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 ...
Corn mush made with water and salt for breakfast.
Leftover corn mush fried up in a little lard for supper.
Cooked rice fried up with a little lard for a change.
Add a little squirrel meat if you have it.
Or cooked rice in a bowl with a little milk and sugar when you have it.
Hard times for many didn’t ease off until the 1950’s where I grew up.
For some others, hard times never did ease off.
I still know hard working prideful people who don’t have much but will not take government handouts, food stamps, etc.
A lot like what my Grandma fed us as kids called milk toast. Toast with milk on it, sugar and maybe some cinnamon. She also made grout which is made with milk thickened quite a bit with flour than served with milk, sugar and cinnamon on it. Very good and out of Norway.
I saw a local story about the landfills around here being home to nocturnal hordes of wild pigs. Sounds like a good place to trespass if it gets bad.
Herbert Hoover 1928:
“a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”
My mother grew up in a mining town in northern WV in the 1950’s.
Most evenings, they would have potatoes or beans, with meat reserved for the weekends or special occasions.
When Grandma peeled the potatoes, she’d set the peels aside. In the morning, she’d fry them and put them on bread to make a “potato peel sandwich” which my grandfather would take to work for lunch.
I’ve heard stories that most people in WV never noticed the depression, because nothing really changed here.
What’s funny is while my wife looks down her country club nose at my Dad’s concoction, she conveniently forgets that her Irish grandfather, a Chicago police captain, made bathtub gin during Prohibition. Of course I am quick to remind her...LOL!
Thank you, I am saving this info!
My dad used to tell us he got so tired of corn bread and honey for breakfast that he once refused to eat it and it was still there when he got really hungry that night.
My mother told me a story of when she was a kid her dad worked on the railroad and this one person would go off and eat his lunch by himself and the guys thought that he must of had a really good lunch till one day they snuck a peek in his lunch pail only to find it half full of potato peelings.
Fry blue gill or small trout crisp and you eat the bones and all. Good too.
Oh, and the wild/feral pig problem - there’s good eating, with a requirement that you either get real clever or work up a sweat for your meal.
They’re slaughtering wild pigs by the thousands in the south and southern plains states.
When you are hungry enough, everything looks like food. :p
I have a box of “ Roadkill Helper “ in the pantry . I drag it out and put it on the counter every time someone new comes for dinner .
I LOVED my Mother’s milk toast when I was a kid. She always made it for me when I was sick.
During depression my dad & grandparents were in a coal mine town in Western Pa. Mine shut down, but they kept a few on and my grandfather had been foreman so he worked as maint guy entire depression. Up and down the street, everybody was unemployed and at first no welfare or anything, people fought over jobs that paid 8 cents/hour. All kinds of jealousy & hate at anybody who was lucky enough to be workin some. My grandma cooked soup & made bread and all the kids, between 75-100 of them would show up at lunch in their back yard. They had picnic tables and often it was the only meal those kids got every day. Grandma use to tell me that was the only way they got along with everyone else cause of all the jealousy. Grandma had to do it to keep the peace.
THen finally, all the boys were shipped off to CCC camps and they sent 20 bucks a month home.
Here along the Yukon, I'll be eatin caribou, moose, and all the salmon I want from my set net, what I do now anyway.
BTTT
I thought I was the only one that ate that. To me, the gourmet version is onions, mayo and peanut butter. Just done talk to anyone up close for a day or two after.
My father told me that ate dirt, and they were thankful for the dirt.
So was Miracle Whip Salad Dressing
Invented as cheap substitute for mayonnaise
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