Would You Share a Tasting Bone With Your Neighbors?
I cook chicken broth every week.
The process is not simple, if you consider I buy the whole free range chicken, separate the meat from the bones, store meat portions in the freezer for different days, cut the vegetables and boil it all for about 10 hours.
The complex process should make pretty obvious my love for chicken stock and traditional food.
Recently an older friend of the family told me what her grandparents used to tell her about the life in the Ecuadorian rural coast, over 100 years ago.
She told a story about a bone called the “tasting bone” (gustador, in Spanish), which would’ve been a large beef bone used to give a delicious taste to their broths. The interesting part is this bone was shared among the neighborhood’s households. The housekeeper would go to her neighbor’s and ask her for the “tasting bone”.
Listening to this story, my mom jumped to confirm that her grand-aunt, living in the countryside of the Ecuadorian high sierra used to share a beef bone with her neighbors as well.
I wonder what my neighbors would say if I suggested we get a tasting bone for the block?
Have you heard of any similar stories from your ancestors? I’d love to know more details on this practice. My mom supposes people might still do it in some countryside communities.
Please do share!
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Yes, I would share a bone with my neighbors. We get along great with our neighbors. We eat together, share a campfire, talk often, ask for ingredients, and share equipment (mower and attachments, snowblower, tiller, etc.) It is worth the time to care about someone and to share, even if I am “paying it forward” I know I will be blessed in return.
I cook two chickens at a time so I don’t need to make broth as often
Mindy, that’s awesome!
Where I live now it doesn’t seem that the neighborhood is interested in sharing anything. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice people but just too busy. Well, I’ve been here for about a month only, who knows…
So you must have a very large pot for cooking your chicken broth. I’d do two chickens at a time if I had the space to store it and the right size pot.