From the Kitchen... La Cucina Povera

La cucina povera is an Italian phrase that means "cooking of the poor," or "peasant cooking." This often refers to a now-fashionable mode of Italian cooking, popularized by Mario Batali and usually involving entrails, in some fashion.

On a deeper level it reflects a necessary philosophy that is common in all cultures: making do with what you've got to transform humble ingredients into dishes that are more than the sum of their parts.

I came across this phrase in an article from Food & Wine. The author decides to live off his pantry for a weekend, without any last minute trips to the grocery. He discovers that la cucina povera is really a state of mind. He says...

"It is one thing to smack your lips in wonder at the powerful flavors of cucina povera. It is quite another to spend $40 for Laudemio olive oil and imported beans. And by the time you find yourself in a Tuscan village taking the seven-day cooking course on cucina povera that one Italian-vacation packager offers for about $2,000 - well, you are some distance from the peasants, spiritually if not geographically. The lessons of cucina povera are elsewhere."

My cupboards are stuffed with dal, rice noodles, whole grains, canned tomatoes and other ingredients that I have amassed over the past year. My shelves are groaning with food - far too much for one person. It is both a challenge and a responsibility to use this food well. So I resolved to follow the spirit of cucina povera in my own kitchen this month.

The spirit of la cucina povera is about embracing constraints and discovering the delicious creativity that can spring from making do with what you've got - which is very much in line with our mission here at the Kitchen. Our culture pushes us hard the other way, of course, which is what the author is talking about when he says:

"America gives us more choices than we need: too many channels, too many Benjamin Moore paint chips, too many ways for Starbucks to overcharge you. Eventually you learn to shop first and ask questions later. This is how you find yourself buying a $40 bottle of olive oil when what you are really hungry for is a plate of beans."

I'm going to eat my plate of beans the rest of this month and into February, resisting the lure of the last minute trip to the grocery store. I want to see what happens. Along the way I hope to offer tips for using up that can of chickpeas or half bag of rice that's been sitting around since July.

What's in your cupboards that you want to use up this month?

Comments (12)

It seems like a lot of this cooking from the cupboard stuff depends on having salted meats around, often bacon or pancetta. Any ideas on what you can use instead for a meaty flavor if you don't eat pork?

My mom and dad use to call the best meals "poor man's meal" in Spanish "comida de pobre" and I never fully understood what that meant till I was older. All it meant was; as described above, you ate what you had. No going to the market for last minute ingredients. If all you had were potatoes, carrots, and onions you ate some form of soup. Rice or noodles whatever you had were thrown in. If there wasn't enough meat for the entire family that's when you made soup instead of stew. My pantry is stocked up with cans of crushed tomatos, tomato sauce, and dried pasta. Also, bread crumbs, rice, flour (which w/last longer if you put some bay leaves in it.) I have three kinds of beans and frozen peppers.
So...I think I'll start with the sauce, I can always freeze the rest. I have all the ingredients! And so much better tasting than take out.

There's a great dish that I just started making because I had too many cans of beans. In fact, I have to go get more beans because of it!

A few cooked sausages (or vegetarian ones, I like the fake Bratwurst) sliced and added to 3 15 oz cans beans per pound of sausage. Add a few chunked onions. Make a dressing of olive oil and maple syrup (can't remember how much to how much) and oregano. Mix all, roast in baking pan at 350 for an hour or until some of the beans pop. It's delish but does dry out after a day or two in the fridge, so you can drizzle a bit more stuff on as you heat it up. I'm taking this to a potluck tomorrow night.

What a beautifully poetic name for a kind of food that appeals greatly to me. Hearty, delicous, simple meals made from humble ingredients. And you're right--if you're using $40 olive oil, it doesn't qualify as cucina povera.

When I was a little kid, my dad worked construction and carpentry jobs. In winter, when work was scarce, we would sometimes eat biscuits and gravy three times a day just to get by. You might think I would have grown to hate it. Instead, it is one of the great comfort foods to me.

Being snowed in over the New Year's weekend forced me to cook from my meager pantry for a few days.I made homemade ravioli and pizza for the first time in a long while.

OK I got the dressing wrong on the roasted beans n sausage above. I made 2 things last week and got mixed up.

For the roasted beans n sausage, put beans, sausage, chunked onion in a baking pan. Add 1/2 c brown sugar, 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar, and oregano to taste. Bake 1 hr at 350.

while in grad school and still to this day, I cook in this style. It saves me tons of money and is really the only sure way of learning how to cook good food.

There is nothing more exciting for me, then to open my frig and cupboard and create a dish that I have never eaten before, with ingredients that were waiting patiently to be discovered.

I shop once a week and that is it. I make all my meals, breakfast lunch and dinner. Friends at work wonder how I come up with such dishes to make, and I always say:

Necessity is the mother of invention.
Happy cooking!

I love this idea. It's such a great way to nurture yourself and your loved ones. And it's so fun to invent something completely unexpected out of whatever is around. It's makes me proud to be resourceful.

We've been cooking lots of beans and grains and reinventing big pots of beans in numerous ways.

Sunday breakfast was an invention made of Friday night's leftovers--even better the second time around:

Risotto with cranberry beans and crispy bits of braised spareribs heated up in a skillet together and topped with an over-easy egg. Kind of like corned beef hash, but not. I want to eat this every day.

OneEyedMan- try using smoked turkey wings.

it´s always fun to dig in the cupboard and come up with simple food.
one eyed-man, I recently discovered barbecue sauce for beans. it´s perfect, tastes smokey and rich but is actually vegetarian and digestible.

Pipsqueak:

What type of beans do you use?

Here's a very simple egg recipe to add to the "cucina povera" war chest, taught to me by my close friends in Piemonte, Italy.