Most of the roasts I ate in my childhood were at my Grandma’s house. My Mom was a single mom who made things that were fast when she got home from work: spaghetti, pork chops, stir fry. There wasn’t time to make a roast.
I ate at grandma’s on holidays, so the meals were meant to be a little bit of a production. The house would smell like whatever was for dinner for hours before it was ready to eat. It was usually pot roast, unless it was Thanksgiving, when we’d have turkey, of course.
My grandfather was an expert in efficient food preparation. He worked for the education department in New York City designing cafeterias. Efficiency was a buzzword in the middle decades of the twentieth century. We see it mocked in Chaplin’s Modern Times, the obsession with conveyer belts and sleek, repetitive motion.
Grandpa loved a cafeteria, preferring to dine them when we dined out with him. As a kid, I loved grabbing a dish of steak tips out from under a heat lamp as I pushed my tray past. The slight crust that enveloped on my pudding’s whipped topping seemed luxurious to me. I didn’t realize it had just been sitting out too long.
In other words, Grandpa wasn’t much of a gourmet, and grandma cooked accordingly. Vegetables were boiled, potatoes were baked, and meat was roasted. Flavor was kept to a minimum.
There was always gravy. There had to be gravy. The roasted meats and poultry were kept in the oven until there was no chance of any bacteria surviving. The gravy replaced the moisture that was lost.
Years later, I married a chef. Early on in our relationship, he decided to make a pot roast for dinner. I was mystified that he would want gray, sad meat for dinner, and confused that he wasn’t making gravy to go with it.
Imagine, if you will, my shock when he served me the tenderest meat I had ever experienced. The meat literally melted in my mouth, and when it did it spread flavor over my tongue. Herbs, spices, garlic even.
Oh, Grandma.
I realized then, though, that she’d never really liked to cook. It was just something she had to do every day. A roast was easy. You stick it in a pan, stick it in the oven, go about your day. Efficient.