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 ...
Fact is, I do too.
I was telling my friend yesterday that my house is to big and my storage shed is to small.
LOL. I love to hoard things. People accuse me of having a depression era mentality...I save everything.
When Katrina hit (The electricity was out for 7 days) I had everything we needed on hand. The Red Cross (from Nebraska) came by handing out MRI's and I invited them out to the back deck for spaghetti, salad, garlic bread and wine with us.
Now that is funny...:O) and yes we do....
Those tall ornament grass along the road side with big feathery ends, I use to cut them, leaving them tall and a couple of cans of spray paint and spray lacquer. If you don't like the bright reds, blues and greens, I would us a can of grey to apply after the bright colors and it greyed down the brightness. Spray with clear lacquer and they last for years without falling apart...I stuck them in a large milk bucket on my side porch. Had a friend stop by and ask if she could take some...I said yep, I have millions out on the roadsides...
When the old belly gets empty enough and you don’t know if you are going to get anythig to eat. You will be surprised how good certain things are. I still remember those days. We ate whatever was set before us and were glad to get it.
LOL 
(see !)
Several years ago, we spent a few days in Chicago and ate at a very upscale restaurant. I had ordered a thick veal chop and the sauce it came with was scrumptious. I gave my compliments to the chef, who proceeded to come out and chat with us. He had braised an ox tail and then made a reduction of the juices for the sauce. It was meaty and rich and I can still remember the taste. It perfectly complimented the mild veal.
However, I think today, you would have to have access to a very upscale butcher to even get the ox tail. I have since googled the recipe and I gather the tail is actually the coccyx bone with the surrounding flesh. I think they use _some_ of the actual tail itself, maybe for the collagen?
Come to think of it, I know someone who owns a meat locker and butcher shop. It is a friend of a friend, but from what I have heard, this man loves meat and cooking and I’ll bet he could get us a steer tail.
If this works out, I’ll post it on one of the recipe threads. It may take awhile.
BTTT
I remember reading a story about 15 years ago during one of the “peacekeeping” operations in the Balkans or thereabouts; someone had acquired some crossbows that had an effective range of about a quarter-mile.
Caused much consternation.
Kudzu vines make great baskets.
One of our neighbors warned us that sometimes you don't get your own cow back, he sent a heifer out once and got back a tough old cow. He had warned us which slaughter house to avoid..
So, I asked the butcher to see our cow in the freezer, there were several hanging for aging. also a deer. I asked him what he could tell me from the hanging cow. He gave us the right breed, age and sex...He then showed us the others hanging and pointed out an old milk cow, they are bony with not a lot of meat and he also had a Holstein. He said he knew it was Angus by the short leg compared to the others hanging it was plain for even me to see. Could tell the age and told us we butchered her about 8 months too late. Each breed matures at a different age. Angus mature to the right age for eating months earlier than other meat breeds. It was very informative...He knew his meat....LOL
I learned that if you want filet minion /sp. You couldn't get T bone as the filet was that part of the T bone that is on the one side of the cut. (it was either the T bone or porter house, that was over 20 years ago) but I am almost sure it was T bone....he asked how thick we wanted steaks and how many pounds per roast etc...
Thats when I told him I didn't want the tail, but would take the tongue for a friend...didn't want the hoofs either...:O) He also wanted to know how much fat we wanted in the hamburger....His shop was in the little town of Richmond in Michigan...he knew his business...
No one has mentioned acorn or chicory coffee. Acorn coffee sucks, but I can drink chicory coffee, because I grew up in New Orleans.
My grandson is in charge of all things zombie related- he is the family expert.lol
Compared with what Obama and Michelle "require" today.
I was actually thinking about the people who live in cities but have bought rural property and have prepared a place to go or have planned to go to relatives or friends in the rural areas-with their permission of course.
I may be wrong but I think those that have no plan and at the last minute decide to head for rural areas will likely not have the skills to get out of the chaos in the city and get to a real rural area. If things are that bad it will take some skills to get out and get where they are going. People that do not make plans to begin with are not likely to have the skills to be a bother to anyone that doesn’t live right on the edge of a city.
Yes. My friends and neighbors have talked about this some and have decided that a lot of 'killing' in the city will occur before anyone uninvited and dangerous shows up.
We've also decided that those that do eventually begin to show up are the survivors of that first round of 'killing' and are likely to be some pretty bad company.
We'll be sitting up road blocks while they're busy in the city with the first round.
I suuurree hope it doesn't come to this...
There is a family story that my great great grandmother kept raiding Union soldiers away from her farm because she shot one and had his head on a post at the end of the road to her place. May not be true but might be effective.
Sounds like a wonderful place.
I don’t yet know this butcher, but he has become the “new best friend” of our best friends. So I am going to explore that route. I think I will go down to his business after Thanksgiving and become a customer, first.
The porterhouse and the t-bone are both cut with strip loin on one side and filet (tenderloin) on the other. The porterhouse is simply from further back along the spine and contains larger (ie: wider) portions of both. Notice they both cost about the same per pound.
In the 30s? I lived in the city as a kid in the early 50s in a middle class area and hardly anyone we knew had a fridge. Everyone had ice delivered by the ice man every few days. I walked to the store with mom just about every day since the ice boxes weren't the best for keeping perishables very long in the summer. c
I can remember one cold winter day when I heard a terrible scream and I asked my mother what it was...she said it was 'daddy' and uncle OD killing and butchering a hog. The coldest days were the best for butchering because of the lack of insects.
Speaking of sugar I remember going to my Great Aunts house and she had sugar cubes. Now these we kids considered something real special. She would let us have several cubes to suck on. She was quite poor because her husband was sick and she had to take care of him but she was such a great Aunt!
A good soda cracker is really good with butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Amazingly good for how easy and cheap it is.
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