Clara's Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression

About the Author CLARA CANNUCCIARI (1915 - 2013) was the author of Clara's Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression and hosted the web seriesGreat Depression Cooking with Clara.CHRISTOPHER CANNUCCIARI is a filmmaker who lives in Brooklyn. His latest film is New Brooklyn. With his grandmother Clara Cannuciari he created the web series Great Depression Cooking with Clara and the cookbook Clara's Kitchen. Product Description YouTube® sensation Clara Cannucciari shares her treasured recipes and commonsense wisdom in a heartwarming remembrance of the Great Depression. Clara Cannucciari became an internet sensation late in life, making cooking videos until her 96th birthday. Her YouTube® Great Depression Cooking channel garnered an army of devoted followers. Now, in Clara's Kitchen, she gives readers words of wisdom to buck up America's spirits, recipes to keep the wolf from the door, and tells her story of growing up during the Great Depression with a tight-knit family and a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" philosophy of living.In between recipes for pasta with peas, eggplant parmesan, chocolate covered biscotti, and other treats Clara gives readers practical advice on cooking nourishing meals for less. Using lessons learned during the Great Depression, she writes, for instance, about how to conserve electricity when cooking and how you can stretch a pot of pasta with a handful of lentils. She reminisces about her youth and writes with love about her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Clara's Kitchen takes readers back to a simpler, if not more difficult time, and gives everyone what they need right now: hope for the future and a nice dish of warm pasta from everyone's favorite grandmother, Clara Cannuciari, a woman who knows what's really important in life. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Clara's KitchenWisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great DepressionBy Clara CannucciariSt. Martin's PressCopyright © 2009 Clara CannucciariAll right reserved.ISBN: 9780312608279CLARA'S KITCHENCHAPTER ONEGoods from the Garden and "Found" FoodsESPECIALLY IN THE LEAN YEARS of the Depression, we lived on vegetables and, and it kept us plenty strong and healthy for all the hard work at hand. Meat was a treat, but vegetables were our staples.When I was a kid, my father kept a garden in the backyard, which we helped him keep up, and my mother would take the vegetables we grew and make them into all kinds of meals. Not just side dishes like you would today. The vegetables, made with pasta or on their own, were the main event. Meat was too hard to come by most of the time. We had to stretch out whatever we had for as long as we could, so whatever we couldn't eat, my mother would can and preserve for winter. Sometimes we'd eat stuff that grew wild,like burdock and dandelions and mushrooms. We'd find it, and Ma would clean and cook it.My father would plant vegetables all summer. Ma would take out the seeds, dry them out, and then my father would plant them again. And that's how we kept our garden growing. Whatever was left over, my mother would can. We ate really well in the Depression, and throughout the year, because of that. Here are some of my favorite recipes Ma made with the vegetables we grew.Swiss Chard with GarlicServes 4IT'S EASY TO FORGET about nutrition when your pockets are empty, but where there's dirt, there's food--healthy, nutritious food. Back in the Depression, lots of people grew gardens to eat from, including us. Some people would grow gardens in the summer and then go through the streets and try and sell their stuff. Buying someone else's vegetables was too expensive for us, but we still needed to eat.A couple of times, my father stood in line for food the government supplied, but he hated it. He was very proud and self-reliant, and he would rather go without than take handouts. I think he went twice and then never again. Instead, my father took matte