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 ...
Krispy kremes? Yum!
I wish I had recorded all of my dad’s stories about growing up in the depression/WW2 era. The whole family picked cotton during some points.
No! Get your fish fresh. Sure, it might cost about $7 a pound but worth it. Set oven for 350 degrees, pour some olive oil on the bottom of a baking dish and then toss in the fish. Top with a few spices and drizzle more olive oil on top. Then bake for exactly 21 minutes. Remove from oven and begin to eat.
Remember when the Hudson river used to be clean? That is a huge amount of water right there. Ever travel over the Tappan Zee or the George Washington bridge? You are driving at least a mile and a half just to get across the river. A lot of water and a lot of fish.
Fish and olive oil. Very good for you.
Creamed chipped beef......or as we called it.....sh*t on a shingle.
The sad looking fish on the sign is funny.
During the worst of it, my father’s family ate cucumbers, mustard sandwiches, and hot milk and rice gruel. My mother’s family was better off because they ate cracked eggs that they couldn’t sell.
Lordy that picture is cute.
Here in the Florida panhandle, several animals were just about made extinct. Deer, Wild Turkey, Gopher Tortoise (Hoover Chicken), even alligators.
All of them except the Gopher have made spectacular comebacks and even the Gopher is not really in danger.
Add Tabasco.
Then, it's not only good for you, it's edible.
Well, they figured out how to do stuff with nothing, and she continued the tradition so I got to learn about these dishes.
Several years back a lady at the office who worked with charitable groups in some of the bad spots in DC needed some recipes.
She asked me for some help ~ I think the Lord led her to me because I whipped up a couple of dozen.
One was for folks with one pot. One large potato. Water. Salt and maybe pepper. They could use cheap hamburger. You cut it all up. Cooked the potato. Crumbled in the hamburger.
The charitable group (a multi-denominational rescue operation for the poorest of the poor) got donors, they got the stuff, they had well over 100 children do just that dish.
I was humbled by the response and in awe of my grandmother who turned that into Sunday dinner every week.
I’m already planning for the coming season...
This year, I grew New Zealand spinach. Took a while for it to get started, but once it got going, it was pretty prolific. I harvested lots of spinach and lots of seeds...
I recently ordered and got golden purslane seeds. Also, a type of what’s called “purple spinach”. Will try to get them started as soon as it warms up a bit.
All three of these plants are fundamentally what would be called “weeds” by most folks, but edible weeds, and highly nutritious.
Of course I have tons of cabbage seeds, broccoli seeds, onions and dried peas from this year...
I was thinking of that too. haha. I know that came from that era!!
I know from my grandparents that they ate lard on bread rather than butter because lard was very cheap.
mustard sandwiches,
My Mother also ate these with her 10 person family. When we were younger, she wanted our family to sorta experience what they did so that we appreciated what we ate. BIG PROBLEM THOUGH......We loved them. lol.
Bacon grease sandwiches. My grandmother got sent out to work and live with another farm couple because her folks couldn’t feed all the kids. The woman she worked for would inspect her potato peelings to make sure none of them would snap or she would get in trouble for wasting potatos.
My grandmother made sugar sandwiches for the unemployed men who came to the door in Omaha.
We all had hot dogs and baked beans every Saturday night.
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