Great Depression cooking with Clara

A popular video channel on YouTube the past few days has an unlikely star. She's 93-year-old cook Clara Cannucciari of upstate New York, whose grandson has filmed her showing how to make the meals her family ate during the Great Depression.

Here's Cannucciari making a three-course "Poorman's Feast," a Depression-era version of a celebration meal featuring salad and lentils, rice and a little bit of meat cooked in lemon and oil. She calls these thin slices of meat "a big treat":

I'm a little in love with Clara, and plan to show these to my kids. She's very real, and most importantly, she shares stories of hope that came from a dark time. She shows us we can survive what's going on now.

Of course, now she's not just surviving but thriving in 2009 terms. Cannucciari has a web site and a Facebook page. I'm sure we'll see her on Twitter soon.


Source: weblogs.baltimoresun.com