Reviving Traditional Foods
Portable soup, a sort of homemade bouillon, sustained travelers before Cup O’ Noodles lined rest stop shelves and salty powdered bouillon cubes gave home cooks a short cut in making soups, stews and sauces. Modern cooks who seem to favor time saving packaged ingredients over more elaborate traditions have lost their taste for laborious culinary [...]
After an overwhelming response to our last question & answer session (I received over 100 questions by email, and if I haven’t had a chance to answer you – please be patient with me), future question and answer sessions will focus on single topics. And this week, I’m answering your questions about bone broth – [...]
Bone broth is a staple of my family’s diet. As with healthy fats, heirloom vegetables, grass-fed meats and a good old-fashioned fermented cod liver oil, we consume a lot of bone broths – usually aiming for one quart per person per day, at the recommendation of our nutritionist. Broth, you see, is a nutritional powerhouse. [...]
Gluten-free chicken and dumplings swimming in a salty, creamy broth of herbs and aromatic vegetables found its way to our kitchen a few weeks ago. A cold-weather food, good for the changing of the seasons, gluten-free chicken and dumplings can satisfy hungry bellies on chilly autumn evenings – fulfilling the roles of both company food and [...]
Miso Soup with Clams is one of those special foods – simple and quiet and humble, but also elegant in its simplicity. Sometimes the best dishes are the simplest. In our home, broths and stocks form the foundation of many of our meals, and with good reason. Broths and stocks are potently rich sources of trace [...]
A good stock is the backbone of a good kitchen; it provides flavor to your dishes as well as sustenance and nourishment for your body. Broth features in the traditional foods of peoples across the globe. Stock is the foundation of classical French cooking and provides critical sustenance in peasant cooking among traditional peoples everywhere. [...]
Chicken feet – gnarly, repulsive and disturbing – make for the very best stock. Devoid of little else but tendons, bone and cartilage (sound appetizing yet?), chicken feet produce a fine golden broth that’s rich in all those obscure nutrients that make a good stock so nourishing: glucosamine chondroitin, collagen and trace minerals. Moreover, [...]
Beef stock – especially homemade beef stock is remarkably easy to prepare especially using this tried-and-true classic beef stock recipe. You don’t need purchased beef base to prepare a decent beef stock any more than you need those hateful little granules of chicken bouillon to prepare a chicken stock. Just a lazy Saturday [...]
Money woes are everywhere. Healthcare costs are rising. Food costs are increasing. Electricity is higher now than it used to be. Between lost jobs, shortened working hours, missed bonuses and the ever-increasing costs of living, it seems everyone is looking for ways cut back. Of course, we’re no exception. Money’s [...]
This is part 5 in the year-long series on Traditional Foods. January focused on sweeteners, and February focuses on homemade, old-fashioned, nutrient-dense bone broth. And, my apologies for posting this section of the Traditional Foods Primer a touch late, There is nothing like a homemade broth – rich, fragrant and glistening with [...]
Lovage Soup for Spring
Moroccan Preserved Lemons
campfire roast chicken with flowering onion and dill
Our Daily Bread: No-knead Sourdough
A Story of Recovery (and a Recipe for Grain-free Carrot Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting)
A Recipe for Beet Kvass: A Deeply Cleansing Tonic
What People Are Saying