This Is What People Ate When They Had No Money During The Depression

TBI ^ | 11-18-2011 | Vivian Giang

[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>

[goat granny]

another reason the population is so low is out west the introduction of wolves take a lot of deer and elk. Here in Michigan, we still have lots. I have them out in my clearing eating the apples that fall off the old apple tree’s. Apples aren’t good for anything except deer. Only saw a live buck once, its usually female’s with young, sometimes last years young un will travel with mom and her new one...

[goat granny]

I love your mom....:O)

[goat granny]

***People can eat goats.***

signed Goat Granny....:O(

[org.whodat]

My childhood friends father had a syrup house, I helped make syrup for years, my friend still makes it every winter. The only time he missed was the two years he spent in a hell hole in Asia.

[bgill]

I know you weren’t. It just ticks me off that Waco will forever have a black eye over this.

I just posted on another thread about how useless the police are even in the simplest crimes. But then, if only they would consistently be useless instead of twisting stories around and ruining innocent people’s lives and causing suicides over the lies they spread to the media. And yes, even out in Podunkville, they like taking pictures of themselves in their little ninja costumes. If/when it does HTF, it’d be easier to reason with the mad max gangs than rabid cops.

[GeronL]

was it used as a clubhouse (or a fort) the rest of the year?

[bert]

Rolled Kudzu Leaves

Kudzu Leaves
1 can diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
3 cloves garlic, cut in half
Juice of 3 lemons
Soup bones (optional)

Gather about 30 medium size young kudzu leaves. ( The very big ones have tough center and radiating stem veins ) . Make sure area has not been sprayed with chemicals to kill the kudzu.

Wash leaves. Drop into salted boiling water. Boil a 2-3 minutes, separating leaves.. Remove to a plate to cool. Remove heavy center stems from the leaves by using a knife and cutting down each side of the stem to about the middle of the leaf. Push cut together and fill with 1 teaspoon stuffing and roll in the shape of a cigar. Place something in bottom of a large pan so that rolled leaves will not sit directly on the bottom of the pan. I use a round rack that came with my pressure cooker. Soup bones work great.

Arrange kudzu rolls alternately in opposite directions. When all are in the pot, pour in a can diced tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of salt, and 3 cloves of garlic, cut in half. Press down with an inverted dish and add water to reach dish. Cover pot and cook on medium for 30 mins. Add lemon juice and cook 10 mins. more.

Stuffing

1 cup rice, rinsed in water
1 pound ground lamb or lean beef.
1 cup canned diced tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and mix well.

[MinuteGal]

When the smelt were running in Lake Michigan they could be bought for 10 cents a pound, sometimes 5 cents.

Mom would bread 'em and fry 'em....then serve them, crusty and delicious, complete with the heads.

Nobody ate the heads though....not with those little eyes looking at you.

Leni

[GeronL]

rabid cops being paid in worthless scrip eyeing the goodies on your farm/in your cellar.

[GeronL]

whats wrong with apples?

:)

[ex-snook]

“I grew up calling the refrigerator an “ice box””

---

I grew up in NYC calling it an ice box because there were no refrigerators! The iceman would carry a piece of ice up our stairs [sometimes 1 floor, sometimes 4] I think he was paid 25 cents for it. In the winter he would carry up some coal. We slept next to the stove. Stuff to be kept cold was outside on the window sill, the milk would push the cream out the top of the bottle. Now we call it the fridge. Hey it even gives us cubes. Who would have thunk it?

[bert]

I bought 5 maple tree taps on e bay and began to make maple syrup. I have one maple tree that produces 8 to 10 gallons of sap per day. I boil it on a camp stove hooked to my grill propane tank.

Ten gallons yields 1 quart of syrup. It is perhaps the best result for the least effort I know of.

[GeronL]

beady little eyes just saying “Please don’t eat me”...

[GeronL]

I’ve seen pictures of tree taps with buckets hanging under them. Let the tree taps do all the work! I guess that allows the humans to spend that much more time hunting or other things.

It would upset the luddites who think you’ve just 5 munchkins out of jobs. lol.

[org.whodat]

Dang good isn’t it. We never had a syrup house, but my mom said she make in a big cast pot in the fire place. My friend. Built a new house a few years back, all stainless steel but he still uses wood. He has thousands of feet of pipe sap lines run to big 300 gal tanks, and he just drives his truck by and pumps it into the truck tank. When I was a kid we collected sap in an an old truck using buckets and milk cans. We would go to school and come home and collect sap until midnight. Cold and hard work but we were having fun I drove my old ford tractor down to his place.

[bgill]

Well, that obviously wasn't me. When I had to do home visits, I never said a word about out of season critters hanging in the back or hastily shoved in the freezer (like that wasn't the first place I'd look). It was food, so all was good and to heck with nosey neighbors and Gladys Kravitzs of the world.

I'll never forget one visit I made to a, uh, working gal's house. I told her (loudly enough for the lump under the covers to hear) I'd give her until 4 to get food in the fridge and the porch fixed. I drove by there every couple hours and just laughed. She had all her, uh, male friends there not only fixing the porch and bringing in armloads of food but putting in new windows, fixing the roof, and hauling out trash. I delayed as long as possible so finally stopped in at 7 and there was still one older, uh, gentleman hanging the back door. I never said a word to him or asked how she managed to get the house in order so quickly. There must have been some bartering going on after that because she was never reported again. The kids ended up mainly at the grandma's so that was the best to be expected.

[SandwicheGuy]

I stopped looking at my family tree when I found one relative hanging by his neck and another by his tail.

Now that there is funny! Thank you for that. I'll claim this as my own but in deference to you I'll use it sparingly.... grin.

[goat granny]

LOL if you saw them you wouldn’t eat them. Ancient tree’s apples full of worms, never get sprayed and when they mature the are smaller than lemons....Had a guy come out to trim one for production. Said the apples would be great. That tree doesn’t even produce anymore...deer get protein with apples. Bugs must be tasty, they clean up all of them...

[bgill]

Maybe not maple syrup but we have lots of honey bees, yum! That’s another thing I freaked out about having to buy from a store the first time. Back in the day, most of everything we ate was homegrown by us or we traded for what the neighbors had. Friends ran a honey business so we didn’t have to buy it from a store.

[GeronL]

You had cool friends. Mine are all bums. heh