the pan was very clean of bacon
fat. "Nice job," my mind said, "although bacon on the grill still
sounds pretty cool." "Agreed," I agreed.

I then looked up more Native American recipes, because it dawned on
me that many of the recipes I've seen and tried could not possibly be
truly traditional - they did NOT have flour, did they? Did they
raise chickens? Pigs? I thought they mostly hunted and gathered, at
least, the majority of the tribes with winters did. One recipe in
particular did catch my attention as being very possibly Native:
Pashota. It's basic enough: Add 1 pound of washed hominy to 2 qts
of water, and when half done, add 1 pound of pork. Boil for roughly
4 hours or until meat and corn are done. It sounds like a thick soup
in the end. Now, I'm not sure if pigs were always available prior to
the whole Native displacement thing, but it does sound like something
that could utilize game and other meat. And, it didn't sound far off
from my crock pot roast.

Given that I'm not so fond of many Native recipes, I had to wonder:
What nationalities do I like most (cooking-wise)? I remember a
Mexican dude used to make a sort of omelette that I liked, which I
later modified to suit my taste. What I do now is often a cross
between that and the rice I saw being made at the Japanese
steakhouse. So is that Mexican or Japanese? I also love Cilantro,
which is more along the lines of Thai or Vietnamese. And then
there's my love of Indian rice. I often mix all these things in some
way, shape or form. And I love soup. Every nationality has soup.
In particular, I like the simple ones: Veggies and meat cooked in a
broth, preferably with some cilantro in there but any typical soup-
herb will do: Marjoram, thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil, etc.

Truthfully, I like a little of everything. But later tonight, after
eating hamburgers off the grill, you can bet I'll be sampling that
pot roast.

In other news, I had trouble lowering the ramp in the rats' cage, so
I left it partially suspended for them. Earlier I realized that one
rat has been having trouble jumping up to it. I realized this
because I heard squeaking going on and as I turned to see what was
going on, I saw one rat near the ramp scrunched down. Another rat
climbed on its back and lowered itself, also. At first I thought
they'd gone mad. Then I saw the third rat climb up the two of them
and onto the ramp. The first two had no problem jumping up to it,
and proceeded to do so, to the "cheering" of the third rat who had
turned around on the ramp as if to make sure her sisters were OK
getting up on their own. Then the three of them proceeded up the
rest of the cage to find me staring at them in open-mouthed awe.

My cat, on the other hand, still chases things from outside the
laundry basket as if he doesn't realize he could just jump IN. I
used to think cats were just so smart so as to pretend they were
dumb, but having watched Sinclair grow up (okay, so he's still
growing up), I'm beginning to think cats in general are not too high
on the intelligence ladder. I mean, when you talk to a cat and he
looks as if you're giving him compliments and starts purring and
falling all over himself with pride, paws clenching in kittenlike
fashion... you start wondering. Then you talk to a rat. I swear
cats hear "food, pet, attention, you're great" while rats get "No,
atmospheric absorption theory has nothing to do with food but if you
listen long enough you'll glean information on how I'm going to
provide you food in the near future."

I bet Sinclair AND the rats will like the pot roast.

~nv