Depression Era Cooking

[aggravatedfarmer]

I never knew it when I was little that beef was expensive, since we always had beef in the freezer. We always had a steer to slaughter. I've never had supermarket beef in my life. However, fried bologna, hard boil's, grits, cornbread, etc rounded out my youth. A Scottish friend of mine is a potato farmer. He's said that if it weren't for the potato all the poor folk would starve. I agree. Grilled cheese is an American icon.

 

[prairiedruid]

Slow cooked cow tongue, tripe soup, blood sausage, head cheese, cow and deer heart, ox tail....loved those meals. Used to get be able to get this stuff cheap or even free but now it's "fashionable" and they want $5 a pound for it.

 

[mvmadore]

Don't forget pig's feet.

I worked in a meat market in my teens and we sold ox tails, head cheese, pig's feet, tongue, blood sausage...blood sausage...Portuguese style and fried 'til the skin is crisp is very good.

 

[aggravatedfarmer]

Aye head cheese is still $3 a pound in my favorite butcher shop!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I grew up on pig brains and eggs, squirrel dumplings, and a pig foot for a meat snack. Only buttermilk goes with cornbread, and homemade rootbeer. When my pawpaw bought a pig, we ate the whole thing from snout to tail. And, we didn't think anything was odd about it.

 

[perdurabo]

I think the Whole Country Adopted Southern food, during the depression and now they call it Depression Food.

 

[carver]

Thansk for sharing the video. That Clara woman is really nice and it's quite interesting to listen to her talking about her time and stories of the depression.

I am too young to have lived it so I can't really relate.

I am sure, as most people mentioned here that my grand parents had a tough time. Although it was not in the US. But around WWII times were not too fun in Europe.

We live in Belgium, Germans everywhere, witch hunt and rationing were the day to day life.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

And apples. Apples are a poor person's staple. You just need a few trees, and you ate apples all year long. fall harvest and fresh apples, then they were stored for winter by rolling them in paper and storing them in the attic. Then by late spring you took the rotten apples and made pies. Mm, Apple pipes made from soft squishy apples is AMAZING! Then green apples were harvested for the summer pies. Then all started over again, we have an apple tree on the oldest of our family's homesteads that is big as the largest oak trees I've ever seen. And, at every house I've moved into, the first thing I do is plant fruit trees. It's like free food.

 

[sablebrush52]

Chipped beef on toast, toad in the hole, pancakes, shepherd's pie, blintzes, hot dog soup, matzo ball soup, etc. My mother's family were bakers, who lost their business, and eventually their home, during the depression because they wouldn't turn away anyone who was hungry. Not a good business plan, but they just couldn't let their neighbors go hungry.
My mother was a fabulous cook who could turn the humblest ingredients into something delicious.
My father lived on beans cooked in a Franklin stove. Beans, black strap molasses and mustard. Bit of salt and pepper. They stayed frugal the rest of their lives and anything left over was turned into something else until it was gone. Same with everything else. I rarely had new clothes as a kid. Everything was handed down from the oldest to the youngest.

 

[buster]

<p>My mom use to try and get us to eat leftover cornbread with sugar and hot milk instead of cereal.

 

[newbroom]

I've been 'binge watching' the TV series Survivor over several 'seasons'. It's thought provoking from the food and water aspects.

My parents had lived their youth in the Depression era, and knew how to maximize food opportunities. I grew up with 6 siblings and competition at the dinner table was fierce.

We ate regularly, if not regally.

Dad was a pretty good fisherman and we had many a meal of trout, potatoes and fiddle headed ferns.

I used to go out with him to harvest nature's bounty.

We had a freezer Mom would load up with day old bread from a commercial bakery and she bought peanut butter by the gallon.

Toast with peanut butter is still on my regular menu.

 

[bigpond]

I don't get the appeal. People have been trying to forget that crap for the last 80 years and there's a now there's a community of youngin's trying to codify and resurrect it?

 

[warren]

Some try to forget, others revel in the memories "comfort" food revive.