HAMBONE HAMBONE HAVE YOU HEARD?

Growing up on a street of attached homes, the aroma of food began to escape through windows and doors around 5PM on a daily basis. Except for Sunday. Cooking began early in the morning and one would try to guess what was on the stove top or in the oven while walking to church. 

Your nose could lead you to my grandmother’s apt in her building on any given Sunday. Italian sauce was a staple there.

And when dinner was over, she would pack up the leftovers and send them home with my parents which then became dinner for Monday.

Later on in years, my mother would do this for her children, and in turn, Old Mother Frugal does this for her adult children.

That was the genesis of loving leftovers. It goes back three generations. A time when ancestors were cooks during the Great Depression, of standing on long food lines and wasting not a morsel of food.

Old Grandmother Frugal was always quick to say “the closer the bone, the sweeter the meat”.  That was the translation, not sure how that’s stated in Italian.

Bones were a key ingredient in her cooking repertoire. There were pork bones and pigs feet for spaghetti sauce and chicken bones for her soup.

Just when you thought all the meat was scraped from the bone, she’d find more meat or just cook with the bare bone. She vowed there was still flavor to be savored in that bone.

Decades have passed since the Great Depression. It’s already 15 years into a new century. But the ways of our ancestors need not all been left in the past.

One of Mother’s “Grown-Up” Helpers has begun to freeze and keep any unwanted ham bones for Old Mother Frugal.  Typically there is enough ham to be scraped away for a meal of some sort [quiche, omelets, or pasta] and then the bone is used for split pea soup.

One recent ham bone yielded three pots of soup. With each pot, the flavor diminished a little but it still “looked” to have use beyond one pot of soup.

What may appear as one person’s trash is indeed another person’s treasure!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip: Keep all bones! Don’t be shy…ask the butcher to include the pork bones when he cuts a roast out of a pork loin and all parts of a chicken. If family has no plans for the Easter ham bone, take it home in a doggy bag. In return, bring a sampling of soup to the family for their generosity. Before bones become trash, be sure to convert them to a treasure!

 

                                          CORN BREAD and SPLIT PEA SOUP

 

PRESSURE COOKER SPLIT PEA SOUP

 

REFREEZE BONES FOR ANOTHER POT OF SOUP