Retro Food

Retro parties are hot right now.  Hosts serve fifties and sixties foods like deviled eggs, baked mac and cheese, and Spanish rice. Mom’s cooking. My mother didn’t much like to cook, but was faithful about it anyway. She had a fourteen-recipe repertoire that rotated depending on season and grocery store sale. Pot roast, pork chops and fried apples, browned ham steak and pineapple, hotdogs and baked beans, meat loaf, shepherd’s pie.

Her generation came out of the Depression and WWII knowing that it was critical to get enough good nutrition into a young body to grow it strong and healthy since a surprising percentage of recruits for WWI had been turned away due to nutritional deficiencies (rickets, scurvy, tooth loss, eye problems). WWII, following on the heels of the Depression, was only slightly better. Making sure the family had good food was a patriotic as well as a personal duty.

Most retro food uses cheap cuts that take minimal prep. Mom spent about a half hour making dinner every night – less time than it takes to go out for McDonald’s. (The US consumer averages fifteen fast food meals a month!) Retro’s also much lower in fat and sodium but denser nutritionally, which makes it a good value. With little more than 45 minutes’ prep, you can make both meat loaf and pot roast on Sunday and parcel them out all week. Total cooking time’s about one hour for meat loaf made with two pounds of ground beef, and two hours for the pot roast. They can share the oven.

Pot roast is about turning a blade, arm, or shoulder roast into something tender and delicious.  Brown the roast in a heavy pot.  Throw in some sliced onions, a splash of Worcestershire, two cups of beef stock or bullion, several scraped carrots, thyme, parsley, and pepper, You could also add a tablespoon of tomato paste and about a ½ cup of red wine. Cover tightly and simmer for about an hour or braise in a 325F degree oven for about 1½ hours. Check liquid levels halfway through for either method. After an hour or more, add a few peeled potatoes, halved, and cook another ½ hour. If meat is not really tender, let it go a little while longer. Using the same basic method, you can change the spices to make it into Hungarian pot roast (paprika, garlic, onion, red wine, tablespoon of tomato paste, and yogurt just before serving over noodles) or Moroccan pot roast (cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, apricots, almonds, tomatoes, and garlic; serve with couscous). Retro food – my childhood food — isn’t fancy or upscale, but it built strong, healthy bodies, and filled us with a sense of stability and love.