Depression Cooking With Clara

94 year old Clara Cannucciari is in some ways the cliché grandmother:  She loves to cook (and feed her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and she likes to tell stories.  But unlike any other 95 year old in the world, Clara has a Youtube channel for her recipes that has over 2.2 million views and counting.  In each of the 20 or so videos in her channel, Clara whips up a classic meal from her childhood during the Great Depression and tells stories about how she came up with the meal, its name, and other little anecdotes about growing up during one of the toughest times in America's history.

But this is no Food Network production, it's just Clara in her old school kitchen (she keeps her olive oil in a large silver pitcher) actually cooking the meal right there in front of us - she doesn't set the mix up a few raw ingredients and then pull out a finished version that had been baking for hours.  And there's definitely no glossy script, Clara's natural charm is effortless ("This artichoke is almost as stubborn as I am!").  And I'm definitely not the only one who has fallen under her charm: "It's so sincere, so like sitting there cooking with your own grandma, that I've been riveted to the entire series," (Tilsner). 

Clara is a first generation American (her parents were from Sicily), born on August 18, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois. She had to drop out of high school during her sophomore year to work in a factory (Twinkie!), or as she says in one of her videos, "because I couldn't afford socks".  Her grandson, Christopher, is the creator of the show and works in New York as a producer, director, and cinematographer. He's has a few other works up on his site, but Cooking with Clara seems to be his most well known (and in my opinion, the best). 
Clara's first video was posted on May 7th, 2007, and it is entitled "Pasta With Peas" where she cooks up just that.




It is a great introduction to the series and Clara is on point right from the beginning, not sugar-coating the severity of her poor upbringing but also keeping things lighthearted with her great sense of humor: We survived.  What are we gonna eat tonight?  Pasta with garlic. What are we gonna eat tonight?  Pasta with peas. –laughs- What are we gonna eat tonight?  Pasta with beans."  She also tells the a story about bootleggers who would try to pay people to rent their garages to brew whiskey.  Clara's father said no, but one of their neighbors agreed, and Clara distinctly remembers the whole town smelling like yeast for the whole time they were there.  When the town got sick of it, they busted into the garage and broke all the whiskey barrels, and a sea of whiskey hit the streets.  She didn't comment on anyone grabbing a cup and trying it out...
but I like to imagine they did. 

The Pasta with Peas recipe is pretty simple fare: Dice a potato and an onion and put in pan on the stove.  Add olive oil  and fry them until they begin to soften.  Add a can of peas when potatoes are “rosy”, water and all.   Add water to pot, enough to boil pasta in, followed by salt and pepper.  Add pasta when water begins to boil.  When the pasta is almost done, turn off the gas, cover the pot, and let it cook by its own heat (this saved gas.  Carla explains, "Anything to save anything!”).  Add a little tomato sauce, salt and pepper, and sprinkle graded cheese.

The first video of Clara I ever saw the Season 1 Episode 3: The Poor Man's Meal, so it holds a special place in my heart (and it includes hot dogs, one of my very very guilty pleasures).




It's another simple recipe with onions and potatoes as the stars, but this one throws a curve with the addition of hotdogs, which were very popular during the Great Depression because of the cheap price.  And as Clara says:  "Anything that was cheap, stick in!" (as a poor college student, I hear you, Clara!).  This video is also the first time Clara mentions having her own garden and growing food in it.  She recalls a day when she was a woman with a shopping bag waltz into the garden like she owned the place and said "I'm here to get a few things" when Clara asked her what she was doing.  Clara said she told her to just ASK, because "I'm touchy.  I worked hard for that garden."  As someone who just participated in my first garden growing experience, I can absolutely hear where Clara is coming from - and considering it was the Great Depression and all, I'd say she reacted quite well!  Her story reminded me a bit of Novella Carpenter's "Farm City".  Novella stressed in her book that she had no qualms with people going into her garden and taking whatever they wanted (because it wasn't actually her land) but when someone went in and stole the one watermelon she had been watching grow for months, she was devastated. 


Instructions for the Poor Man's Meal:  Peel and cube potatoes, slice 1 onion, and add to pan with a nice dose of olive oil. Cut up four hotdogs while the potatoes begin to brown, then add hotdogs. Add a bit of water and mix so the potatoes soften up a bit.  And voila!  (Personally, I'd add some ketchup, but they may have been a luxury item during the Depression.)


Next up: PIZZA!





"Pizza is one of my favorite foods. It's got everything: it's nourishing, and it's good for you.  And I like it!"  Clara loves to say all of her meals are nourishing and have everything, and damnit, pizza does have everything.  But my draw did drop a little when she described how they ate it when she was a kid: "We had plain pizza, the dough with a little butter on top, not all this fancy stuff they have now.  We couldn't afford that... but we were happy with the plain pizza.".  There's no way that would be considered pizza these days, but its another example of how times were during the 30s and 40s.  Clara explained that her mom would kill two birds with one stone by taking some of the next day's bread dough and using it for pizza that night (something we talk about in Green Media a lot these days).  I was really interest in hearing that during the Depression, people didn't like Italian food as much, but now "they found out it's pretty good." Yeah, I'd say pretty good is an understatement.  I can't imagine the United States without pizza.


Besides the pizza aspect, this is one of my favorite Clara videos because her thoughts on being a family.  She mentions that during the Depression, since they didn't have electricity, her and her brother would carry around a kerosene lamp to do there homework.  The would sit together at the table with their parents in the same room.  She says, "It was kind of cozy in a way.  We were more of a family, I think, during the great depression."  When she said this, I was immediately reminded of my favorites times with my family: everyone watching a movie together in the fire.  Even 70+ years later, the same values transcend.  She adds with a laugh, "We were always together, sometimes too much!"



Instructions: Roll out bread dough according to how you like your crust, leave it be for thick crust or continue rolling it out for a thin crust. Add a little extra virgin olive oil onto a pizza pan so the dough doesn't stick.  Smooth half a cup of tomato sauce on top of the dough. Add whatever topping you would like (Clara went with anchovies, Romano cheese, mozzarella, and basil)oh, and don't forget: "Make it look pretty." Cook in the oven at 350 degrees until the dough starts to brown.

After watching many of Clara's videos, her attitude is absolutely something I see myself emulating in the future.  At 94 years old, she has a confidence that I think only people who have lived a full life can totally have.  She knows who she is, what she's good at, and what she's talking about - she lived it. As a 23 year old, I know I'm not quite there yet, but I will definitely try to channel some of her confidence in my future media.  Her sense of humor is also ideal:  she's hilarious and sassy without even trying, probably without even knowing how funny she is.  There's nothing worse than reading a blog by someone who's so smug and high on themselves, so Clara's easy humor is a breath of fresh air.

Clara's knowledge and stories are also completely unique to herself and something I could never try to emulate, but I can be inspired by her story-telling abilities.  After watching so much Food Network and "reality" TV, its easy to have personal anecdotes come off as completely staged or fake. It never seems like Clara is embellishing or saying anything for the shock factor.  She's usually half paying attention to cooking, half paying attention to what she's saying, and it just works effortlessly.







Sources:
http://www.greatdepressioncooking.com (bio and photos)
"Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat" by Janet Poppendieck
"Sweet Charity?" by Janet Poppendieck

Green Media Lunch Project: Garlic Potatoes With Chard

Green Media broke bread once again this past Friday with the Lunch Project, and my peers did not disappoint.  Pizza, stew, sandwiches, a quiche, garlic potatoes, and an incredible chocolate cake - all using at least one ingredient from the garden - were chowed down on.  My dish was the garlic potatoes with chard, giant mustard red lettuce, and green onions.  One of my favorite parts of going to Giants games at AT&T Park is booking it to the Gordon Biersch vendingkioskthing and getting garlic fries.  Well, last week at Opening Night, I was couldn't find my dear Gordon Biersch vendor so I went with generic garlic fries.  NEVER AGAIN!  I think those terrible fries gave off such bad juju that it made the Giants lose to the Braves.  So I took matters into my own hands to fulfill my lingering craving and decided to create a simple recipe for pan (or pot) fried potatoes with garlic and fresh chard from the USF garden.  Enjoy!

Pan Fried Garlic Potatoes with Chard, Giant Mustard Red Lettuce, and Green Onion
Serves ~4
Ingridents:
3-4 potatoes
5-10 garlic cloves depending on size and preference
5 pieces of chard
3 leaves of giant mustard red lettuce
2 green onions
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. Wash and cut your potatoes into thin discs (1/4 -1/2 inch in diameter).

2. Peel and crush garlic cloves.

3. Prepare your greens: chop up green onions, rip giant mustard lettuce reds, and leave chard as is (it will cook down a lot).

3. Saute garlic in butter in low heat until it begins to soften.

4. Add potatoes, cover with lid, and let them sweat for about five minutes (I realized I had no lid for this pan, cursed, then moved them to a pot.)

5. Add the chard, followed by the rest of your greens after it begins to cook down.

6.  Cover and let cook for another 10-20 minutes, mixing frequently to make sure the potatoes don't stick to the bottom.

7.  Salt and pepper to taste, then eat eat eat.

No-Knead Bread

Homemade bread is a delicious yet elusive creature, and it impresses the hell out of people if you can make it yourself.  Enter: No-Knead Bread.  Not only is the recipe kneadless, but it only requires 3 ingredients (plus water).  After scoping out this video of Jim Lahey from Sullivan Street Bakery busting out the easiest bread recipe I've ever seen (and the tag section for the bread on flickr), my lazy self was sold on the idea.

No Knead Bread by Jim Lahey (New York Times)
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising
Ingredients: 

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed. (I used flour)

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. (After reading many, many blog posts about this bread, I 1) only used 1 1/2 cups water and 2) let it sit for at least 18 hours.  Both of these points helped the dough not be too runny when I needed (pun!) to form it into a semi-ball shape.)

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes. (Cover your hands in flour!  This junk is STICKY!)

 

 

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger. (I just used flour to keep things easy, and I didn't want a gnarly hard crust.  And a whole separate towel isn't needed, just fold the ends over the top of the dough.)

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack. (The only pot I had that could be put in the oven was the XL long guy, which made my loaf long and skinny.  If you have a round pot, stick with that so the slices will be wider and can be used for sandwiches.)

 

 

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Seriously, this bread could not be easier.  If you are low on cash (aren't we all??), invest in a bag of flour and a couple packets of yeast and you'll be enjoying fresh bread for months for only a few bucks. Goes great with honey, olive oil & balsamic vinegar, dipped in soup, sammies...  I already have another pile of dough rising right now.  Enjoy!

Green Media Breakfast Project: Fruit Salad with Feta & Mint

Last Friday, my Green Media class shared our first meal together with the Breakfast Project.  Each student was required to bring in a dish that they had made for everyone to try, creating a 13 dish buffet.

It. Was. Amazing.

Pancakes were made ON THE SPOT.  With a grill.  In the classroom.

Any doubts I had about taking a Friday class (my first one in years, and at 9:40am, no less) melted away as soon as I saw Marco start flipping over those gorgeous circles of fluffy batter.

Besides hot off the grill pancakes, there was also a cheese souffle, home made bagels (I didn't even know what was possible), cinnamon rolls (still warm), a blueberry lime bunt cake, vegan lemon scones, corn beef hash, and more.  Like, twice as much more.

When planning our contributions the week before, I immediately volunteered to make this gorgeous citrus salad with feta and mint that I had recently seen on one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen by Deb.  I was sold on the idea after seeing just one photo (and the inclusion of feta, which I could eat by the spoonful), as well as the fact that it seemed simple enough.  Cut citrus, sprinkle feta.  Well...

Little did I know that cutting the citrus into those perfect little ninja stars did, in fact, require the actual knife skills of a ninja.  While I did manage to get one grapefruit and two oranges adequately severed, I also had to throw out another three pieces of fruit because of poor quality (taste-wise, not just because they looked janky as hell, which they did).  Defeated by the tricky citrus, I booked it to Trader Joes to grab a few tired and true items I knew would still be just as delicious and not make me cry because they looked OK but tasted like barf.

=

Mixed Fruit Salad with Feta and Mint
(adjusted recipe from Smitten Kitchen)
- Fruits of choice:
1 grapefruit
2 oranges
1/2 honeydew melon
1 green apple
1 pear
5 small plums
1 peach
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup crumbled feta (depending on size of salad)
- 1 - 2 tablespoons fresh mint (depending on size of salad)
- juice of 1 lime (optional)
- 1/4 cup orange juice (optional)
- 1 tablespoon honey

1. Cut up the fruit.  For citrus ninja stars: cut off each end of the piece of fruit, then set it on one of the now flat ends.   Cut off the sides in vertical pieces, cutting from top to bottom.  After removing all remaining skin, lay the fruit on its side and cut it into 1/4" thick wheels.

 

 

2. Add pieces of fruit to platter or bowl of choice.  For extra pizazz, I recommend putting the citrus ninja stars on the top.

3. In the Smitten Kitchen version of this salad, there is a savory dressing included.  Since I was making this for breakfast, my "dressing" consisted of drizzling orange juice, lime juice, and some honey on the top.  I felt like the added sweetness and moisture was necessary because some of the fruit wasn't as ripe as I would have liked.  This step is totally optional, and you can wing it with whatever juice you have handy (e.g. lemonade, pomegranate).

4.  Before serving, sprinkle feta and mint on top.  I would not to this too far ahead (I made mine the night before and did this step before going to class) because a) the feta will get soggy and b) the aroma of the mint seeps into the fruit VERY quickly.

5. Dig in.