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 ...
A ping for later
In the fifties my father had a route for the local dairy picking up milk from the dairy farms. When the smelt would start running, he and all my uncles (five) would load up in the milk truck with empty milk cans and go smelting. They would return with thirty to fifty of those big milk cans full of smelt. By the time they where all gone I would be so tired of little fish but ready again next year. Haven’t had any now in over forty years.
Must be a really old tree. lol.
There was an old tree overhanging our yard once, there was a wild grapevine tangled into it. It was kind of weird but I bet the birds and squirrels loved it.
I call it an ice box sometimes, too.
I had an older boss once who didn’t know what a cistern was. Bless his heart, he was from Detroit or somewhere. I was talking about water in the cistern and he kept asking me what the sister had to do with the water. Sister? Say what?!? No, a cistern!
My next boss was middle eastern who hated women (the feeling was mutual). Someone had given me some watermelons so I tried to give him one as a peace offering. He jumped back like it was a snake and started hollering at me to get away from him. That was a pre-lesson to 9/11.
;)
There lots of the taps, called spiles, for sale on ebay. The reason is they are obsolete. The pros use the taps and vinyl tubing like you say. The old ones are for sale
I bought an enameled turkey roasting pan at walmart. it holds about 2 gallons of sap and fits exactly on my camping stove.
If 10 gallons boils down to a quart of syrup, 2 gallons boils down to a small bottle of syrup?
That’s pretty cool that its even easier than before, ain’t no cold mountains in these parts dang it.
Mom would make that as well. Usually would spread the taters over the top, sprinkle with cheese and baked till browned.
Sometimes she would add cream of mushroom soup and top with biscuit mix and make a pot pie.
This thread brings back mny memories.
Peanut butter and mayo sandwiches dipped in cold milk, dandylion greens fried in bacon grease with a little vinegar or mustard, butter and sugar sandwiches.
She also made what she called ‘bum’s plate’ or stew. 2 lbs. ground beef and half a diced onion browned and drained. added 3 cans of pork & beans (undrained) and 4 Tbs dark brown sugar.
Our parents and gparents were very resourceful, weren’t they?
Everyone I know, aged from their 40s to their 60s washes out ziplocks and has a place to dry them. If the foil isn’t greasy or really gooey from something, that gets washed and dried and reused, as well. My oldest friend is in her 80s, comfortable financially, and she still saves bread bags. Also, we all use and reuse the green or yellow produce bags that absorb ethylene. And we will all rinse and dry paper towels to reuse, if they aren’t really dirty or greasy.
All the folks above are working middle class to upper middle class. Our money goes to taxes, property taxes and energy, so we are frugal where we can be. We also shop devotedly at consignment stores and flea markets and vie for the best find at the lowest price.
We had an ice man when I was young. It was the same man who delivered the milk and orange juice. Real refrigerators were in short supply for awhile after the war. He had a horse-drawn truck and always gave us kids a large chunk of ice in the summer. We had cold drinks: you took an ice pick and chiseled some off the corner of the ice block. The rag man lived along the crick in a shack, had a horse with a hat and we all thought that old nag was a Palomino!
BTW: *sheeny* is slang for Jew.
Tongue is a delicacy! You peel off the membrane with the taste buds, simmer it long and slow with pickling spices, chill well and slice. You can eat it hot or cold in sandwiches (with mustard). Some folks will chill it with the strained cooking liquid, which will form a collagen-rich aspic. It is dense and tender and delicious.
Cow lungs are also fairly good and usually made into a soup or a stew. My grandmother called it Lungen Stew. She made it with a lot of pepper and cooked it a long time as lungs are bland and chewy.
“BTW: *sheeny* is slang for Jew.”
I had asked my mom about that awhile ago, and she didn’t know why they called him that, so I “googled” it. Something weird about hearing a first-hand story about a horse-drawn wagon and looking up the term on the internet! (My 93-year old mom got frustrated with trying to figure out the internet at two homes - so she gave up!)
true - I’m thinking - first of all, be off he beaten path. The have dogs that will alert and motion sensors so, hopefully you have a bit of lead time...and if a couple of ‘SWATS” got an arrow (think silent crossbows, which, unlike the report of a gun, don’t provide directional detection) - would create confusion and abject fear.. And tail turning.
ALL my phlox were dug up on the roadside, 25-30 years ago! Most of my earliest spring bulbs are wild from the wooded areas on our land and transplanted to the shadier areas around the house. Of course, ditto for the day lilies. Doesn’t everyone drive around with buckets and a shovel?
No one buys those plants, do they? (g)
I worked on an oil rig down south one summer with a crew from Louisiana. They were all excited because the cook was going to serve black eyed peas. Growing up in Minnesota, I made the mistake of saying something like I had never heard of them. They explained, and then went down a list of food wondering if I knew what it was. Okra (yes), collard greens (no), grits (yes), and then it got silly (watermelon, corn, baked beans, etc.)
Oh - I made another mistake at dinner. “Peas - these aren’t peas, they’re JUST beans!”
If you had a refrigerator, the freezer compartment was very small and held a couple of metal ice cube trays and _maybe_ a pint of ice cream.
Mostly, city folks had real refrigerators.
I’m a pedant.
It’s poke sallet in the original Olde English. Sallet was just a mass or *mess* of young wild greens. Changed to salad somewhere along the way, but it is young poke leaves, preferably boiled up with some fatback and a bit of molasses.
I’m a bit of a foodie, too. (g)
I just read that to my husband. We both laughed. He said to tell you that if you need any, let us know. We’ve got lots!!
I’m a big fan of Lodge cast iron, which that appears to be. I wish they’d make their porcelainized stuff (”Lodge Color”) in the U.S.A. instead of China so I could buy some. I talked to the President of the company during an open house tour a few years back, and gave him a respectful hard time about it. He said they just couldn’t make doing it here work with all the EPA hassles.
How do you do it in the oven?
I do it in a heavy pan on the stove top. Even if it doesn’t burn, the entire wall behind the range top and the shelf above gets coated in chicken grease and I have to plan time for cleaning all that after I make it, plus airing out the kitchen. I do know I have to stand there forever, stirring. It goes from perfect to burnt in a flash.
I have never had it, but even the cows tail makes a great ox tail soup...
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