A Saucy Week

Last week we were hit by a few unplanned events: there was an ice storm on Monday,

the dog ate Zackary's winter coat, and we found out that the surgery I need on my toe is going to cost us $500 out-of-pocket. Although the ice storm was a nice opportunity to stay home with the family, the torn up coat and the extra medical expenses hit my spirit and the family budget pretty hard. Needless to say, the grocery budget for the week was basically zero. Our meal plan for the week needed to be planned around food we already had available in the house. I came up with the idea to use "sauces" enhance things that we had on hand. Monday night we had Thai food: chicken satay with peanut sauce (chicken breast was in the freezer and peanut butter was in the pantry). I made a purple cabbage and carrot slaw as a side dish. Both were from a cooks.com recipe. They turned out delicious.


On Tuesday we ate homemade mac and cheese (with a bechamel sauce from the Joy of Cooking) with leftover slaw, on Wednesday I opened a bottle of barbecue sauce and poured it over some frozen meatballs. I mashed up some potatoes as a side dish and my meat-and-potatoes man was very happy. His dish this week was chicken nuggets and baked french fries. I contributed the honey-mustard sauce.

This week I had surgery on my toe, so our meal plan was non-existent. We're blessed to have eaten anything at all. Because our budget is shot, we did stick to home-cooked food again, and got very creative with the contents of our fridge and pantry. This week I also had a little time to reflect on my thoughts and attitudes about the previous week's saucy menu. The idea for saucy week came from a need. We didn't have the luxury to go out a buy to satisfy our meal plan. Our plan had to fit with what we had already been provided; made me reflect on what my high-school Italian teacher once said about Italian cuisine. She said that Italian food didn't contain many sauces and spices because there was never any historical need to cover up poor-quality ingredients. Although this viewpoint is a testimony to status of Italian food and reflective of the status of Italian society (both of which I adore), my guess is that it is an overgeneralization (albeit a positive one) that overlooks some important nuances. Not all Italians were wealthy enough to eat good food and not all non-Italians ate food that was low quality.
There were wealthy people who had more access to resources and poor people who had access to fewer resources. It would likely have been the wealthy that had access to herbs and spices imported from Asia. I mean, entire continents were "discovered" in the pursuit of a quicker path to the spices of India. Furthermore, even those with less access to varieties of food and spice would have wanted to make the best of it. They would have wanted to add sauce and spice to their lives. Inspired by the idea that we did not have as much as usual, we did our best with what we had. We weren't trying to cover up poor quality. Instead we were "doing our best with that God gave us."