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 ...
Buttermilk biscuits and tomato gravy was close to a delicacy at out house and not just when we were poor. It is good.
Mother used to fry potatoes then pour flour on the whole mess and it was really good. Probably not that good for you tho.
I bought three of those frying pans and a boiling pot at a garage sale today...for almost nothing.
Onion sandwiches - especially if made with Vidalia or Walla Walla Sweet Onions and mayonaise - are delicious.
Another story from “Reminisce”. A guy and his friend were starving during the 30’s. They went into a diner and told the owner that they had 5 cents between them. The cook grumbled and then served them a piece of toast with a dollop of mashed potatoes and gravy on top. He claimed it was the best meal he ever had.
I have a friend who grew up on a turkey farm during the depression. He’s much older now but still can’t eat turkey,
I mentioned crawdads on another thread the other day, very easy to catch if you’re up to getting a little wet.
And most static water has some form of bluegill or crappie type fish. They can be a bony mess, but if you can work your way around the bones, they are just as nutritious if not more than tuna or salmon. Amazingly easy to catch, some will even hit a bare hook.
If you have a can of white corn, small trout will hammer a kernel of white corn on a hook. But game depts frown on using corn because the trout can’t digest it properly, or so I’ve been told...
I was seriously thinking that these kids are what kids in this country are going to be looking like if we don’t get Obama & his “ruin America” agenda out of here in 2012.
I have a friend who grew up on a turkey farm during the depression. He’s much older now but still can’t eat turkey,
My mom also cut up bananas (very thin slices as there were so many of us and not so many bananas.), sprinkle with powdered sugar and pour milk over it.
It was sweet and creamy and it was goooood!
The military had a special name for that. I’ll leave that name for you to find but shingle is part of it.
was champagne hard to get in the depression? lol
Well..ok , but I like to add a bit of white wine , chopped capers , and herbs .
“Do you know what can grow and be eaten without a lot of sunshine?”
Broccoli, lettuce or any type of leafy greens, probably green beans, snow peas, most beans or peas, most anything that grows underground like carrots, beets, radishes, potatoes, ginger root or horse radish,
My dad, the youngest in the depression, raised chickens. One was a pet, or a fighting rooster or something.
Your grandmother was a good woman :-).
didn't live during the depression but i ate a lot of Grandma's dandelion salad summers as a kid growing up and one year when things were hard, sometimes supper was cream corn on toast... at least it wasn't turnips and rutabagas
sad story. probably typical of a lot of families in that era.
My grandma would pour her warm sugared tea over her toast.
I remember often having buttered cornbread in a glass of milk for supper in ‘44’. We were blessed. We had a cow.
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