In the tale, Bisnonna's madre sends her to the store with ten cents. She is supposed to get a soup bone and pay a little extra to get one with some meat on it.
Of course, this threw me as a child. Even if my madre was making soup from scratch, there still weren't any bones involved. There was stock, and veggies, and maybe some meat, but never bones. Right?
Flash forward several years. One month a delivery of meat arrives from the CSA with a strange additional item.
"What are we supposed to do with that?" My boyfriend asks sounding a little confused and eyeing the trade-in bin.
The story of Bisnonna and her ten-cent mission comes rushing back to me as I read the words "soup bone". "We make soup!" I announce proudly. "Keep it. I'll make a batch of beef stock."
I think he was pretty skeptical, but went with it anyway.
This endeavor did not turn out to be anywhere -near- as simple as I had been imagining it. Stock is a more labor intensive process than I could have ever expected and it involved touching and dealing with a lot of beef fat, which, thanks to my madre, I am very squeamish about. I do not think I will be making beef stock again any time in the near future. I will consider this one of those nice modern conveniences, but at least I now -know- how to create the sort of beef stock my Bisnonna grew up and that's the important part.
To Make It:
- Gather a soup bone, some kitchen scraps (I had some onion skins and tops left over from dinner), and various herbs (I used parsley).
- Bake the bone for 1 hour.
- Put bone and ingredients in a crockpot and cover with water.
- Cook on low heat for at least 6-8 hours. (One recipe I looked at called for 24 hours in a stock pot on the stove. I suppose this would have been more authentic, but I would be far too afraid to leave a burner on that long.)
- As it is cooking, occasionally strain the fat off the top of the liquid.
- Strain out liquid using a cheesecloth
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