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>

[bgill]

My grandmother would tell about her grandmother whose family were farmers and had slaves. She said they all ate and worked along side each other. They ate beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner and she hated beans. Also said that it was a good day when the slaves were freed because then they didn’t to take care of their every need and the family was then able to move up the ladder. I have some family letters from back during the Civil War and how hard times were. The soldiers came and stole all their food and horses and slaughtered their livestock. And how so many friends and family had died of disease or hadn’t been heard from for months or that they’d lost track of during the war or when they’d left to find a better life. I wish that schools would teach that to the students rather than memorizing dates and places without relating it to daily life.

[bgill]

Boiled tongue is good. It's sort of somewhere in between liver and a more normal cut of beef. The texture is somewhat like liver but the flavor isn't as strong but more towards regular beef. Hard to explain. Slice it up and put it on a mayo sandwich!

[goat granny]

I have loved reading all the posts...and we all shared such things in our childhood...

[goat granny]

Too bad I didn’t ask my friend for some of the tongue when she fixed it...sounds like it might be good. She did say it was quite tender...

[bgill]

Yes, I’ve had asparagus patches off and on so I’m patient. Hubby doesn’t like it so it’s alllll mine! It doesn’t grow wild in my part of Texas. However, I’ve been known to drive down back roads and pick mustang grapes (gloves are a MUST), prickly pear cactus and algerita berries for jelly.

[bgill]

It is tender. But if you're squeamish, you need to have it already cut up or inside a sandwich because even though it's peeled there are still those bumps on it.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s been a renaissance for local wildlife out here where I grew up. Since the economy has been skidding for over ten years now, I’d be surprised if a bunch of these healthy looking deer don’t get plugged this season.

[goat granny]

I would drive down rural roads and if no house was near by dig up lily’s and other flowers growing wild. always had a shovel in my car....told one of my DIL’s and she did the same with tiger lily’s...Also checked out old homesteads for lilac’s growing and clip off a bouquet to take home or give to my daughter...waste not want not when it comes to flowers...:O)

[goat granny]

Just checked the time on my computer, its 4 oclock, guess its time for bed...this has been a great thread...

[BunnySlippers]

Ha ha, fish is expensive ... like $20 to $25 a pound, not $7.00. Lucky you, where ever you are!

[bgill]

We’ve had deer giving birth in the yards around here because people’s yards are the only green grass in drought stricken Texas these days. There’s at least three herds with about 8 - 12 head each here. However, the houses are too close for any shooting. Some put out pens to catch the wild hogs and I think they cleared them out already. But there are more and more wildlife searching for water and moving closer to people.

[bgill]

Yep, there you go.

[antceecee]

Me too.. hugzz and God bless...

[roamer_1]

Ha ha, fish is expensive ... like $20 to $25 a pound, not $7.00. Lucky you, where ever you are!

Heh. Hereabouts (NW MT) it costs 30 bucks a year for a license... Of course one has to go catch them for one's self - but that is the best way anyhoo.

[SunkenCiv]

Michigan had a problem with bear-human interaction back in the 1990s. As people spread north from Grand Rapids into formerly quite rural areas (mostly looking for their lakefront dream home), and bears staged a comeback because of a lack of bear hunters, people were awakened in the wee hours by bears tearing into items which smelled of food (garbage cans, old cookstoves, etc).

[BIGLOOK]

Didn't see the Depression but my grandfather and his family lived it, not on souplines, they were farmers and landowners. But frugal traditions die hard even for those that had means.

They had dairy cows, pigs, chickens, a small apple orchard, a couple pear trees and plum trees and some quince bushes and every year there were several all hands drills to plant a large garden in the spring, harvesting and canning the produce that wasn't sold (or traded), culling the chicken flock of old layers to make room for the new pullets, slaughter of some pigs, a cow or two and hunting for deer, pheasant and ducks in the cool fall weather. Also harvesting black walnuts and any other wild nuts before the squirrels got 'em . Eggs and fresh summer vegetables were sold or traded at the local IGA for flour, sugar, coffee, cinnamon and sundries, pork and beef they didn't freeze to keep went to a German butcher, some for cash and some for trade for making sausage and other goodies like marzipan. Milk was sold to Bordens but some of the cream was kept to make butter and mayonnaise; winter squash, pumpkins, potatoes, onions were stored in the cellar and apples made apple sauce and cider (well most of them .....some were turned into apple jack). Firewood gathering was another regular chore, gotta have heat to cook and a source of heat to winter through.

But like I said some traditions die hard; in the summer months, kids were sent out for wild raspberries and blackberries to go with our bread and milk breakfast, lunch was bread and cheese or jam or occasionally bologna, supper was a stewed chicken or rabbit, venison or meatloaf and if it had snowed recently, the kids went out to scoop snow which would be made into snow ice cream (fresh snow, junket rennet custard mix, flavored with vanilla or almond extract) for dessert.

They lived well through hard times but had no cash to spend on just about anything beyond bills and taxes. Food went on the table or to relatives or charity, money went to bills or the bank, hard lessons learned during the Depression and WWII.

[Right Wing Assault]

Place the contents in the freezer for about an hour, then take it out and stir.

I wonder how many people had freezers during the depression.

[Just A Reader]

Creamed chipped beef! I loved this as a kid. My great grandfather was a butcher and shaved the meat ultra thin.

Honestly though, I don’t know what chipped beef is. The stuff people make with ground meat is just nasty!

[Misterioso]

Believe it or not, we still have it on occasion - on toast.

The toast is the shingle, you know.

[Misterioso]

Mom made hamburger/potato/onion/CofM soup in a skillet every couple of weeks. Also, Spam and noodles with cream of mushroom soup or tuna/hard boiled egg/white sauce over rice.