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 ...
My grandmother called those “toad-in-the-holes.”
Thanks, but no thanks. I try not to sell or give anything away that I myself feel is wrong. I would, though, like a hemp dress I saw in a hemp store but it was too expensive for my budget. I also have hemp protein in the frig right now and it is very good for you but a little hard to eat.
I have to laugh at the current bar food called “chicken fingers.” My grandmother used to cook the chicken feet in broth and give them to us as a treat.
You are so right. Isn’t this a nice change from all the politics and government corruption?
I am thinking of noodles, peas and bacon...My husband asked me to make it like MOM did. She told me how, but I never succeeded in making it as well..
I like to think it was because I just couldn’t serve bacon ends and pieces and with all the bacon fat left in the pot when the cooked noodles were added!
Memories are good tonight!
My dad had to walk miles, probably uphill both ways to the store to buy that block of ice and carry it home. He says. lol. Sometimes his stories would get a little far-fetched (especially when he drank) but at least they would still be entertaining.
Seems to me that you are a wealth of information. Do you have your own site?
History that might repeat itself fairly soon....
Sugar sandwiches also....just sugar on white bread. Hubby loved bacon grease on toast...This was at the tail end of depression, circa: early 1940's. dad was lucky and worked for the city as a mounted cop...the cities actually printed their own money called script. You would take the script and buy what you needed. The store would then turn in the script to the city to get paid in cash...Some stores wouldn't take script, so you shopped at the one's that would.
**If the SHTF, I wont be in near the trouble city folk will.**
Don’t bet on it! My deceased brother-in-law was raised on a ranch in West Texas. They kept a cellar full of home canned goods to feed themselves and the hired hands in the winter.
One day, during WWII someone dropped a dime on them and the government agents raided the ranch, claiming they were “food hoarding”.. They confiscated every bit of food they could and left them with nothing.
How did they survive? Back in the hills they had a second cellar hidden and it was full of home grown produce.
I made the mistake with my patch to mulch it one year to keep the weeds from growing. It killed the plants.
I miss my Memere. She taught me how to fish when I was 7. She was born in 1903. Every summer we used drive 14 hours to northern Maine and visit for a week. A very hardy lady who knew how to fish, farm and gather.
I still have my old ration book someplace. There was one book for every member of the family...mine still had some stamps in it.
You only got one chance to turn something to eat down in my dad's family. With 10 brothers and sisters, it you didn't eat it, someone else would.
tender greens from the dandylion would make a salad, men also found out how to make wine from them....
I bet there was a lot of trading back then, someone who didn’t need sugar trading it for something they did want.
that brings up the memory of toast cubed and soaked in warm milk...little salt and pepper...was tasty..
me too :-D. Great idea. Spoons up for Moms & Grandmas!!
Actually, I remember taking sandwiches to school that were made from most anything we might have had left over from the night before meal. We had bread with every supper so that whatever we ate would stretch to feed our very large family.
I hear that. My dad probably got taught a lesson because he was a small kid. He wasn’t getting anything else until he ate THAT meal. :p
Bookmarking.
I can’t thank you all enough for this thread. I miss my grandmother.
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