Clara's Kitchen - Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes from the Great Depression Review (2024)

A while back I wrote about mydefinitionof the la cucina povera or the kitchen of the poor. I view la cucina povera as a style of cooking centered on cooking with whatever, non bourgeois, ingredients are in the house. My family in Calabria once cooked in the above manner (mostly due to economic reasons but also because what was “in the house” included the farm and items like milk and cheese, olives, vegetables, wheat, some meat, some cured meats, beans, and some fish). And la cucina povera of early to mid twentieth century Calabria is probably closer to today’s haute cuisine than the poorman’s food everyone associates with peasant cooking.

EnterClara’s Kitchen, the cookbook by Calogera Bonfani Cannucciari (or Clara Cannucciari for short) whose sole focus is on sharing depression era Italian American recipes and stories. Clara was a teenager living in Chicago with her Italian American family during the Great Depression and recounts her parent’s journey from Palermo Sicilia, her family’s struggle to earn money, and ultimately how the family was able to survive during one of the most difficult economic periods in US history.

Clara’s book is comprised of six chapters including:

I didn’t think I’d enjoy Clara’s Kitchen when Ireceived acopy in the mail (afterall, my experience with la cucina povera wasn’t the same as Clara’s) but I quickly began to appreciate that Clara and her family cooked no differently than any person making Italian food in America; that is to say, theyadaptedavailable ingredients into their modified version of Italian food. And for this I salute Clara and say, “Bravo!”

Author: Vincent ScordoLead Italophile (and/or lover of all things Italian).