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