We are beyond excited to be welcoming our friend, Marco Canora to the Expert Advice with 4th & Heart blog series. As a James Beard award-winning chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author, Marco spends his time creating delicious, simple, and healthy food – much like us at 4th & Heart! Among Marco’s many other pursuits, he is also the founder of our favorite spot to grab a bone broth, Brodo. 

Our goal is always to show our readers and followers how easy it is to create nourishing meals made with real, whole foods that taste so good you’ll be coming back for seconds – by using Brodo and our delicious ghee in tandem, you’ll be half way there!

4th & Heart and Brodo products are truly a match made in culinary heaven! The ingredients used in both 4th & Heart Ghee and Brodo are sourced carefully to ensure the utmost quality, flavor, and nutritional density to help fuel your day. You can even combine the two to make a delectable bone broth latte that has all the protein and healthy fats you’d want in a meal, with all the ease and mobility of simply grabbing a cup of coffee. 

If you’ve lived in New York CIty in the past seven years, you’ve likely stopped by one of Brodo’s brick and mortar locations and walked away with a delicious, warming cup of Brodo – maybe you elected to add in a spoonful of ghee, parsley and lemon, or even blend in an egg yolk and some parmesan. 

We recently sat down with Marco to chat about all things bone broth – peruse our interview below to learn more about Brodo’s humble beginnings, why you should be drinking bone broth daily (bonus points if you add in a bit of ghee), and get an exclusive recipe to make the perfect Brodo at home to kickstart your day (P.S. – The recipe even includes our very own Original Recipe Ghee!)

So Marco, first of all, thank you for sitting down with us today! We wanted to start off by asking – how did Brodo come into being?

Brodo came into being after a firsthand account of just how impactful a daily broth habit was to my health. I had been grinding in NYC as a cook/chef for 20 years, and it destroyed me on many levels. It forced me to reevaluate my daily habits. At the time, I was drinking 5-6 quarts of coffee a day and one of my first changes was transitioning to broth after my morning quart of coffee. I certainly don't believe in the notion of “silver bullets” when it comes to one’s health...BUT, let's put it this way, its impact was strong enough to encourage me to launch the concept of Brodo.

Break it down for us – why should everyone be drinking bone broth?

I’ve got to preface my answer by stating that not all broths are created equally! The category has exploded over the past five or so years, and there are a myriad of “bone broth” products out there. Everything from bone broth powders to pastes, cubes, shelf-stable acidified liquids, and more. Brodo is different on many fronts, and I encourage you to learn more on our website (brodo.com).

With that out of the way, I think that everyone should be drinking Brodo for a myriad of reasons. First and foremost because it is absolutely delicious. It also happens to be a nutritional powerhouse, mostly due to the amino acid profile of the collagen protein. Properly made broth is high in glycine (calming, blood sugar regulating, digestive aid), glutamine (muscle protein building, metabolism boosting and gut healing) and arginine (improves blood flow and stimulates growth hormone) to name a few. It also contains electrolytes to keep you hydrated (even more so than a sports drink).

When it comes down to it, ghee and bone broth have so many similarities. They are both nutritional powerhouse products with so many amazing health benefits that the world at large is just now getting hip to! We know you love adding ghee into your morning cup of Brodo, but are there any other “secret sauce” add-ins or accouterments that you like to add to your cup? 

Lately, I’m obsessed with using a milk frother to buzz a whole egg yolk into a morning broth. I sometimes add a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon for a sweet spiced kick. Adding a spoonful of ghee is such a classic way to enjoy Brodo – that’s why we offer it as an add-on in our brick and mortar stores. Getting that extra dose of healthy fats can make all the difference in how full and satisfied I feel after a cup of Brodo, and it can add immense flavor as well.

And you can cook with it, too? 

Broth has been at the core of every chef’s kitchen since the advent of restaurants. As a matter of fact, the name “restaurant” comes from the notion of restoration and the first restaurant menus focused on...BROTH! Famous restaurateur Danny Meyer gave a great TED talk on this topic, if you’re interested.

Are there any diets that are particularly well suited to incorporating bone broth? 

Proper broth is suitable for every diet out there. It is low in calories, high in nutrition, and free of gluten, dairy, sugar and grains. I guess if you’re on a low FODMAP diet, then the onions in our broth may be problematic.

How can we purchase Brodo products if we aren’t local to NYC? 

We ship our broths to every state in the U.S. via brodo.com. Right now, we ship our four base broths: chicken, beef, vegan seaweed & mushroom, and our signature hearth blend. 

 

Want to join the revolution?!

I don’t know about you all, but we at 4th & Heart are excited by the promise of a broth revolution! Until then, let’s start small by incorporating Brodo and 4th & Heart Ghee into our routines day by day. After all, they do go together oh-so well. 

Don't forget to try our recipe for a MORNING PICK-ME-UP BRODO LATTE, a healthful, satisfying replacement for coffee we created in partnership with Marco.

 

About The Expert:

As a chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author, Marco Canora promotes delicious, simple, and healthy food. In addition to founding Brodo, he is the owner of Hearth in New York City and is a multiple James Beard award-winner, including for Best Chef NYC 2017. Marco is the author of several books, including Salt to Taste: The Key To Confident Delicious Cooking (2009), A Good Food Day: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great (2014) and Brodo: A Bone Broth Cookbook (2015).