Men have man caves because they want the room they had as a kid back.

They also spend the rest of their days trying to find the recipes of their favorite childhood dishes.

The ones like their mom used to make.

Just about everyone’s mom in Ashdown, Arkansas, had a recipe for pot roast. Some tasted close to the same, regardless of which buddy invited you over.

But others were completely unique and amazing. My mom’s was one of them.

Before automatic timers, ovens that could turn themselves on and off, and certainly before cellphones that could do all of that remotely, cooking was a juggling act.

While moms got the kids ready for church with one arm, they had the other in the kitchen getting Sunday dinner ready to go in the oven.

In the South, lunch isn’t lunch, it’s dinner. Dinner isn’t dinner, it’s supper. But that’s for another visit.

Sunday dinner, more often than not, was pot roast.

Shur-Way was a local grocery store. They were known for two things: the best meats in town, and running a ticket for you.

Hands down, Shur-way did have the best meats, and if your folks wanted to run a ticket for what you bought and then settle up at the end of the month, you could do that.

Often, mom would send me to the store on my bike for a pound of baloney and a bag of Frito’s and tell me to put it on our ticket.

But when mom shopped for the rest of the groceries, she would buy one of their roasts. Near the meat market was a rack of Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer.

That meat tenderizer was the difference between good pot roast and great pot roast.

One packet of this mix, stirred in some water, made a thick marinade that mom would pour over the meat and let it soak into the holes she’d made in it with a large fork.

She’d finish getting us ready for church while the roast took in the liquid. Then, right before we got into the 1960 model Buick to go to church, she’d turn the oven on and put the roast (which she cooked in a piece of Wagner aluminum cookware) into the oven.

Sitting in the pew at church, I’d try to discreetly turn my head so I could see the clock over the door inside the auditorium. The clock the preacher could see from the podium.

I later wondered whether that clock had been placed there by the preacher, or by the men in the church who didn’t want to be late for the Cowboy game.

The closer the clock got to noon, the closer we got to the pot roast.

After changing out of our Sunday best, we’d slide onto one of the Formica dinette chairs and say the blessing.

Bowls of fried potatoes, biscuits, gravy, and a platter of that pot roast made their way around the table.

Just about everything other than that pot roast had been prepared with or in bacon drippings.

Potatoes were a staple at our house. We had fried potatoes just about every meal. They were fried in drippings.

The gravy roux was from drippings and flour. The gravy covered the potatoes and the biscuits, which were about as fluffy and delicious as the pot roast was melt-in-your-mouth good.

Boy, was it good. So good that I’ve longed for it ever since.

I have a man cave, I have access to a great butcher and meat market, but that marinade disappeared when Shur-Way closed.

Until recently.

Reminiscing about Sunday dinner, I wondered if the marinade was even still made. It was. I found it online and ordered a big box of it.

My mom lives with us now. I don’t have kids at home anymore to try and get ready for church, but we do have a fancy oven that can be programmed to come on and go off whenever you want.

That’s what it’ll be doing before church. So that after we get home, mom can have some pot roast for Sunday dinner.

Her pot roast. And biscuits, and gravy, and potatoes.

 

©2024 John Moore

John’s books, Puns for Groan People and Write of Passage: A Southerner’s View of Then and Now Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, are available on his website TheCountryWriter.com, where you can also send him a message.