Posted on 11/18/2011 7:47:54 PM PST by blam
This Is What People Ate When They Had No Money During The Depression
Vivian Giang
Nov. 18, 2011, 12:25 PM
Image: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection
If you've ever visited anyone's house for dinner and a big, sloppy "secret family recipe" dish is flopped down in front of you, chances are high that the messy goodness could have originated from the Depression era.
Families were taught to creatively stretch out their food budgets and toast, potatoes and flour seem to be the popular, inexpensive ingredients. Expensive meat was typically eaten only once a week.
Some foods were invented during the Depression, such as spam, Ritz crackers, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Kraft macaroni and cheese, according to livinghistoryfarm.org.
We've compiled some simple, easy recipes from 90-something Clara who shares her childhood dining memories during hard times. They may help you save money during our own Recession.
Click here to see what people ate>
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
280 responses ... in seven hours ... overnight.
“280 responses ... in seven hours ... overnight.”
And not one mention of “Mormon Gravy” (aka: homemade glue)
I was just today, thinking which was worse a trip to the outhouse in July or January?
July. If it’s that cold, use the thundermug.
“All three of these plants are fundamentally what would be called “weeds” by most folks, but edible weeds, and highly nutritious”
My Mother said that during the Depression my Grandmother (Babcia) picked weeds and used them to make soup when there was nothing else to eat.
She said her mother would send her and her sibs out to get dinner. They would come back with numerous vegetation.
The mother would put it all in a pot with water and cook. She said it was the best food - so good she said. However, she has forgotten what vegetation was good to eat - a lost art.
I have heard that the Great Depression did not end here in the mtns until the 1960s.
Wow.
I used to get them up to 400-500 every now and again when I posted mostly anthropology/archaeology articles.
This response count is high for me these days though.
This was a frequently served meal in my house growing up. While I've also heard it called 'toad in a whole', for some reason, my mother called it 'egg with a hole in the middle'
Go figure.
You need to be very, very, very careful doing that.
Last year, there was a woman in Tacoma who did just that. She was some kind of recent Chinese or Filipino immigrant who spoke little or no English.
She must have been attracted to the smell, because the plant has a very savory odor that is very herb-like and would make one think it would be an excellent addition to a soup or salad.
It was the last soup she ever ate, because she put Hemlock in it, and Hemlock, even in very very small amounts is DEADLY DEADLY DEADLY!!!
Almost impossible to eradicate, grows in my garden right next to the carrots.
God bless you.
Actually - we ALL are.
I have been doing our family genealogy for decades - genealogy is mathematical - the only true science that man cannot bend. So when it comes to our ancestors, each of us have the same number - It took a lot of people to 'make YOU" ;o)
Did you know that when you get back to your 10th great-great grandparents that you have over 4,000 in that one line - and that many in the lines from you to them ergo, over 8,000 DIRECT ancestors in just that far back - about to the late 1500's.
Since the number in each generation back DOUBLES, you can see how that explodes - just 5 more generations back and THAT line alone has over 130,000. Now, It is calculated that by the time we get back to the 33rd generation, every man, woman and child on earth will find common ancestors - ergo: we are ALL, literally, cousins. So why can't we get along! ;op) (I'm also a writer so when you scratch me with just about any word, I'm off and running. 
Now, you don't have to get very far back before you discover fascinating, and likely famous, people in your 'background. And in the search, you learn a lot of history. (But if you haven't been involved in genealogy before - be WARNED! It's addictive. But a great way to spend the long winter hours.)
When my parents were just married (in the late 60s) my grandmother (father’s mother) stopped in while my mother was cooking dinner. She saw that my mother was cooking a fish soup that my father liked. The next day Grandma came back with bags and bags of groceries. My mother had no idea why she had done this until my father came home and told her that fish soup was apparently something the family had eaten when times were tough and feeding the 8 kids was difficult. Since they lived almost right on the lake the fish were free and they ate them almost every day when times were tough. My father still loves it though.
When my wife and I were first married I was working at a meat packing plant. I had just finished a 12 hour shift and came home to see my wife making a stack of sandwiches. I asked who they were for. She pointed to the back door where I saw a line of homeless guys waiting for her sandwiches.
Apparently she started off giving one guy a sandwich and within a few days she was feeding a dozen or so. I was busting my ass 12 hours a day so she could feed these guys.
Sigh.
I just made some tomato gravy and cornbread. It’s cold here in the NC mountains this morning, so I added cayenne to the gravy. Absolutely perfect.
You do NOT, first off, let it be known you even have the first 'hoard." - because they WILL clean you out in one hour - and it IS in the Marital Law 'laws' that they CAN swoop down on you, who are now not a 'storer' of foods, to an "illegal hoarder."
It's also wise to know how to forage wild plants in you area and what edible foods you can grow in plain site that people won't have a clue about.
One example: Sun Choke, mis-named "Jerusalem Artichoke." They're like a small potato. They're perennial - only have t plant 'em once and they spread like wildfire. Plant a few - AWAY from your gardens - where they will look like just a weed. They above ground plant grows 4-5' and has small yellow flowers that look like small sunflowers, with the seeds. The tubers - "tiny potatoes" are very nutritional and would go a long ways towards staving off starvation.
There are also ways to store secret stashes in your house. Back in the middle ages, people used to hide, for example, protestants, from the "inquisition police" under the stairs: They put a unit of 2-3 stairs on hinges (inside hinges that couldn't be seen on the topside.) You simply lifted up these stairs like a door and, voila, a secret hidey hole. 
A couple good dogs, a few "weapons" are also good to have around - and motion detectors. Dogs and motion detectors are a great warning system and a deterrent.
I remember going to church as a kid and many of the “old ladies” there were very, very short. I asked my mom why and she told me they had been malnourished when they were kids. That sure made me appreciate dinner that night.
>>I have been doing our family genealogy for decades -
I stopped looking at my family tree when I found one relative hanging by his neck and another by his tail.
Summer was much worse because of the Black Widow Spiders and RATTLESNAKES! We used the Thunder Bowl in the winter as stated in a reply below. I never gave a second thought to the fact that the out house was less than 50 feet from the well with the hand pump.
Now I have to go back and read the other 250 posts...
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