Depression Era Cooking

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buster

Lifer
Sep 1, 2011
1,305
3
Depression era foods. I have eaten a few recipes on this list.
http://thesurvivalmom.com/could-you-stomach-these-great-depression-meals/
Look at this woman's videos. All of them. Seriously egg and pepper sandwich! Fried hotdogs and potatoes!
http://youtu.be/51VhG8MKxJY
My mom made beans and cornbread every Wednesday. We had leftovers for dinner on Thursday. Fried potatoes and a tomato salad to round out the meal. Bisquets and gravy for breakfast. Chip beef on toast on a special occasion. Fried bologna or corned beef sandwiches? Breackfast for dinner?
Any one else have a food memory from a simpler time?

 

blackbeard

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 13, 2015
706
0
While I have others, there is one that stands out. I went for crackers and ketchup; because when your 5 that kind of thing can beat out biscuits, eggs, gravy, and whatever else my mother had lined up.

 

mayfair70

Lifer
Sep 14, 2015
1,968
2
No pickled pigs feet, fried chicken liver or gizzard, egg noodles, or pound cake? They lost me on lard sandwiches but most things I've had some permutation thereof. Turtle moves in the frying pan and can scare the shit out of you if you don't expect it. Never grab a live snapping turtle by the shell if you don't know what you are doing (or get near one for that matter without good boots). Unless you WANT to lose fingers, etc. My mother said my Grandfather used to nail a turtle's head to a plank of wood, never said how. (very carefully, I imagine HAHAHA) As far as pigs go they used everything but the oink. Chitlens squeaking on your teeth. Head cheese? No Thank You (I hear it is delicious and is a delicacy) I grew up eating a lot of weird and delicious stuff and was fortunate my Grandfather was a river boat captain after WWII. I was introduced to many foods kids in my area hadn't heard of or had the pleasure (if that's the right term for what he brought home after "checking his traps") to try. He did make the best fried chicken and catfish. He taught me to make egg noodle and fry catfish. I managed to make fried chicken, gravy and biscuits from scratch which elicited a compliment from my Mother before she passed. She said it was "Damn good", but I knew she was lying about the biscuits. :wink:

 

dustmite

Starting to Get Obsessed
Mar 5, 2015
262
0
Buster, thanks for sharing the link for YouTube, those videos are great. I'm 36, so I wasn't around during the depression, but I always loved listening to my grandmother talk about it. When I was very young, my mom and dad would plant a garden for a woman who was approaching 100 years old. Every time we visited, she would cook for us on her wood stove, and dandelion salad was a staple in the spring. Funny how a simple 2 minute video brings a flood of memories...

 

schaum

Might Stick Around
Aug 8, 2014
79
0
As kids we were flooded with pancakes and us kids resorted to drowning them in gravy or bacon grease to kill the taste. I still can't look a pancake in the face. Salted cod gravy on boiled potatoes graced our table at least twice a week. Onion pie, bannock, boiled cowslips, fried puffballs, squirrel stew, baked cow tongue, and corn fritters were enjoyed,,anything but pancakes LOL.

 
Jun 4, 2014
1,134
1
My Grandfather would break up saltine crackers in a bowl with milk and sugar for breakfast. My parents remember the rationing of WWII. One thing

mom fed us from that time was called Jacksonville Stew it is a can of canned spagetti and a can of kidney beans, sometimes she added ground beef, we never looked forward to Jacksonville Stew.

 

pappymac

Lifer
Feb 26, 2015
3,268
4,261
Corn Bread and Milk is still a good breakfast. Corn Meal Mush? Used to eat it quite often when I was growing up. The "hipsters" and foodies now call it Polenta.

Tomato gravy over anything is pretty good. Growing up poor in south Louisiana and SE Texas, the list was a reminder of many of the things we used to eat.

 

prndl

Lifer
Apr 30, 2014
1,571
2,901
In my youth, I've eaten half of that list.
If it weren't for biscuits and gravy, I would have never seen school-age.

 

tbradsim1

Lifer
Jan 14, 2012
9,092
11,008
Southwest Louisiana
They call it Polenta and say it with airs, we fried cornmeal mixed with a little water and called it Coush,Coush, didn't know or had money for cereal. Thought eggs were for bartering or paying bill at country store. Big meals at harvest time, everybody ate good, being close to Gulf we had plenty seafood, fried wieners or Balogna was a treat. Round steaks were the only steaks we cut when we butchered a cow, rest was roasts or ground meat. We were poor by other people's standards. We didn't know it though.

 

nachman

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 27, 2013
228
3
One of my favourite foods (not from the depression as that was my parent's generation, but from rationing during and after the war) is fried potatoes and white gravy. Lemon fluff was a common pudding because none of the ingredients were on ration.

 

twangthang

Can't Leave
Sep 15, 2012
358
44
My Mom and Dad lived through the Depression and WWII.

I ate a lot of weird stuff, but it wasn't weird to me.

Egg Noodles in Warm milk, an egg in a hole, chow mien sandwiches are like comfort food for me.

My mom and dad fed 8 kids and we never complained about what was put in front of us. Ever.

 

voorhees

Lifer
May 30, 2012
3,834
937
Gonadistan
I've eaten a lot of those things in different forms. Didn't know it was depression era food, but it makes sense as most of my grands and parents dealt with it.

Some of them we have regularly. Tomato Gravy and biscuit with bacon or salt pork are yummy.

 

lochinvar

Lifer
Oct 22, 2013
1,687
1,632
I was born in the '80s and grew up eating most of that stuff, and still do. Anyone who hasn't eaten a tomato sandwich in summer has not lived,and if you are from around here and have not eaten cornbread in milk, you have to turn in your man and hillbilly card.
Up here in the Smokies, the Depression was everyone in America coming down to our level. My dad came up hard, started having to work the plow before he was school age. All they had in the way of meat for the year was a 1 maybe two pigs, chicken and guinea eggs and as much bear as my Grandad could shoot (which was quite a bit). I don't think he ever had beef till he got to school. It pays to live and eat frugally, when the inevitable downturns and busts come you don't hit rock bottom with as much force.

 

seacaptain

Lifer
Apr 24, 2015
1,829
7
Fried hotdogs and potatoes!
latest


 

cobguy

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
3,742
15
I'm familiar with many of those foods but one breakfast sticks out in my mind ... B.B.M.&S. (Bread, Butter, Milk and Sugar)
The milk, butter and sugar are heated in a small pan and poured over the torn up bread.
Also ... S.O.S. (S@#T on a Shingle) is what we called Chipped Beef and gravy on toast. :)

 

blackbeard

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 13, 2015
706
0
Just want to mention what seems to be a country thing after seeing about the tomato sandwiches. Peanut Butter and Tomato sandwich. It's good when it's a big garden fresh tomato; not so much with a little store bought one.

 

mvmadore

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 17, 2015
138
1
Northern NY
My father's father, French Canadian via Scotland, ate lard sandwiches...ugh but he loved them...probably why he died of heart failure too.

 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,991
26,606
New York
Collard Greens, Turnip Greens or Mustard Greens with salt back pork and a ham hock bone are pretty good. Any Southern dish is pretty good, I grew up eating my Mothers depression/War time cooking and I swear she genuinely missed rationing and the war. She used to complain about people gorging themselves on meat when it should only be consumed moderately twice a week! I only eat fish as it was something she couldn't mess up cooking, everything else had the consistency of burnt offerings.

 
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