Vilany (One-Pot Meal)
When I was in junior high and in 9th through 11th grade in Decorah, Iowa, my neighbor and closest friend was Anne Butler. She and her mom, "Mrs. Butler," spent many hours landscaping au naturel the woods outside their home.
Once or twice, Anne made for me a one-pot meal in a cast iron frying pan over a campfire behind her family's home. I remember a sensation of joy, a kind of lightness of heart, when I ate some cornbread she had made. I realized, then, that I, too, could feed others out of only one pot, cooking on an open fire. When I shared this memory years later with someone who had grown up in Madagascar, they said to me: Of course! The classic Malagasy one-pot meal--cooking in a vilany, a cast iron cauldron, over the open fire!
I hope you will share with me here your favorite one-pot meal recipes--to be cooked in a crock-pot or in a cast-iron pot, on an open fire.
