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

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(More customer reviews)I'd seen a few of the Youtube videos featuring Clara Cannucciari a year or two ago (search "great depression cooking" on Youtube to find them) and was completely charmed, so it was a treat to find Clara's Kitchen on the new books shelf at my bookstore the other day.
This small book is full of memories, photos, and recipes from the 1920s and 30s--a peek into the life of Clara and her parents, brother, and extended Italian immigrant family as they struggled to get along in hard times. Reading Clara's stories is like sitting down with your own grandmother, and you may be inspired to seek out a grandparent or great-aunt or -uncle and find out how they survived those difficult years.
The recipes are mostly very simple--Dandelion Salad, Eggs and Potatoes, Pasta with Beans...with Broccoli...with Escarole--and mostly stem from traditional Italian cooking. Lots of pasta, lots of greens, lots of eggplant, supplemented with eggs and potatoes and tomato sauce.
And yet, though the dishes seem simple by today's standards, there's a lot of nutritional common sense to be found here, too, as Clara's family used fresh vegetables from their own garden and minimal meat, as it was too expensive for everyday use.
Clara's cheerfulness and practicality shine through her words, as she remembers the fun of family holidays and the luxury of Sunday chicken dinners, but she doesn't minimize the stress and sadness that parents and children dealt with as they struggled to make ends meet. I was especially touched by her brief description of having to drop out of high school in the tenth grade because her family needed her to be out working and bringing in money. Simply told, but you can feel her regret.
This is living history, perfectly captured. A gem of a book.

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YouTube® sensation Clara Cannucciari shares her treasured recipes and commonsense wisdom in a heartwarming remembrance of the Great Depression Clara Cannucciari is a 94 year-old internet sensation. Her YouTube® Great Depression Cooking videos have an army of devoted followers. 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 she 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.

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