Great Depression Cooking: Cream Of Celery Soup With Spinach Pesto

During the 1930’s Americans sought to escape the horrors of the Great Depression by listening to the radio or spending a dime to go to the movies. Around 60-80 million people went to the movies every week.

The most popular films during the era were ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939), ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937), ‘King Kong’ (1933), the ‘Wizard of Oz’ (1939) and ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington’ (1939) or simply the classic movies is how we remember them by.

Mickey Mouse was an extremely popular character since he first appeared on television right before the great depression in 1928.

Housewives made a lot of “comfort” soups, usually creamed or with canned proteins. Today we are going to make an easy cream of celery soup.

Pro Tip: just like tomato bisque, it needs to be processed through the sieve (the old way) or you can puree it in a blender (modern way).

Serving size:

4 servings

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of cut celery

• 1 tbsp of butter

• 1 tbsp of flour

• 2,5 cups of milk

• 1 cup of spinach

• 1/4 cup of vegetable oil

• 1 clove of garlic

• 30g of any nuts

• Salt

• Pepper

Nutrition:

• 308 Calories

• 26.3g Fat

• 13g Carbs

• 2.4g Fiber

• 7.6g Protein

Method:

Boil celery stalks until very tender and drain.

Melt butter in a saucepan with flour, slowly adding milk.

Cook until slightly thick.

Rub celery through the sieve or puree in a blender.

Add celery to the milk mixture and cook over low heat for 10 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste

Cook spinach in boiling water for 1-2 minutes and put into ice cold water.

Mix spinach with vegetable oil, nuts and garlic, and puree in a blender.

Plaiting:

Pour soup into a bowl and add a few ball drops of spinach pesto over the top. Decorate with freshly ground black pepper.