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>

[Overtaxed]

I’ve never done collard or turnip biscuits but that’s only because I like my greens on the side.

With the drought this year the only thing I got in decent amounts to can are mustard greens....I’ve got 17 quarts to eat all by myself before next spring.

So when I run out of leftovers to bring for lunch I’ll bring a hard-boiled egg and a mess of greens.

[trisham]

I never said anything but when I would see people doing that I would always know those folks had seen hard times for sure.

*****************************

Exactly right.

[maine-iac7]

Thanks for that laugh!

JUST what I need to now walk away from this dang computer - and the depressing struggles we're discussing here on FR.

I go on to the rest of my day with a smile!

[trisham]

I love tomato sandwiches.

[djf]

Don’t be silly, of course I couldn’t hold back a swat team, I wouldn’t even try.

But there is a big dam difference between a swat team raiding one place a day and the same swat team raiding fifty or one hundred places a day.

And I am sure you know history. Look at what happened at Ruby Ridge. Look at what happened at Waco.

It’s not like the swat teams simply pulled up, pointed their guns at a few folks, grabbed all the food guns and ammo they could and pulled away fifteen minutes later. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am style.

Both were long, protracted events.

Multiply that by 1000. Hell, multiply it by 500,000

See what I mean?
Ain’t gonna happen that they go door to door seizing stuff.

The logistics simply don’t exist.

[trisham]

Ritz crackers are also good smeared with chunky peanut butter.

[nanetteclaret]

I don’t think you want to eat armadillos as they can pass leprosy to humans. Search “armadillo leprosy” for lots of articles.

[Tammy8]

I imagine her big heart was one of the reasons you fell in love with her to begin with...

[trisham]

My mother loved this:

[bgill]

I can remember breakfasts back when I was little bitty. Right before dawn, my granfather would make his breakfast which was usually biscuits or milk toast and coffee which he’d sip out of the saucer. He loved brains and eggs for breakfast and I still have the little cast iron skillet that he used. I’d get up and he’d fix me a cup of coffee which was really 99% milk (real fresh from the cow milk). Then he’d send me back to bed while he went out to tend the farm.

Then, when the sun came up, I’d have my second breakfast. Granny would sit me in my high chair in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen. They had an old tv console with a wire running around the living room and out the window and up to the antenna. There was usually only one channel but occassionally if the weather was just right you could get a second fuzzy one but that was usually at night. I’d watch Password, To Tell the Truth and Concentration and eat (that’s my excuse for being lazy now days). Granny would be in the kitchen canning or plucking a wild turkey or shelling peas while it was still relatively cool. She’d set pies on the window. The kitchen window had a large shelf built out from it and was screened in so flies wouldn’t come in and it was used to store pans and baked goods (there was no such thing as kitchen cabinets). The afternoons were spent in the garden, fishing, or going into town with her to visit. That was back when ladies visited. She’d take her friends whatever was producing in the garden and they’d send us back with whatever they had an excess of. I can remember one day it was raining hard but she was out fishing. She had on grandpa’s raincoat and made I don’t know how many trips to the house with her pockets stuffed with catfish. She kept grandpa busy cleaning fish all afternoon, lol.

When I was old enough, I’d sit on the back porch and shell peas and moo at the cows. One day I looked up to see a rattlesnake coiled up at my feet. To this day, I hate blackeyed peas!

[M Kehoe]

Good afternoon.

And I am sure you know history. Look at what happened at Ruby Ridge. Look at what happened at Waco.

I wonder if Lon Horiuchi is still sucking O2? I know Reno still is...

5.56mm

[ODC-GIRL]

My husband and I got into Civil War reenacting some years ago. Through that I learned how to cook many wonderful things in cast iron over camp fires. Pork and beef roasts with veggies, chicken and dumplings, pies and, of course, HUGE breakfasts.

The other ladies taught me how to make “dump” cake, using a cake mix, soda pop and canned pie fruit. SO good! we even made doughnuts every morning as well as bread. Lunches were bread, cheese and sausage (summer sausage). One particular pie was amazing; pork and apple pie with cut up pre-cooked pork chunks and slices apples.

This has come in very handy on extended camping trips! Also grew up cooking more normal things on the family camp fire. Would roll ears of corn with the silk removed, but the husks still on in foil and through them right in the hot coals. Same with potatoes. Best corn and potatoes ever!

Ate sugar bread a lot as a kid and still love cinnamon sugar toast as well as peanut butter toast. Dad loved onion sandwiches. Never realized it might have been learned out of necessity.

Just bought another dehydrator. Had one years ago, but it died and had not replaced it. Also use a vacuum sealer for when we buy things in bulk like flour and rice. Also learned how to preserve hamburger through a lengthy frying, rinsing, frying and baking the hamburger until thoroughly dried and fat free. Seal it up and use a cup as a pound of hamburger in typical recipes such as spaghetti.

[vwbug]

We called SOS, Dried Beef Gravy, butter, flour and milk
then dried beef and sliced boiled egg simmered and
served over saltines. Subsitute peas and tuna and you have
Tuna Pea wiggle.

I remember my mother ironing Christmas wrapping paper
for the next year.

Dad didn’t like potatos or cabbage, boiled was all they ate
while in a German POW camp.

[bgill]

And breast milk contains cancer cells but babies are downing that like nobody’s business.

[Tammy8]

I think you are right. The other scenerio mentioned a lot is that those of us that live in the boonies will be invaded by those fleeing the cities. I imagine that will happen, but I am not sure there will be as many that will be capable of getting to the real boonies as most think. If things happen gradually many will sit and wait for things to get better instead of leaving. If things fall apart suddenly the chaos in the cities, no fuel, tons of traffic, violence- if people can’t just get in their car and have the fuel and open roads to drive out many could not get to the boonies- especially if for any reason they couldn’t take their vehicle...just couldn’t make it. I am over 100 miles from a city of any size and that is across desert and in the summer it would be a real challenge.

Those of you that plan to bug out of a city for another location if things get bad might want to make sure you and your family are all physically fit enough and have enough basic survival skills and the items you will need to make it where you plan to go...without transportation if need be.

[vwbug]

I should mention my comment above was from the 1970s

[Georgia Girl 2]

We are Irish and my dad said some nights all they had was potatoes. My Mom said sometimes they just had cornbread with milk on it. Meat was a luxury.

[vwbug]

You need to develop some Zombie flesh recipes. I heard they
will be easy to kill and plentiful.

How about a nice Zombie flesh omelet smothered in goose poop
gravy?

[nanetteclaret]

You can scoff if you like, but there is a lot of evidence. Why play with fire? Our dogs kill armadillos for fun and we would never think of eating them. We take them out in the field so the buzzards can feast.

[bgill]

Ooh, now you’ve gone and done it. That Waco thing sends me to my soap box every time. For pete’s sake, it wasn’t at Waco but at Mount Carmel (aka spot in the road aka the Branch Davidian Compound). Waco was just the nearby town that had enough hotels and restaurants to service the media. Stupid reporter tricks. Gives a bad name to the town of Waco.