Pork roast with brown potatoes, a tribute to my grandmother's cooking. A ma chère Mamie

I owe very much to my grandmother, who let me cook and bake cakes when I was a little child. I learned a lot that way. She herself learned to cook during the great depression and second world war. The times were hard and they needed a lot of imagination to make a good meal out of nothing. All her cooking is based on a few key ingredients, like oignons, and garlic. She makes wonderful traditionnal meals from Quebec, with no written recipe, passed from generation to generation by oral tradition. This recipe is very typical of New France, and may have been created as far as 1634 when a living reproductive pork was first introduced in the french colony. The cooking method is also due to  the climate. During the long, long winter of Canada, people had to keep themselves hot with a low fire all day long. In the coutry , they were making craft, like knitting or carving, for themselves or to  earn a little money in order to buy a piece of pork. Of this context, the cold and the low fire burning all day long, the lack of fresh vegetables, result a very intersting cooking, developing different tastes while using always the same ingredients, like the italian kitchen.

The pork roast with potatoes and carrots cooked in its juice of my grandmother

A pork roast

One big spanish oignon

A few potatoes

A couple of carrots

A few garlic cloves

Salt an pepper

A little oil

Slice the oignon grossly and put in a cast iron pot ( you can not make the recipe without a cast iron pot!) with oil, cook on a low fire until dark colored. Put some garlic inside the pork roast and add to the pot on a low fire until colored on all its faces. When the oignons are practically burnt pour water to cover the pork roast and scrath the bottom of the pot in order to make a nice juice. Let the roast cook in the oven for at least three hours, on a low fire,  or as my grandmother do, all the night for the next day lunch. An hour or so before eating, add the potatoes to the pot. Half an hour after add the carrots. When dark brown serve with salt and pepper.