Al Capone
notorious bootlegger, murderer, tax evader,
and proprietor of one of gangland Chicago's finest soup kitchens
where you might warm up with a bowl of Italian soup.
So thank you to Babbel for sponsoring this video as we make Scarface's Italian soup
this time on Tasting History.
So I just called Al Capone Scarface which was his nickname but
it was a nickname that he hated.
He was actually very sensitive about these scars on the left side of his face.
He told people that he got them in World War I but he didn't
because he didn't fight in World War I.
In truth he got them from Frank Galluccio who sliced them up real good
after Capone insulted his sister Lena who didn't acquiesce to Capone's advances.
The nickname he actually preferred even though it was a lot less intimidating was 'Snorky.'
Big Snorky at that.
But it was a third nickname that is germane to our episode today a nickname given to him in 1930 by the Chicago Crime Commission:
Public Enemy Number One.
Not a great name to have for someone who considered himself a man of the people
and so in November of that same year to boost his reputation
he opened a soup kitchen and on the very first day served 3,000 people.
Now he wasn't actually doing the serving but it was done in his name.
Now what they actually served that day we don't exactly know but
we do know it was probably pretty high quality.
25 years later at another soup kitchen in Chicago in 1955 a man was quoted as saying
"Say you, this here soup we get here isn't as good as the soup we used to get from Al Capone's soup kitchen on State street."
So to remember a soup 25 years after eating it it makes me think it was pretty good soup.
And while Big Al didn't write any recipes down himself
it is unsurprising that he was a big fan of Italian food
so I'm going to make an Italian soup from the period,
capiche?
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and let me know what language you want to learn because maybe that'll steer me in the direction of some new recipes
though today's recipe is an Italian recipe though it's actually in English
because it comes from one of the more popular Italian-American cookbooks from the time.
Jack Cusimano's 1917 'Economical Italian Cook Book
containing many new and delicious receipts and designed especially to meet the present high cost of living'.
Sounds like a cookbook that could still be useful today.
So for this recipe he says is to start off with a half an onion, two cloves of garlic, three leaves mint,
three sprays parsley, one spray rosemary, one spray thyme.
How much a spray is? I don't really know... I'm figuring it's like a sprig
because usually spray refers to like a small bunch of flowers,
and it doesn't really work for this so I don't know.
Either way he says to chop them all up really fine mix them together and then we're going to fry it all
with three tablespoons or 45 milliliters of olive oil and two pounds or one kilogram of beef stew meat.
So heat the olive oil in a pot and then add the onions and herbs as well as the meat,
and stir everything around until the meat is nicely browned takes about five to seven minutes.
Also nowhere in the recipe does he mention adding any salt or pepper so I would add some salt and pepper to the meat here.
Then he says to add two cans of tomatoes but my question is how big is a can of tomatoes or was a can of tomatoes at the time?
And I really don't know because I looked up tomato cans from the 1920s and 30's and
most but not all are one pound, three ounces
so if we're going with that two cans would be about a kilogram of tomatoes and I went with diced tomatoes.
Then once it's simmering cook 10 minutes. Then add four cups water. "Stew slowly half hour."
So you want it to be simmering and I would let it cook with the lid on.
Then once it's had its half hour of cooking he says to add six potatoes
which should be peeled and cut into pieces.
Then my favorite line from the recipe says to "cook until potatoes are done (delicious)."
And if my cookbook wasn't already at the printing stage of the process
I would go back and add little asides to the recipes like bake the hard tack until rock hard.
(Clack Clack)."
But at this point in the process I can't make any more changes to the recipes
so you'll have to write that in when you get a copy and if you want a copy you can pre-order it, comes out April 25th.
Links in the description or it's available wherever fine books are sold.
Now how long it takes for the potatoes to be cooked is kind of subjective and it really depends on what the potatoes are as well.
I want them soft but not mushy so it's going to take about 20 to 30 minutes,
more than enough time to see what it was like at Al Capone's soup kitchen.
1920 Chicago city of gin, Jazz, and spontaneous courtroom musical numbers.
Though it was the gin along with Canadian whiskey that concerned Mr. Al Capone because
"Nobody wanted Prohibition. This town voted six to one against it.
Somebody had to throw some liquor on that thirst. Why not me."
And so he kept Chicago furnished with booze and always provided a spot for
a game of cards, craps, or whatever else your chosen vice might be.
To most in Chicago Capone was lesser John Dillinger and more of a Nathan Detroit
or any one of the other lovable gangsters from Guys and Dolls.
Even the law didn't seem too keen on stopping Capone's dealings partly because
most of the judges and police were on his payroll and anyone who wasn't was his customer.
On top of that he was generous and earned a reputation for being kind of a modern day Robin Hood.
Some of the newspapers even called him that.
He was known for handing out hundred dollar bills as tips,
and one Newsboy remembered getting such a tip with Capone's instructions to go right home and give that money to your mother.
Who could hate such a guy I asked you.
Well there were people who hated him, mostly rival gangsters
like "Bugs" Moran head of the north side gang and it was their rivalry that led to a change in Capone's image as a stand-up guy.
On February 14 1929 in a Lincoln Park Garage two men dressed as police officers
took out their Thompson submachine guns, Tommy guns, and executed seven members and Associates of Bugs's gang.
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was headline news the following morning,
not just in Chicago but all over the country and while Capone was actually in Florida when the shooting happened
he was pinned as the mastermind and the person who ordered it,
and he quickly became a notorious household name.
"Probably no private citizen in American life has ever had so much publicity in so short a period."
And it was not good publicity and Capone felt himself rather ill-treated.
"The country wanted booze and I organized it. Why should I be called a public enemy."
It was the murders Al,
it was the murders.
And in the months following the Valentine's Day Massacre public opinion turned against Al Capone,
and so when he was arrested a few months later in Philadelphia for carrying a concealed revolver
he didn't seem to fight that hard to stay out of jail while things in Chicago blew over.
And to some degree they did blow over because in October of that year the Stock Market crashed
and the Great Depression set in giving newspapers something else to write about other than Capone.
And a few months later when he got out of jail and went back to Chicago He capitalized on those hard times
to revive his reputation.
So in November of 1930 he became the first individual citizen
to open up a soup kitchen to feed Chicago's unemployed,
and on the very first day alone 3,000 men lined up outside of 935 South State Street on 9th and State,
where a sign was hung up offering free soup coffee and donuts for the unemployed.
One thing that was conspicuously missing from the sign was the name of the person who was bankrolling the soup kitchen,
because supposedly Capone did not do this for the good publicity
but rather because "It would lighten the load for the regular charity rackets."
But despite this someone must have tipped off the press because just a week after they opened newspapers were printing headlines like
"Unemployed flock to Soup Kitchen run by 'Al' Capone."
"Uses profit of gambling to aid needy. Capone soup kitchen is feeding crowds."
And with his name now attached he had to make sure the place was on the up and up so
when a thousand turkeys went missing from a nearby storehouse just before Thanksgiving
he didn't want people to think that it was him so the Thanksgiving dinner at the soup kitchen
had no turkey, instead it was cranberry sauce and a beef stew
probably similar to the one that we're making today.
Though while he wanted everything to look like it was being done above board
it wasn't because yes Capone put in a lot of his own money,
but so did a lot of other people...
and a lot less willingly.
At Christmas that very first year a fleet of trucks filled with food arrived at the soup kitchen
and it was all thanks to state senator and Capone associate Daniel Serritella.
Apparently a number of stores in the area were under the impression that
Serritella could make their own troubles with the law disappear should they find it in their hearts to donate to the soup kitchen.
There were also a number of ducks that went missing.
They were meant for some some gift baskets for the poor around the holidays and they showed up at Capone's kitchen.
These ducks actually became the subject of a criminal investigation a couple years later.
"Witness traces duck to Capone's soup kitchen. [Phil D'Andrea], bodyguard for Al Capone,
is said to have diverted the ducks to a soup kitchen at which Capone was supposed to be donating meals to the poor."
And a lot of food was being donated to the poor, three meals a day coffee and pastries for breakfast
and then lunch and dinner was usually bread and soup of some kind.
30 pounds of coffee and 50 pounds of sugar were being handed out each day,
and the Chicago Tribune wrote that "120,000 meals are served by Capone Free Soup Kitchen."
So what if a handful of people had to get shook down every now and then for a few ducks...
or for $20,000.
"Barney Balaban of Balaban and Katz, owners of a movie chain, was approached for a donation to the soup kitchen.
Under pressure, he agreed to contribute $7,500. The shakedown team demanded $50,000;
then agreed to take $20,000."
And it was things like this that overshadowed the many good deeds and charitable works of one Al Capone.
As Judge John H. Lyle who presided over many of the high-profile cases involving Chicago gangsters said
"Capone's soup kitchen was a public relations ploy because he was under indictment for income tax evasion.
The kitchen was supplied by little ma and pa West Side grocery stores after a sales pitch by Al's musclemen.
Kindly Al would tip a hat check girl $10,
and would beat an old prostitute for holding out a buck.
Capone was noted for trading a bucket of Ashes for a bucket of coal any day."
And it's true, Al Capone was not a nice guy.
He did some nice things but he was not a nice guy,
but it didn't really matter because the soup kitchen did what it was supposed to do,
and not just feed the poor even though it did do that but it rehabilitated Capone's reputation
at least amongst much of the public.
In 1980 a man recollected "I am now 67 years old, and thank God there was an Al Capone 50 years ago.
At that time I was 17 with nowhere to go... My folks lost everything,
and their 10 children had to fend for themselves. I found Mr. Capone's soup line.
At least I didn't starve."
And even at his own trial for tax evasion, the crime which eventually put him in Alcatraz,
his soup kitchen was a topic of conversation even amongst the jurors.
One juror recollected that during deliberations he said "Capone hired men to bump off people."
To which another replied "But he'd done good things, such as supporting soup kitchens and helping the poor."
So say what you want about the guy Al Capone did run a soup kitchen,
a soup kitchen that may have served something like this Italian soup from 1917.
So once the potatoes are nice and soft the soup is ready to eat
though the recipe says that it "may be used over number 25 Cannaroni or number 26 Rigatoni with grated Roman cheese on top."
And at the beginning of the cookbook Cusimano shows what number 25 Cannaroni and number 26 Rigatoni look like.
Though the pasta numbering system either changed or was never standard because
I found some Rigatoni from De Cecco but it's a number 24,
and Jack Cusimano's number 24 pasta in 1917 was coiled Trinettine which frankly looks a lot more interesting,
but either way you can serve it with the pasta or you can serve it alone.
And here we are a 100 year old recipe for Italian soup that maybe possibly could have been served at Al Capone's soup kitchen.
It smells amazing, my house smells fantastic right now, and I can't wait to try it.
Here we go.
I mean that's just wonderful, it reminds me of my grandma's vegetables stew
which she used to always make. She wasn't Italian and it is different you know a few different things, but
a lot of these kind of meat stews are very very similar.
What makes this one different other than adding in the pasta is some of those herbs like mint I'm not getting a lot of it but
it's just a little bit different than than a lot of meat stews that you would get from-
for many other Midwest kind of place which is where my grandma's from.
This one definitely has more of an Italian influence and I think also it's the tomato.
I think next time I make it I'll make the pieces a little bit smaller because right now I couldn't get a piece of meat and potato,
and everything together because I just made them too big so cut them smaller.
Other than that I wouldn't change a thing. It's absolutely fantastic,
and I wouldn't worry really about the different quantities and stuff just kind of
[motions wildly]
put everything in there and let it stew. It's fantastic.
And if you're interested in more about Al Capone might I suggest
visiting the website myalcaponemuseum.com it's a fantastic site, the level of research that has gone into this
is wonderful and it dispels a lot of the myths about this most mythical of American figures.
So I'll put a link to that in the description along with a link
to Babbel and my cookbook as well as my socials,
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.