For a city once labeled “Tofu Town,” Boulder’s latest obsession is a far cry from vegetarian cuisine. These days, the soup du jour is bone broth, the product of simmering animal bones with vegetables for hours on end. Bone broth by the cup is a menu item at Blackbelly Market, Wonder Press, Flower Child, Skratch Labs Cafe and Just BE Kitchen.
At Boulder Broth, bones are the foundation Kirstine Raynor has built her entire business on. Raynor’s odyssey began in 2007 when she was recovering from a challenging childbirth and chronic back pain.
“I wanted to use bone broth to help heal myself, but I didn’t like any of the store broths,” she says. “I started making it for myself and my son so I knew where the ingredients came from.”
Friends and fellow patients started asking if they could get some of her collagen-rich broths. Raynor sold her product in Ball jars for two years before Boulder Broth officially launched in 2019.
“I was a struggling single mom. I had no money. I didn’t even have a pot to cook in,” Raynor says. “But people really needed the broth.”
Broth evangelist is the fifth career for Raynor, a Navy veteran who has also worked as a firefighter, mail pilot and makeup artist. So far, it’s been a successful one: Raynor’s broths are available at Cheese Importers, Lucky’s Market, Moxie Feed & Seed, Nude Foods, Mountain Fountain, Black Cat Farm Stand and the Boulder Farmers Market.
“A lot of people here are interested in health, whether they climb rocks or are battling chronic diseases,” she says. “Our customers include college and professional athletes. I supply a lot of pregnant moms, doulas and midwives. One of them told me she made bone broth pops for a mom who was in labor.”
The broths are cooked at a Longmont commercial kitchen and packaged frozen in BPA-free bags with a spout. These are not like those see-through broths packed in supermarket cans and boxes — some little more than salty flavored water.
When you thaw out a bag of beef Boulder Broth, it looks and ladles like cloudy Jell-o with a layer of fat on top. When warmed, it is a substantial, satisfying liquid meal.
“It’s a long process,” Raynor says. “Broth is slow-simmered for long periods of time, 24 to 72 hours. We use all the cartilage, and fat in the skin. That’s where the flavor is. At the end, we put all the bone marrow back into the broth,” she says. The bison broth takes about 100 hours to make from start to finish.
Digging up enough bones to make thousands of quarts of soup is an ongoing challenge for the company.
“I just sent someone to Montrose and Paonia to pick up 2,300 pounds of pastured bison and chicken bones,” she says. “It takes tons of high-quality bones to make a relatively small amount of good broth. It’s very expensive to make, but that’s what it takes.”
When Raynor launched Boulder Broth, her mission included supporting local regenerative ranchers and farmers. Longmont’s Buckner and Gramma Grass ranches supply beef knuckles, tails and necks.
“I guarantee my chicken farmer that I’ll buy all of his backs and necks,” Raynor says. “He’s over the moon that he’s getting money per pound for something that would normally be trashed.”
There are also broths for non-meat eaters: The vegetable broth includes beets, celery root, fennel, Swiss chard, lemons, apples, wheatgrass, kombu and herbs. The mushroom broth is made from 10 varieties of locally grown fungi, shallots, onions, garlic, pepper, astragalus, saffron and coconut oil.
Because the ingredients are sourced locally, the look and taste of her broths change subtly from season to season.
“The crops change depending on the weather,” she says. “Sometimes it’s not a good harvest year for certain things, and we adjust.”
Next up on her menu is a ready-to-heat seasonal autumn harvest soup made with roasted pureed squashes and root vegetables in broth.
“The veggies are sourced entirely from Boulder regenerative farms including Aspen Moon and Black Cat farms,” she says. “We get our carrots from Metacarbon Farm and shallots from Michelle Croft.”
While it may not be a magical cure-all, reputable health resources suggest that consuming high-quality bone broth can support hydration, spur tissue and bone growth and reduce joint inflammation.
Broth is also not a “new” prescription for health, according to Raynor.
Anthropologists suggest that bone broth may have been humankind’s first safe beverage; some form of it is served in almost every cuisine on earth. Chicken bone broth soup has long been hailed as “Jewish penicillin.”
“I love it so much,” Raynor says, sipping broth as she talks. “Broth soothes you and envelopes you. Sipping it is a safe feeling for me.”
Read more local food news from Boulder Weekly. John Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles on KGNU. Comments: [email protected]