🌿The Soup I Fed My Family

 

Let’s Cook It Right by Adelle Davis was more than a book that sat on a shelf. This one helped feed my family.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time reading about nutrition for most of my adult life. My interest may have developed during a few years of food insecurity, but from my discovery of Prevention magazine back in the 1970s until now, I have tried to figure out the healthiest way to eat.

I have been vegetarian, mostly raw, Mediterranean-minded and several things in between. I am still interested, still experimenting and still trying to do better without making food the only measure of a healthy life. Because it isn’t. How we move, rest, handle stress, love our people and enjoy our days matters too.

When my family was young, I regularly made a ground beef and vegetable soup from Adelle Davis’s Let’s Cook It Right. I had almost forgotten about it until I started looking for ways to use some of the food already in our freezer. Suddenly, I remembered that soup and how much I liked the seasoning.

Then I had to find the cookbook. As you can see, I found it. It is missing its cover, the spine is crumbling and some of the pages are barely hanging on. Apparently, I really did cook from it.

This is the soup I fed my family, and I am going to begin making it again. I will make a few changes for the way Travis and I eat now. I plan to use only ¼ pound of lean ground beef instead of the one pound the recipe calls for.

Adelle Davis’s Ground Beef Vegetable Soup, Modified

Brown in a soup pot:

¼ pound lean ground beef

Add:

1 small can (about 8 oz.) tomato puree
1 clove garlic, minced
2 onions, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 potatoes, diced
1 teaspoon salt, or less
1 bay leaf
A pinch of marjoram, thyme or savory

Cover the pot and simmer until the vegetables are almost tender, about 10 minutes.

Add:

2 quarts low-sodium vegetable broth
½ teaspoon pepper

Taste and adjust the seasoning. Return the soup to a simmer and cook for another 25 to 30 minutes.

Some of Adelle Davis’s nutritional advice has held up better than other parts. That is true of almost every nutrition book, including the ones being written now. But this simple homemade soup still seems like a very good idea.

And finding it again feels a little like finding an old friend.