White Beans & Escarole

Things are getting noticeably more expensive lately aren’t they. Inflation is rearing its ugly head again. I say “again” because I’ve seen this before.  If you live long enough, you will probably see this more than once yourself.

If you are under the age of 40 then settle in boys and girls, you are about to get a first-person account history lesson.

In 1978 I was in my freshman year of college. The Bee Gees were topping the charts with one falsetto hit after another. Gasoline prices were about sixty-seven cents per gallon (where I lived) if you can believe that.

I had a white 1969 Volkswagen Beetle – stick shift. The real deal. The little lawnmower engine in the back and the trunk in the front. I paid $200 for it two years earlier with money I had earned washing dishes at a local diner for $2.30 an hour and all the fountain soda I could drink. Life was good.

A little over a year later gas prices soared to over a dollar a gallon. We thought the world was coming to an end. This, my young friends, is known as the historic “gas crisis” of the 1970s. You probably read about it in high school. I lived through it.

When fuel prices go up the price of just about everything else goes up too. That’s what happened then and that’s what’s happening now. In fact, it was worse then, because in addition to inflation the economy was also in a recession, an economic state known as “stagflation.” Prices going up, jobs going down. Not a good time. But at least there was no pandemic.

Now the leader of the free world in 1978 was President Jimmy Carter. He was a nice man with a nice smile. Still is. Aside from being a likeable old gent who knew a lot about peanuts* he didn’t appear to bring many other skills to the White House. Did you know that they named a beer after his brother Billy? Billy Beer. I don’t know of anything named after poor old Jimmy.

To combat the gas crisis, Carter lowered the speed limit on the nation’s highways to 55 MPH. I think that’s about all he did. It didn’t work. So the states started gas rationing programs, something we hadn’t experienced since World War II.

First a 5-gallon limit at the pumps. But that didn’t work out so well because most cars back then were big square rolling elephants that guzzled gasoline like it was Miller beer. The 5-gallon limit was short-lived, but while it was around, we learned a few new things. 

The word “siphoning” entered into our daily vernacular.

We learned it’s best to put a Master Lock on the shed door lest someone slips in at night and  steals your gallon can of lawnmower gas.

Purchasing a locking gas cap for your car from the auto parts store was your best investment in 1978. The caps came with little silver keys.

Next they put in place a staggered system. If your license plate ended in an odd number you could get gas on odd numbered days and even numbered plates on even numbered days – as much gas as you wanted. There weren’t too many vanity plates back then, you know like you see today – (TERMN8R) so this system worked out quite well.  Doubt that it could be employed now.

Eventually the gas crisis went away. Our current crisis will go away too. Bad times go away. Good times go away. The American economic and political cycles are very much like a pendulum. Like I said, if you live long enough, you’ll see it all again. I hope you see it all again.

And don’t despair. We here at Povertystew will continue to crank out budget friendly recipes to get us through these troubling times like this super budget friendly recipe – White Beans & Escarole.

Need This
4 – 15-ounce cans of white cannellini beans (store brand is fine)
1 large head of Escarole
2 cups of shredded carrots 
1 quart of chicken broth
4 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Salt
Ground black pepper
1 loaf of French bread (optional)

Do This
Chop off the bottom core of the escarole.

Fill a large bowl with clean cold water.  Dunk the escarole into the water completely submerging all the leaves.

Remove the escarole from the water. Throw the water off, rinse out the bowl and fill it again. Repeat the process two more times.

Open the 4 cans of white cannellini beans and dump them into a colander. Rinse the beans thoroughly with clean cold water. allow the beans to sit in the colander and dry off a little.

Pour a couple of glugs of olive oil into a large frypan.

Slice the garlic up into thin slices and add it to the pan with the olive oil

Put a medium heat under the pan and fry the garlic until golden in color.

Add the escarole and shredded carrots to the pan and continue to fry until the escarole becomes tender and dark green in color.

Add the beans and then the chicken broth to the pan. Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Bring the pan to a low simmer. Continue to simmer the beans and escarole, uncovered, for 30 – 40 minutes stirring occasionally.  The more you simmer it the thicker it will become.

Remove from heat and serve hot in shallow serving bowls with a little olive oil drizzled over top.

If you want to heft up the servings, cut slices of French bread into two-inch slices. Toast the French bread slices until golden then rub a cut garlic clove over the toasted sides. Place the garlic bread onto the serving bowl first then ladle the beans and escarole over top.

Serves 4. My cost approx $9.32 total -about $2.33 per serving (sans the bread)

*Did you know that a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut? It is a legume. A close cousin to the Lima bean. I’ll bet Jimmy Carter knows that. GMN