French or American?

Or maybe I should say Alsatian or North Carolinian... We mostly eat only French food here, usually cooked French-style, but sometimes we cook it the American way. A lot of things are comparable, however. Look at these two dishes based on pork and cabbage.

One of our favorite wintertime meals is sauerkraut — choucroute — with smoked meats and potatoes (we steamed and then sauteed these). Intermarché sells choucroute crue (uncooked) for about 0,60 euros/kilo — in other words, about 35 cents a pound. Cooking it with spices, duck or goose fat, and white wine takes several hours, but most of that time is just waiting while it simmers on the stove or in the oven. The saucisses de Strasbourg (hot dogs to you and me) and smoked saucisses de Montbéliard are often pre-cooked products that don't take long to prepare — and neither does the smoked chicken, which is also cooked when you buy it and only needs re-heating.

But sometimes, as a North Carolinian, I want something I consider American (but you might consider to be more specifically "soul food" or at least distinctly Southern). That would be smoked, spicy pork roast turned into pulled pork. I get very nice pork shoulder (Boston butt, we call it) at the local Intermarché. It takes even longer to cook (8 hours in the slow-cooker overnight) than sauerkraut does. In this case, a week or two ago, Walt made a batch of the little fried cornbreads called "hushpuppies" to go with it — yes, Albany NY native Walt makes hushpuppies now. To complete the meal, I got a container of our home-grown kale out of the freezer (I think I'm out of collard greens). Sprinkle some vinegar or hot pepper sauce on the greens and pork, and eat the hushpuppies with unsalted butter.

You can take the boys out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boys...