The short answer: When a cold wind blows, you snuggle deep into your coat and pull it tight. During economic storms, stock made from bones warms the soul while guarding both health and wallet.
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Saturated fat—good or bad?
The Danish are in the news this week—for levying a tax on saturated fatty acids (SFA) as part of a plan to improve longevity. For a generation we’ve been told that SFAs are unhealthy, a cause of heart disease and other ills. To my knowledge, this has never been proven. So if the proof isn’t there, why all the attacks on SFAs? It’s a long story, but once the establishment takes a position, they don’t change until the generation that staked their reputation on it dies.
If you listen to Mary Enig, PhD, the scientist who doggedly exposed the danger of trans fats, the body needs dietary SFAs. In her excellent article, “The truth about saturated fats,” Enig notes that from 1910 to 1970 traditional animal fats in our diet declined from 83% to 62% of all fats. Butter consumption dropped from 18 lbs./yr. to 4 lbs., replaced by vegetable oils. Yet, heart disease rose from a rare illness to the #1 cause of death during this time. You do the math.
Enig cites these benefits of dietary SFAs:
Pundits have noted that Danes eat 4x more margarine than butter (a real problem), and that while SFA consumption has declined their obesity numbers have risen. Strikingly, no action was taken against sugar (another real problem as blood glucose levels have risen in parallel with obesity), sulfites (Danes love bacon), or refined carbs. Danes eat a lot of meat, about 8 oz. daily, also a real problem. One other thing: Denmark is a delightful country with beautiful architecture and friendly, practical people. But their politicians seem quixotic, tilting at windmills while missing the weighter matters.
We eat just a little meat, a source of SFAs, but do enjoy butter and whole milk. Until I hear more, we’ll continue to enjoy saturated fats in moderation.
Tales From The Depression
During the Depression an unusually well qualified couple, John and Leah Widtsoe, wrote an exceptional book on nutrition according to the Mormon Word of Wisdom. John had earned his PhD in chemistry at the close of the 19th century in Germany, the birthplace of nutrition science. He was later a professor, then president of several universities. Leah was a college graduate, unusual for women of the time, and had gone east to study at the Pratt Institute, a leading school of domestic science. Their 1937 book, The Word of Wisdom, A Modern Interpretation, sold well (used copies now go for over $100), and is still available in reprint and ebook.
Leah was a formidable woman and an early believer that health came from whole foods. A sort of pioneer Martha Stewart, she later wrote a book of recipes, How To Be Well, suggesting dietary guidance as good as any heard today:
Leah believed family dinner should be fun, as well as nourishing. The best sauce for dinner, she thought, was “laughter.” She warned about hidden hunger, an early awareness that though modern food might be filling it was insufficient in vitamins and minerals. Over time this shortage of vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants and other essentials is thought to be an underlying cause of chronic disease. So though much remained unknown about nutrition—not so different from today—health could be protected through eating whole foods.
The garbage disposal in modern sinks would be anathema to Leah. What we put in the disposal, she put into her soup kettle:
“One must never waste good food. A soup kettle is a wise possession for every family. In it should go every scrap of meat, bone . . . all clean vegetable parings, outer leaves . . . and all bits of good food [including chicken feet] that should not be wasted. The basis of the soup of the day should be found here.”
The wood-burning stove that kept the house—and the soup kettle—warm in winter is gone but Judith Jones’ charming book, The Pleasures of Cooking for One, suggests a modern method: Place edible scraps in a closable container in the freezer, to be retrieved when you make soup. If our economy continues to decline as some fear, such Depression wisdom could mean the survival of a household.
Making Stock
The famed French chef Auguste Escoffier claimed that stock was everything in cooking. Who am I to question the French on food? The American version of cooking with stock is to open a can of Campbell’s soup—was there a ‘50s casserole recipe that didn’t require a can? So I looked for stock at Campbell’s website. They didn’t have anything and suggested I check my spelling. I resolved to make my own stock.
To make stock you use leftover bones, hopefully with a little meat. Put the bones in a pot with water (about 6 cups per pound of bones) and add savory vegetables (by tradition, a carrot, a celery stalk, and some onion, all chopped, an aromatic combination known as mirapoix), plus some spices. The traditional spice mix is a bay leaf, thyme, some parsley (a few recipes call for cloves or garlic), plus a few peppercorns). If you add more meat it’s broth, or to be fancy, consommé.
The beautiful wife brought home some chicken carcasses from a dinner, enough to make five quarts of stock. (Beef bones, cut up, are also used, or fish bones.) I cooked the bones for an hour, while I prepared the mirapoix and spices, and cooked everything for another hour. Some recipes call for longer times, but this chicken had been previously cooked. I strained it, poured the stock into quart jars, and put them in the refrigerator. You can refrigerate stock (when chilled it takes a soft Jello-like consistency) for a few days or freeze it a couple of months.
You can buy stock in the store so the big question is whether the benefit of homemade justifies the trouble. The store product is a pale version of the stock I made; mine jelled after refrigeration and was very flavorful. The wife made a tasty soup after the stock was cooked by recovering the mirepoix with some broth. We’ll try our stock in a few recipes, comparing to store-bought stock, and report back.
Benefits of Stock
By tradition, stock will heal whatever ails you. This may be true; you always hear that chicken soup, made much like stock, is the only remedy proven to relieve the common cold. Stock is also said to aid digestion. Science, to my knowledge, hasn’t confirmed these traditions but a warm bowl of soup does provide comfort while your immune system does the healing. The article, Broth is Beautiful, by Sally Fallow Morrell, lists some benefits of stock:
Stock is rich in minerals from the bone, amino acids, gelatin from the cartilage, and other nutrients. Gelatin has a long tradition in healing and also serves as a thickener; my stock was surprisingly thick. The minerals extracted from the bone, mainly calcium, are believed to aid bone building. In addition to all the nutrients, stock makes sauces, soups, and stews tasty.
Several years ago the beautiful wife had a sore hip joint that persisted for many months. She finally saw an orthopedic doc who found nothing visibly wrong but suggested that glucosamine and chondroitin supplements were helpful to some. This wasn’t proven science, the doctor pointed out, but thought it worth a try. She tried it and within a matter of weeks the pain went away. Bone broths are natural sources of chondroitin and glucosamine so there may something to the claimed benefit of stock for bone health.
Please comment on your experience cooking with stock, whether homemade or store-bought. A reverence for food implies avoidance of waste. Please share your own ways of reducing waste.