Leftover Love

Here it is, midweek, and I have three tasty things in my fridge to choose from to eat, and all I have to do is reheat them. I had some of the ratatouille for lunch today. Ratatouille, by the way, is one of those things that gets better with age (up to a point, of course...). While I was looking around in the fridge, I couldn't help breaking into the puerco pibil leftovers and stealing a couple chunks of pork magic. I want you to see something:

I know it's a little hard to see, but can you see the orange goo that seems to be suspended in place despite the fact that I'm holding the container almost vertical? Yeah, that's achiote paste...and rendered pig fat. Lots of it. Did I say I made healthy food? Ha!

Well, the truth is, folks, that animal fat is an essential part of making a lot of things taste so darn good. I try to use the leanest cuts of meat I can get away with in most cases, but you just can't produce a pork dish as melt-in-your-mouth as this without a starting with a fatty cut. You could try this, maybe, with something leaner, and it might even be good, but it wouldn't be puerco pibil. Authenticity--and flavor--sometimes trump doing what's best for your arteries.

I'm going to go out on a limb, here. I'm no nutritionist, but I'm going to argue that a decadent fatty meal like this has a place in healthy, nutritious eating. The portion I ate last night (or rather, yesterday afternoon, since I couldn't bear to wait until dinner time), was a reasonable size. It was probably half the size of a serving you would get in a restaurant. I had it with rice, some avocado, and a little salad. And a beer...an extra indulgence, I will admit. But I didn't have chips, I didn't have beans cooked in lard, I didn't have any cheese. I had sensible portion of meat for an adult, rounded out with sensible sides. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If I had a Big Mac every day for lunch, and then came home and had pot roast and mashed potatoes every night, I would have a problem, and so would anyone else who does that. But I don't. Eating healthfully, I think, means being moderate. That's my thought o' the day.