Bone Soup: Fast food, real food, and health food, all in one

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Nina Planck

Monday, May 12, 2003

 

I WORK from home, so I have the luxury of eating real food, freshly

prepared, for lunch. That doesn't mean I can afford to start from

scratch every day for lunch or dinner, though. I also live alone,

which presents a danger: I could easily fall into the

open-a-can-of-chickpeas rut when I shut down the computer, hungry, at

8:00 p.m. Fortunately I am obstinate about eating well, even without

company. Naturally frugal with time and money, I'm always looking for

shortcuts.

 

Peasant food is the answer.

 

Choice cuts of meat -- filet mignon or chicken breast -- are mostly

lean muscle. But these are somewhat unnatural cuts. In nature, protein

and fat go together. Before boneless, skinless (and tasteless) chicken

breasts became nutritionally correct, humans seldom ate muscle without

fat for the simple reason that the two are attached. As is often the

case with natural arrangements, there's a good reason for the pairing:

protein cannot be properly digested without fat. This justifies

classic combinations like liver and bacon -- liver is a very dense

protein, rich in Vitamin A found only in animal foods. Your body needs

fat to digest the protein and to absorb fat-soluble Vitamin A.

 

In the fable about stone soup, a stranger in a stingy village starts a

soup with just a stone, and by adding bits and pieces contributed by

the villagers -- an onion, a chicken neck -- makes a meal. The moral

is about sharing, about stretching scarce resources. I start with

bones, not stones, but I add almost nothing, and I make a week's worth

of meals for one from $8 to $10 (US) in bones. Here's how:

 

Buy soup bones at the butcher or farmers market. The ones I like best,

from grass-fed cattle at Smith Meadows Farm, are obscenely generous in

the amount of meat they carry; that might not be true of the bones you

buy. You may get a little less meat, but the same superb broth. I buy

packets of two or three bones for $2 a pound, about $3 to $4 each

package. Forrest and Nancy Pritchard sell from their farm in Clarke

County, Virginia (540-955-4389) and at the Takoma Park, Arlington, Del

Ray, and Mount Pleasant farmers markets in the Washington, DC area.

According to the Pritchards' butcher, neck bones are the best for

stock. Joints are rich in collagen which, when boiled, makes gelatin.

Marrow bones give up a red, earthy broth and are delicious for

sucking. Shanks seem to have lots of marrow. I like ribs too.

 

Rub the bones with olive oil and salt and roast them at 300 degrees F

(150 degrees C) for about an hour, until they're brown and soft,

oozing juice. When they're cool enough to touch, it's a good time to

gnaw on them and suck some of the juice from the meat. You might take

a couple of bites too; the meat is tough but sweet. But don't stand

there slurping over the pot; sit down properly with some sour cream

and horseradish. Depending on how meaty the bones are, that's either a

snack or Meal One. Pour off the fat and cracklings and put them in the

fridge.

 

If there's plenty of meat, Meal Two is a salad of hot roasted beef.

Pull the hot meat off the bone and add it to a salad of strong greens.

In spring I've used cress (water and field), spinach, and arugula.

Roasted pecans, walnuts, or pumpkin seeds are a nice addition. I also

love including sweet, crunchy foods like apples. I usually squeeze two

salads from six or seven roasted bones. The next morning, I might cook

scrambled eggs with the tallow and cracklings, for Meal Three.

 

Now make the broth. If the bones are cold, warm them until they sizzle

in a large pot with a heavy bottom. Add a couple of tablespoons of

vinegar, wine, or lemon juice and scrape the bottom. When the acid has

mostly evaporated, salt the bones and cover them with cold water. Next

I add herbs and spices -- but only one or two, because I have a palate

like an anvil and prefer my flavors direct and undisguised. I've tried

various acids -- wine, honey-tarragon or sherry vinegar, lemon juice

-- and spices -- fennel-heavy herbs de provence, peppercorns, garlic,

bay leaves, star anise and cloves, lemon grass and ginger.

 

Bring the broth to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. A little

more than an hour later there will be a gorgeous, clear, rich broth,

the meat falling off the bones. Drain off the broth and put the bones

and their broth back into the fridge separately.

 

Meal Four is a bowl of hot broth, with plenty of salt. You might stir

in some cream and chopped parsley. Then I find myself making Meal Five

-- yet another green salad -- this time with the now-tender boiled

meat and a few spoonfuls of the broth added to the vinaigrette for

richness.

 

The next day, I break up and remove the ice-layer of fat on the

surface, and store it in the fridge for frying. Saturated fats like

tallow are excellent for frying because they're stable at high

temperatures -- they don't break down and become carcinogenic like

unsaturated olive oil. With a shard or two of tallow, a meal of rape

or collards and chick peas is complete, both nutritionally and in

flavor. There is a complete protein in the fat. It also makes the

vegetables more nutritious. Animal fats go with dark green or orange

vegetables (collards and fatback, carrots and butter) because they

help the body convert beta carotene to usable Vitamin A. Infants can't

convert the beta carotenes in plant foods to Vitamin A and must have

fats in their diets. Children and adults are only slightly better at

converting beta carotene to Vitamin A.

 

Underneath the fat layer is a quivering jelly of calcium-rich stock. I

love to eat it cold with a spoon, but one day I'll make a molded,

ladies-lunch aspic. That's Meal Six.

 

I boil the bones twice more in salted water, for more bowls of hot

consomme -- which is less rich with each round. Fresh broth lasts

about five days in the fridge and freezes well. Broth is handy. When

my father drops by unexpectedly after the farmers' market, I can feed

him a bowl of consomme. When a meeting runs through lunch, we can eat

at hot meal in 15 minutes and get back to work. A glass of broth works

wonders in pasta sauce and for braising greens and root vegetables. In

almost every culture, broths add flavor to starches, richness to

soups, and depth to sauces.

 

Sometimes there is yet one more snack. When shank bones have been

boiled two or three times, the reddish-purple marrow on the cut end

becomes so soft and porous, you can almost chew it. Put the bones in a

large bowl and suck the marrow dry, like a sponge. The juice is warm,

earthy, rich, almost sweet. This meal has an essential primitive

rightness about it: humans have eaten this way forever.

 

Now the bones are leached of nutrients, bare of flesh and fat. I find

that nearly a week has passed. It's time to go the farmers' market for

fresh greens and to the freezer for more bones.

 

Why bone soup is good for you

 

Bone broth is a secret of the frugal cook. Broths use the odd bits of

the animal: beef necks and other leftover joints, chicken wings and

necks, feet of all kinds -- these, rather than the aristocratic,

sometimes bland muscle, are not only the basis of great cuisines both

simple and sophisticated; they are also very good for you.

Inexpensive, unfashionable animal parts are loaded with nutrients.

Although broth is a not a complete protein, it is a " protein

stretcher, " which helps the body make better use of a small amount of

protein. That's why broth is a staple of protein-poor cuisines, and

why Bovril ads in ration-era Britain showed a cow made of vegetables.

A bit of Bovril -- essentially reduced beef stock -- would stretch

vegetables into the nutritional equivalent of steak.

 

Broths aid digestion. The Chinese eat broth after the meal. When you

boil collagen, the connective tissue in joints, for long periods,

gelatin forms. Protein-rich gelatin is a hydrophillic colloid, a

water-loving agent that aids digestion. Broth is traditionally on the

menu for convalescents. Chicken soup -- " Jewish penicillin " -- is

known to fight infections.

 

Vegetarians point out that eating excess protein leaches calcium from

the body. That is true. But bone broth is rich in the essential

minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Lesson? Don't eat the

muscle without also savoring the joints. Boiling extracts the

essential minerals from bone, cartilage, and marrow. Adding an acid

helps to pull the minerals from the bones. Broth is also an

electrolyte solution, which means the minerals are easy for the body

to assimilate.

 

According to market researchers for the convenience food industry (now

offering a six-minute, microwaveable pot roast!), 49% of all dinners

are prepared in 30 minutes or less. Should we be appalled by this

fact, and urge busy people -- especially working women -- to spend

more time in the kitchen? I would rather teach people to make broth.

It is fast food, real food, and health food, all in one.

 

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Nina Planck is the founder of Local Foods, a non-profit organization

based in Washington, DC. She grew up on a farm in Virginia. The

Plancks make a living selling vegetables at farmers markets. Nina

started the first farmers markets in London in 1999. In July 2003 Nina

becomes Director of Greenmarket in New York City. Under the aegis of

the Council on the Environment, Greenmarket runs 44 farmers markets in

31 locations in New York City. Nina is the author of The Farmers'

Market Cookbook. Her next book, on why beef, butter, and cream are

good for you and margarine and soy milk are not, will be published by

HarperCollins.