Spring Tonic Soup

I've been thinking of Clara lately. In case you don't know, I am referring to 94-year-old great grandmother Clara Cannucciari, of "Great Depression Cooking with Clara" fame. Most recently, I was watching her Egg Drop Soup episode when she said something that made me smile: "Have you noticed all the meals I make have the same ingredients – onions, potatoes." Clearly Clara and I operate on the same cooking plane, and there is a reason for that: onions and potatoes are easy to grow, cheap, nutritious, and tasty. In other words, they are "Depression food," or maybe we should update that to "Great Recession food." Or maybe just "hard times" food, to be as inclusive as possible. Though even if I could afford truffles and caviar on a daily basis, I would still probably eat a lot of potatoes and onions, because I like them.

There are several other vegetables I like that fall under the hard times food heading. Collard greens happen to be one. They grow quite well here in the South. The important thing about collard greens is they are sturdy enough to survive the winter, and keep growing on into spring. That means we people of limited access to cash have something fresh, local, and green to eat in early spring, and if you are able to grow them yourself, so much the better. Which brings me to something Clara said in another episode: "Everything was terrible, but we ate good food." That pretty much sums up my entire philosophy of life.

Last Wednesday I harvested collard greens, a handful of cilantro, onion greens and chives from my trusty community garden plot. It was also my turn to care for the garden's resident chickens, and they were kind enough to return the favor with eight eggs. Thanks, ladies.

Clara's Egg Drop Soup was fresh in my mind, and I was feeling a bit run-down, so I decided to create a bracing, vitamin-filled, garlicky, spring tonic version of her soup, using the bounty of my harvest. I felt very strong and healthy after eating it, which makes sense because it also tasted strong and healthy, and I mean that in a good way. The collard greens were pleasantly astringent in flavor. The cilantro added a grassy spring boldness to the whole thing. I only used one handful for the soup this time, but next time, will definitely add two.

Spring Green and Garlic Egg Drop Soup (loosely inspired by Clara Cannucciari's Egg Drop Soup)
a few tablespoons of olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
pinch of red pepper flakes
4 thin-skinned potatoes, halved and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
1 small bunch of onion greens or scallions, thinly chopped
1 bunch of spring collard greens, removed from stems and coarsely chopped
enough water to cover
1 or 2 tablespoons of chopped chives
1 or 2 handfuls of chopped cilantro
4 eggs, lightly beaten
a splash of sherry vinegar or lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large pot, then add the garlic and the red pepper flakes. Add the potatoes when you begin to smell the garlic. Cook the potatoes for several minutes, until they begin to soften. You can add a little salt as the potatoes cook. It's also OK to add a little water to the pot.  Add the onion greens, the collard greens, and a little more salt, and cook for a few minutes until the collard greens begin to wilt. Add enough water to cover the contents of the pot, and a little more salt, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down so that the soup is kept at a steady simmer. Cook until the potatoes and collard greens are tender. The collard greens should still be bright green, unless you have a particularly leathery set of greens, in which case you may have to cook them longer, and their color will dull. Add the chives and cilantro, and then with the heat turned low, add the eggs in a slow stream, turning the contents of the pot in a circular motion as you add them. Add a splash of sherry vinegar (or lemon juice), and more salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a crusty slice of buttered bread.