"Cajun Style"

This a memory brought to me by my younger sister.  The names have been changed to protect the innocent.  I remember this dish well.  Apparently this struck some finer parts of the palate to the entire family.    

Having grown up on a side of beef, each year one may only imagine that at some point we would run out of hamburger.  What mom referred to as the "good cuts” were long gone before the beef calendar year came to a close.  It was coming, night after night of beef, I knew at one point we would come across the Oh So Special Night of "Pot Roast" yummy, my favorite!  Roast, in this case was sort of an operative word, loosely used to describe both the cut and cooking method for the red hunk of raw meat my mom called “beef.”  Though I presumed it was indeed beef as it was wrapped in the same butcher paper our ground beef was packaged.  My mother used very few pots or pans.  Our “pot” roast was made in the long silver pan, which was used for roasting as well as making our brownies and cakes.  I won’t get started on the knife, that is another entry.  My apologies to those of you who are pan challenged.  I remember the hunk of red meat that was sort of diamond cut and maybe 3" thick going into this pan seasoned with salt and pepper.  Special note: the salt and pepper used in our house was indeed Morton salt in the blue cylinder and the pepper was McCormick ground black pepper in the little red tin.  Pretty normal you say.  I would say our salt container was dated about August 1960…it is now November 1973!  We didn’t get much in the seasoning department!  To say that the container was a little tattered is an understatement.  This container was in complete shambles, with the little metal spigot barely hanging on.  I think the Morton Salt girl had even lost her umbrella!  The pepper tin, approximately of the same born on date, sits proudly on our lazy susan spice rack rusty around the edges, but seemingly lacking difference from the other seasoning tins.  Seasonings get old and tasteless, not to mention hazardous, but in our house everything was still fresh on the inside of the can.  My mom then added about a cup and 1/2 of water, WTF, and chopped carrots and onion.  Everything had chopped onion.  “It adds flavor” my mom would extort.  Now the reason my mom used the term roast loosely is that adding water, in my book, is not roasting.  It is poaching.  I believe that roasting is coined "slow and low" to give the meat time to break down fibrous tissues and become juicy and tender—this method was never used in my mom’s kitchen.  No way people, we had a Roasting Expert in our house.  ”I’ve been cooking long before you kids were even born.”  This would be the answer if her cooking methods were questioned.  Mom was the Queen of seasoning with her Broken Umbrella Salt & Pepper with a hint of Rust, and Oh Boy, did she know how to Roast!  My father once described my mom's pot roast as "Cajun Style" meaning blackened, at least blackened on one side if not fully Cajun.  Hmm blackened pot roast, maybe you should all try her recipe.  It is rumored that professional chefs clamor to get their hands on one of her gems.  Once seasoned the cooking method would begin.  Roasting, low and slow...NOT…in our house it was 350 degrees for everything.  I mean everything: roast, beef stew, on rare occasions chicken, the aforementioned brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and even for holding dad’s Sunday pancakes.  Yes as it would seem, mom's pot roast cooked at 350 degrees for about 3 hours, In Water!!!  Soaked carrots never quite took on the taste of a cooked carrot, juicy or succulent.  Though I can't imagine why?  Maybe it was the temperature or the water you boiled it in!!!  Tenderness is not a word I would use to describe any meals cooked by my mom, unless you call the pre-sliced bread tender.  Three hours later and now time to pull our “Cajun Roast” from the pan, the meal had only begun.  This is where the more sought after meal topper is beginning to take shape.  By using the meat drippings “roasting water,” you can make a fabulous form of gravy, better known as GA LUE.  This coveted concoction, pan gravy, was only enhanced by 4 other ingredients.  I bet by now you can name them, in order.  You guessed them; flour mixed with water; this is the slurry or rue which in most cases adds a little flavor or goes unnoticed.  This mixture in my house created a paste sometimes used for science projects with newspaper, Paper Mache.  This was my mother’s thickening agent, a dash of special salt and rusty pepper and there you have it, the perfect gravy for the instant mashed potatoes.  Yes, I said, instant potatoes.  This boxed version of vegetable which is harvested regularly and are not in the least bit expensive should not have been substituted for in any kitchen.  My mother of course, could even screw this up.  There is no milk and or butter in her recipe, contrary to the directions on the box of dried powdery flakes of death.  Ours were served with hot water and margarine, two ingredients which in no way can form anything delicious.  I may even recall lumps in our instant potatoes, go figure.  My mom would only sacrifice a cow to eat its flesh, not to extract that delicious, nutritious, wholesome milk.  Our powdery flakes were boiled stirred and served.  There were gleaming remnants of the small amount of “oleo” as they called it back then still noticeably swirled in and they were served piping hot.  Oh what a night!  I have heard rumors of comfort food, but growing up in my family, they were just dreams.