CUCINA POVERA

In studying the world cuisines, I’ve learned that most cultures have 2 cuisines: 1/ food of the rich classes and 2/ food of the poorer or peasant classes. The Italians call the latter “cucina povera” – a kind of cooking that consists of very few basic ingredients and was rarely written down in recipe books since most peasants couldn’t read or write. These were the same people who grew and harvested the food for nobles and the rich. They cooked elaborate dishes in wealthy kitchens, even though they themselves could not partake of this food.

Ironically, cucina povera often turned out to be the healthier diet and was passed up the social line as servants shared their humble meals with the master’s children. The children came to regard this as every day comfort food. In the Americas, we inherited the tradition. Think of red rice and beans dished out in the best New Orleans restaurants, grits, collard greens, refried beans on bread, potato soup, pasta fagioli, egg flower soup. The food of former slaves, famished immigrants and struggling sharecroppers is part of our national identity now.

The rich dishes of the upper crust gave them kidney stones and gout and sent them to “take the cure” in Bath, Baden Baden or Aix les Bains. Manuel labor kept any excess in the poor man’s diet in check. There was rarely any excess.

As a writer, my social class rises and falls constantly. My regular diet has stayed at the “povera” level now out of choice. It controls my weight and budget. The biggest surprise is that I don’t feel that this food is “poor” anymore. It turns out to be actually very healthy and I regularly crave some of these “poor” dishes.

My weekly habit now is to boil chicken thighs, backs, legs, wings. I strain and skim the broth and freeze it in quart containers. The meat goes into salads, sandwiches, noodles. One of my favorite quick lunches is a piece of boiled chicken, salted and peppered (skin and all) with a tomato or green salad. One quart of the broth is used in a weekly soup I make which is the staple of my diet – Sorrel Soup. I learned the recipe as a poor, broke student in Paris. Some version of it is on the menu of many restaurants as well as on many working wives’ dinner tables in France.

Sorrel is a hard herb to find since Americans aren’t used to its tart flavor. I grow mine in a pot outside my back door. You’ll find many bourgeois apartments in Paris with a sorrel plant in a pot on their balconies.

This is the quickest way I know to make this soup. I even cheat -- using dehydrated mashed potatoes. No lumpy potatoes here.


SORREL SOUP
1 medium onion, small dice
1 cup sorrel leaves (remove the hard stem)
2 cups chicken broth
4 cups mashed potatoes
1/2 cup milk or half-and-half
2 tbls butter
salt and pepper to taste
a dash of sugar or sweetener
2 tbls chopped parsley or chives

Sweat the onion. Add the sorrel leaves until they “melt”. Pour in one cup of chicken broth. Stir. Add mashed potatoes. Stir again, adding enough of the remaining chicken broth to make a medium thick soup. Puree with an immersion blender until it is smooth and velvety like a blended pea soup. Add a touch more of milk or broth if soup is too thick. Return to heat and add butter, stirring until it melts evenly. Season to taste.

If your sorrel leaves are especially tart, you may want to add a tiny bit of sweetener.

If you don’t mind the extra calories, garnish the soup with a little sour cream or crème fraiche and toasted nuts.

I eat this soup at least twice a week.