'Depression Cooking With Clara' Showcases 93-Year-Old Grandma's Tips for Budget Dining
Star of YouTube cooking series shares her kitchen know-how with AOL Food
by Sara Bonisteel/Photo courtesy Cannucciari family
In this day of budget-minded cooking, it's helps to get advice from someone who's been there, done that.
Enter Clara Cannucciari, a 93-year-old great-grandmother from upstate New York. Her "Great Depression Cooking with Clara" videos have become a recent hit on YouTube and beyond.
"They're tasty," Clara says of her recipes. "They're good."
The series began as a project by her grandson, Chris Cannucciari, who posted the first "Cooking with Clara" video in 2007. The first recipe was pasta with peas, and episodes have included egg drop soup, peppers and eggs, and a dish known as the "poorman's meal" consisting in large part of potatoes and hot dogs.
"We cooked them a lot," she says. "Now I cook them for my grandchildren. They love it and they bring their friends over."
Her videos pepper memories of the Great Depression with her step-by-step instructions on making dishes popular in her home during the era.
"We'd have pasta everyday with a vegetable or something and a little tiny piece of meat, and that was our meal," she said. "We survived."
Clara grew up in Chicago, the daughter of Italian immigrants, who brought their Sicilian sensibilities to the dinner table. Her recipes, which require a healthy dose of olive oil and pasta, reflect that upbringing.
"We had a big garden," Clara tells AOL Food. "My father planted everything, so we didn't go to the store too much."
Tomatoes, lettuce and celery were among the veggies in that 1930s garden.
While Clara has new fame as the doyenne of depression cookery, during the 1930s, she spent time working in a factory making a then-revolutionary product -- the Twinkie -- back when they were stuffed with banana cream filling.
"It was hard work. It was during the Depression," she says. "At first you just had to pack them, get them ready to punch -- in other words to put the cream in. Then when you got to be the pro, then they make you punch them. I finally got that job and that was great."
Clara says she has no plans to write a Depression-era cookbook. And as for all the hullabaloo surrounding her Internet notoriety, she says: "I'm surprised -- that's about it."
Her advice for those cooking on a budget? "Eat a lot of pasta," she says. "It's filling, it's good and it's cheap."
But don't buy too much. "If too many people buy pasta," she says with a laugh, "they'll raise the price."
Star of YouTube cooking series shares her kitchen know-how with AOL Food
by Sara Bonisteel/Photo courtesy Cannucciari family
Enter Clara Cannucciari, a 93-year-old great-grandmother from upstate New York. Her "Great Depression Cooking with Clara" videos have become a recent hit on YouTube and beyond.
"They're tasty," Clara says of her recipes. "They're good."
The series began as a project by her grandson, Chris Cannucciari, who posted the first "Cooking with Clara" video in 2007. The first recipe was pasta with peas, and episodes have included egg drop soup, peppers and eggs, and a dish known as the "poorman's meal" consisting in large part of potatoes and hot dogs.
"We cooked them a lot," she says. "Now I cook them for my grandchildren. They love it and they bring their friends over."
Her videos pepper memories of the Great Depression with her step-by-step instructions on making dishes popular in her home during the era.
"We'd have pasta everyday with a vegetable or something and a little tiny piece of meat, and that was our meal," she said. "We survived."
Clara grew up in Chicago, the daughter of Italian immigrants, who brought their Sicilian sensibilities to the dinner table. Her recipes, which require a healthy dose of olive oil and pasta, reflect that upbringing.
"We had a big garden," Clara tells AOL Food. "My father planted everything, so we didn't go to the store too much."
Tomatoes, lettuce and celery were among the veggies in that 1930s garden.
While Clara has new fame as the doyenne of depression cookery, during the 1930s, she spent time working in a factory making a then-revolutionary product -- the Twinkie -- back when they were stuffed with banana cream filling.
"It was hard work. It was during the Depression," she says. "At first you just had to pack them, get them ready to punch -- in other words to put the cream in. Then when you got to be the pro, then they make you punch them. I finally got that job and that was great."
Clara says she has no plans to write a Depression-era cookbook. And as for all the hullabaloo surrounding her Internet notoriety, she says: "I'm surprised -- that's about it."
Her advice for those cooking on a budget? "Eat a lot of pasta," she says. "It's filling, it's good and it's cheap."
But don't buy too much. "If too many people buy pasta," she says with a laugh, "they'll raise the price."
