Tenement Stew

(cabbage alphabet soup)

Tenement housing is a big building with little cramped apartments that rent for cheap to people with poverty level incomes. (In San Francisco these were known as "The Projects", which is an interesting name for them since the only projects going on in them was an ever increasing collection of bullet casings.) Think of thin walls, no heating, no laundry facilities, and kids trudging off to work with their parents to local factories.

One of the things that distinguishes the middle class and poor people of the present from those of the past is that even when we have very little money we are always running to the store for packages of whatever we decide is necessary for our recipe today. In the past you relied a lot more on what was in your root cellar, or what you had in your pantry. Not a lot was available at the grocers in terms of vegetables. Bananas? Forget it! Did my grandmother even taste them as a child? If she was alive I would run to the phone and ask her. My Grandfather grew up in Michigan. It's cold there in the winter. If they didn't have anything stored from their own garden what do you suppose was available to them to eat in the winter?

Cabbage. Carrots (maybe). Potatoes. Onions.

I took this opportunity to make a soup that required no extra purchases and made use of at least three things from my pantry/freezer. Those three things are: home made stock, home grown and dried thyme, and 1 quart jar of diced tomatoes. I froze the stock months ago. I don't plan ahead well so taking things out to "thaw" in the fridge never happens. If I remember to thaw something ahead of time then I inevitably change my mind about what I was going to make and the thawed thing develops interesting molds.

It worked out just fine to put my solid block of stock in the pot and let it melt there. With the heat on pretty high it didn't take long. Can this stew be made more cheaply than going out to eat a fast food meal? It turns out that the reason why poor people eat so much soup is because it's a damn cheap and nutritious way to feed your family. I priced out my ingredients (bearing in mind that my stock was free since I made it from my own vegetable scraps, and my thyme was almost free because I grew it and dried it myself) this soup cost .53 per serving.

That's for a cup and a half of nutritious and very tasty soup. Can you get a nutritious meal at McDonald's for .53 cents? That's a trick question. You can't actually get a nutritious meal there. This is why it pisses me off when people say they don't cook for themselves much because it's cheaper to just eat out. * Try my tenement stew. It won't break your pocketbook. It will hardly make a dent in it.

One last note before I present you with the recipe- I have always wondered if it really makes a difference to use stock instead of water. The last time I made this soup I used water and this time I used stock. I made absolutely no other changes to it but Philip says this version was better. So I'm feeling more inspired to get in the stock making habit.


Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
3 large carrots, chopped
1 large russet potato, cut into 1/2" cubes
1.5 pounds of chopped cabbage
3 cloves garlic, minced fine or pressed
1 quart diced tomatoes (with its juice)
1 quart of stock (or water)
1/4 cup alphabet pasta (or orzo, or rice)
1 tbsp dried thyme
2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
a shake of cayenne pepper for heat


Method:

Heat oil in a soup pot. Add the onion, carrots, and potatoes and stir frequently until the onions turn transparent. Add the stock and tomatoes. If the stock is still frozen just dump it in there and close the lid for a while, checking to keep vegetables from sticking. Now turn the heat down to medium and add the cabbage, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick, add some water to it. When all the vegetables are cooked through, add the pasta and a shake of cayenne pepper. Cook for an additional ten minutes. When the pasta is done the soup is done.

Whether or not you need to economize right now, this is an excellent stew to eat when the wind outside is cutting through your wool coat and the rain is sheeting against your face. Eat it with a decent sized hunk of wheat bread with butter if you need to be out in that weather for long. The cayenne will help warm your blood, the garlic will help fend off the plague.

*Although I think my cooking is generally better than I can get at any restaurant, I very much enjoy the experience of letting someone else serve me booze and unhealthy food. So it's not like I'm saying I never eat out. We are still eating out once a week and keep putting it on the credit card because we can't afford it. It is a bad habit. But I really made this footnote to point out how costly it is to eat out. If I didn't like people-watching so much I probably would be a complete hermit. Anyway, probably time to end this lengthy footnote.