IN THE BELLY OF THE BLACK POT BEAST

My version of playing house-house as a kid on the farm involved packing out a flat brick blueprint of a house on a patch of clean-swept dirt, and calling it my poppehuisie (doll house). It was elementary but it had a kitchen section where my farm friends and I would make a real fire and cook real food in my beloved three-legged black pot.

I insisted on this Size 0.5 Best Duty black belly pot for my fifth birthday and, looking back now, it was the best gift I have ever nagged for. Its maximum volume is only about three cups, but my friends and I used every inch of her little black belly to cook up [store]) and cabbage stew, freshly caught pigeon, and our favourite: self-harvested , or wild greens, with maize meal. My mom always politely declined a helping of our , probably because we were actually cooking plain old weeds. I wasnʼt deterred. For us, that thistle stew was the food of the gods.