WHEN IT COMES TO FOOD, BONE BROTH IS ABOUT AS ELEMENTAL AS IT GETS. IT IS THE ORIGINAL SOUP, MADE FROM THE LEFTOVERS OF WHATEVER ANIMALS OUR ANCESTORS HAPPENED TO HUNT DOWN ON A PARTICULAR DAY. FOR OUR CAVEMAN COUSINS, MAKING BROTH FROM AN ANIMAL’S BONES WAS NOT ONLY A WAY TO FULLY UTILIZE A PRECIOUS RESOURCE BY SQUEEZING OUT EVERY LAST OUNCE OF ITS ENERGY AND NUTRIENTS, BUT ALSO A WAY TO ADD FLAVOR AND BULK TO OTHER FOODS.

Traditionally bone broth is made by simmering animal bones and meat in water for many hours over low heat to extract the nutrients and flavor from the marrow, cartilage, and bones themselves. In fact, that’s just how our Paleo ancestors made it. In modern times, a medley of chopped carrots, celery, onions, and herbs—what the French call mirepoix—is added to the water with the purpose of making the end product more fragrant, and tasty, and to round out its nutritional profile with plant-based nutrients.

Most Americans associate broth only with soups and stews, but broth is the linchpin of traditional dishes in almost every culture, from Russian borscht and Vietnamese pho, to Irish shepherd’s pie—and everything in between. Italians, who call their broth brodo, depend on it for risotto and fresh-stuffed pasta, among dozens of other dishes. Many mom-and-pop restaurants all over the world are still fueled by huge kettles of broth simmering over an open flame in the backroom.

BONE BROTH AROUND THE WORLD

Italy

BRODO: An essential ingredient in everything from risottos and tortellini to minestras and zuppas.

France

BOUILLON: The basis for almost all cooking, flavoring, and sauce in French cooking, and a critical ingredient in three of the five “mother sauces” from which all other sauces descend.

Germany

BRÜHE: Used in soups, stews, potato salad, and Germany’s famous flädlisuppe, a broth served swimming with German-style pancakes cut into thin strips.

Vietnam

CANH: The soul of Vietnamese pho, and the star of countless other noodle, soup, and egg dishes.

China

RÒU TĀNG: The star ingredient in classics such as hot-and-sour soup and egg drop soup, broth also plays a supporting role in stir-fry dishes, braises, and sauces.

Thailand

A SUP: Used in many Thai dishes, from the spicy-sour tom yum soup to noodle favorites like pad thai and pad see ew.

Mexico

CALDO: A central ingredient in signature soups such as menudo, and posole, and an important part of various rice and bean dishes as well.

Slow-cooked stock serves as a key component for three of the five “mother sauces” of French classical cuisine, which in turn provide the basis for virtually all other sauces. The philosophy of traditional French cooking is that after mastering these basics, an accomplished cook can easily execute the thousands of sauces derived from them. In fact, the legendary French chef, restaurateur, food writer, and sauce master Auguste Escoffier is famous for putting bone broth in practically everything he made. In his 843-page masterpiece published at the turn of the twentieth century, Le Guide Culinaire, “stock” is referenced a total of 293 times.

“Indeed, stock is everything in cooking,” he wrote in the first chapter of the book. “Without it, nothing can be done.” Escoffier believed that if you made a good bone broth, the rest of the cooking process would be a cinch. “If, on the other hand, it is bad or merely mediocre,” he wrote, “it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result.”

So while other chefs were tossing out tendons, knuckles, celery tops, and ugly carrot pieces, Escoffier was throwing them into a stockpot where they would simmer into a marvelous backdrop for his culinary exploits. Escoffier had discovered that through denaturing, or breaking down proteins by simmering them for long periods of time, he could achieve that mysterious and elusive fifth taste in his dishes known today as “umami.” Umami, the Japanese word for “delicious,” is not salty, sweet, sour, or bitter. It is an altogether different and, for most people, desirable taste that coats the tongue with a mouthwatering smoothness and is often described as “brothy” or “meaty.” We taste umami through our tongue receptors for L-glutamate, an amino acid found in foods such as meat, fish, cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes, and—of all things—breast milk.

But in the early 1900s, Japanese scientists found a shortcut way to replicate umami without the nutritional benefits of broth by isolating the salt form of glutamate, called monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Soon food manufacturers and restaurants began seasoning their dishes with MSG instead of broth, and we got one step further from using this healthful and delicious ingredient in our daily lives.

TRICKING THE TONGUE WITH MSG

Since the 1960s, most commercial broth manufacturers in the United States have achieved the umami taste in their products by seasoning them with monosodium glutamate, or MSG. MSG is produced by fermenting starch, sugar beets, sugar cane, or molasses to fully break down their proteins into free amino acids. When used to season other foods, it can trick the tongue into thinking it is tasting savory meat.

While the Food and Drug Administration considers MSG to be “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), its use is still controversial. Many people report experiencing headaches, flushing, numbness, tingling, weakness, nausea, and similar symptoms after eating food seasoned with it. In her book Deep Nutrition, Dr. Cate Shanahan affirms that certain free amino acids, when consumed in large quantities and outside of their normal nutritional context, can wreak havoc on our nervous system. Glutamate is one of the most powerful of these free amino acids that can cause temporary memory loss, migraines, and more if we eat too much of the artificially produced stuff.

The good news is that any cook can give her dish a pleasing umami quality with safe quantities of naturally occurring glutamate and its proper nutritional complements, by simply adding traditional bone broth.

DILUTED BY CONVENIENCE

Unless you grew up raising and eating your own animals or have experience in a professional kitchen, it’s probably safe to say that you’ve never properly made a bone broth or stock. Most people’s exposure to broth is limited to the rectangular cartons they grab at the corner store. Once upon a time, you were more likely to find broth—or at least the components of it—at the butcher’s shop rather than on a dusty shelf at the 7-Eleven. In the rush to industrialize and commercialize food, the art of making one of the most basic and essential ingredients to all of cooking fell by the wayside. That is especially true in America, where processed and packaged foods dominate the marketplace, and convenience is king.

Before factory farming, animals were raised locally and slaughtered by a butcher. We knew where our meat came from and how it was raised, and we used every part of the animal—giving us a much deeper appreciation for and connection with our food. For more than half a century now, though, we’ve walked into our grocery stores to buy steaks and chicken breasts in individual Styrofoam packages neatly sealed with plastic wrap. As a result, bones, joints, and organ meats have disappeared from our view and our diets, taking with them one of the most nourishing and versatile real foods available to us. Broth would be extinct already were it not for the anachronistic souls in kitchens across the world and professional chefs who recognize the rich flavors and textures broth can add to their dishes.

The simple but patience-required art of brewing broth makes it one of the slowest foods our ancestors ever dreamed up. And in a culture where time is money, few companies have invested in making real broth. The “stock” you buy in the store contains so little real animal product that the USDA doesn’t even regulate it. The small amounts of bone used to make it are boiled for short periods of time at high temperatures—just long enough to extract a tiny bit of flavor, but not long enough to extract any real nutrients from the bones. Then sodium and preservatives are added to make the “broth” shelf-stable and add the illusion of flavor. Bouillon, a dehydrated reduction of these concoctions, bears even less resemblance to the simmering sublimity that used to be the pride of home cooks the world over. Every time you buy and cook with boxed stock or broth, you’re being cheated out of an opportunity to nourish your body and restore your digestive system (more on that in Chapter 2).

Bone broth certainly isn’t the only victim of our food culture, which sacrifices quality on the altar of speed, profit, and easy access. But if we are going to reclaim our food supply, it makes sense to start with this most basic ingredient by committing to use it again only in its wholesome and original form. Bone broth used to be the base of almost every dish at the table of our ancestors. By adding it back into our daily consumption, we can make a quick and inexpensive change with potentially big payoffs for our planet, our palates, and our physical well-being. It doesn’t get much more sustainable than nose-to-tail cooking.

Chefs at farm-to-table restaurants focused on sustainable food practices are leading a modern resurgence to use every part of the animal. This allows us to get the protein we need without having to consume as much meat as we otherwise might. And for home cooks, using the whole animal offers an opportunity to stretch family food budgets and use the vegetable odds and ends we usually throw away. Like Escoffier, we, too, can transform our meals from average to amazing by taking advantage of ordinary kitchen scraps. It is possible to create restaurant-quality dishes at home with little to no extra effort—just by substituting bone broth where you would normally use water. In most cases, it truly is that easy.

Nutrition experts point out that organs from organically raised and grass-fed animals are some of the most nutritious foods you can eat, especially when you break them down into a more bioavailable form for your body to absorb. The process of slow cooking does just that. Consuming organ meats and extracting nutrients from animal bones has largely fallen out of favor in the West as a result of a food industry that raises animals in enclosed spaces on a diet of veterinary drugs. But as more farmers turn away from industrial farming and head back to basics by raising their stock (pun fully intended) without all the hormones and antibiotics, organ meats and bone broths are returning to the table.

Millions of Americans are rediscovering that bone broth is not only an easy way to get minerals and other essential nutrients into our bodies, but also a tasty tradition. And despite modern food manufacturers’ best efforts, there is no shortcut that will produce a substitute with the same nutritional value and complex, satisfying flavor of real bone broth simmered in the traditional way: low and slow.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

If you picked up this book with the hope of discovering the secret powers of broth, learning how to make it yourself, and figuring out just what to do with it, we’ve got good news for you: you’ve come to the right place.

First, this book is all about helping you understand and embrace the nutritional benefits of this ancient staple of health and wellness.

Second, we are here to dispel any myths and quell any fears you may have about making bone broth at home. Simmering a pot of bones and some vegetables didn’t intimidate our ancestors, and it shouldn’t intimidate us. And while it may be pricey to buy premade bone broth because of the time it takes to produce, it is dirt cheap to make at home. You don’t have to go into hock to produce a broth as rich and delicious as anything you could find at the hippest nose-to-tail restaurant. We’ll show you how. We promise, it’s not rocket science.

Third, you are about to discover more than 100 ways bone broth can be used to enhance virtually any meal. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner; sweet and savory; we’ve got you covered.

If that’s not compelling enough, here are a few reasons why you should keep reading.

5 REASONS TO COOK WITH BONE BROTH

1 It’s easy.

   Bone broth is simple to make and very difficult to mess up. If you have a slow cooker or stockpot and 30 to 45 minutes, you have all you need to begin reaping the benefits of broth.

   Once made, it’s even easier to incorporate into any meal of the day.

   It’s easy to use, store, and reuse whenever you need it. It can be frozen until needed, or reduced and concentrated to take up less space (just add some water to reconstitute it before using!).

2 It’s fun.

   Just like it’s fun to can your own pickles or make your own bread, there is something deeply pleasurable and satisfying about creating this simple, rustic food. There’s something to be said for the connection we feel to our heritage when standing over a pot of simmering bone broth.

   It’s also fun to appreciate and acknowledge where food comes from. In today’s world it’s difficult to stop and show gratitude for the food that fuels us. By getting in the kitchen and putting our hands on bones that once carried a life, we can slow down and truly appreciate all that goes into putting food on our plate. It’s the definition of “feel-good” food.

3 It’s downright good for you.

   Bone broth contains the building blocks of life in a form our bodies can readily and easily absorb, including arginine, glycine, proline, glucosamine, and, of course, loads of gelatin.

   Broth aids in digestion by drawing digestive juices and enzymes in your stomach to the food it’s trying to break down. Anything that can aid in digestion is a good thing.

   Study after study shows that the naturally occurring gelatin in stocks and bone broths can heal the gut, strengthen bones, and give us healthier and better-looking skin, hair, and nails.

   The protein found in stocks and bone broths can aid in muscle recovery as well as speed the recovery from pregnancy, wounds, surgery, and chemotherapy.

4 It’s responsible and sustainable.

   It’s responsible not only to use the entire animal but also to get as much out of it as we can. By using parts of the animal that are generally discarded, we are supporting responsible and sustainable food pathways.

   By simmering the bones for up to two days, we can extract as many nutrients from the animal as possible into an easy-to-consume and easy-to-absorb liquid.

   It’s sustainable to support a food system that humanely raises animals.

5 It makes everything taste better.

   From flavor to mouthfeel and texture, stocks and bone broth bring more pleasure to eating while avoiding unnecessary additives. These extra dimensions will take any dish to the next level.

   Great cooks have always had a secret ingredient to make any dish stand on its head: stock and bone broth. When you cook with it, your family and friends will beg you for your recipes.

   Take a page from the professional chef playbook: anytime a recipe calls for water, substitute bone broth instead!