Dec292011
Could you stomach these Great Depression meals?
Print 
PDF
image by edenpictures
With all the talk about food storage and growing our own food, I did a little digging around to find out what some people ate during America’s Great Depression of the 1930′s. Surprisingly, a few of these were made by my mother and grandmother, traditions, I’m sure, from a more frugal era. I still have a soft spot for Chipped Beef on Toast! How many of these are familiar to you, and do you have any others to add to the list?
Milk toast
Chipped beef on toast
Cucumber and mustard sandwiches
Mayonnaise sandwiches
Ketchup sandwiches
Hot milk and rice
Turtle/tortoise
Gopher
Potato soup – water base, not milk
Dandelion salad
Lard sandwiches
Bacon grease sandwiches
Sugar sandwiches
image by Tony the Misfit
Hot dogs and baked beans
Road kill
One eyed Sam – piece of bread with an easy over egg in the center
Oatmeal mixed with lard
Fried potatoes and hot dogs
Onion sandwich – slices of onion between bread
Tomato gravy and biscuits
Deep fried chicken skin
Cornbread in milk
Gravy and bread – as a main dish
Toast with mashed potatoes on top with gravy
Creamed corn on toast
Corn mush with milk for breakfast, fried corn mush for dinner
Squirrel
Rice in milk with some sugar
Beans
Fried potato peel sandwiches
Banana slices with powdered sugar and milk
Boiled cabbage
image by Blue Mountains Library
Hamburger mixed with oatmeal
American cheese sandwich, ‘American’ cheese was invented because it was cheap to make, and didn’t require refrigeration that may or may not exist back then.
Tomato gravy on rice
Toast with milk gravy
Water fried pancakes
Chicken feet in broth
Fried bologna
Warm canned tomatoes with bread
Butter and sugar sandwiches
Fried potato and bread cubes
Bean soup
Runny eggs with grits
Butter and grits with sugar and milk
Baked apples
Sliced boiled pork liver on buttered toast (slice liver with potato peeler)
Corn meal mush
Spaghetti with tomato juice and navy beans
Whatever fish or game you could catch/hunt
Tomato sandwiches
Hard boiled eggs in white sauce over rice
Spam and noodles with cream of mushroom soup
Rag soup: spinach, broth and lots of macaroni
Garbanzo beans fried in chicken fat or lard, salted, and eaten cold
Popcorn with milk and sugar – ate it like cereal
Lessons learned from this list? Stock up on ingredients for bread, including buckets of wheat. Bread, in some form, is one of the main ingredients for many of these meals. Second, know how to make different types of bread. Next, have chickens around as a source for meat and eggs, and if possible, have a cow or goat for milk. Another lesson is to have a garden that will provide at least some fresh produce, and plant fruit trees and bushes. Finally, don’t waste anything, even chicken feet!
© 2011, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.
(207) Readers Comments
Space-Saving and Effective Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPS)
Mosquitos are definitely an issue with this type of design. There are
Space-Saving and Effective Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPS)
mine has a watering tube running up the inside wall of the pot, which
Space-Saving and Effective Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPS)
How do you control for mosquitos breeding in the stagnant water at the
Tom Usher
Wow, this is a list of many of the things we eat all the time! Maybe it's because my parents grew up during the depression and we just ate like this at home when I was a kid but I can tell you there isn't much on that list I haven't had. As an example, we always save our bacon grease. I use it to cook with all the time but I also use it in place of mayo on sandwiches. Why not? Fat is fat. And it adds a good flavor, too. I guess that it goes with our cheap livin' mentality around here but I figure waste not- want not.
MoT
My parents lived through the depression and even as I grew up in the sixties and seventies we didn't have a lot of money. In essence we were what is called today "the working poor". But having said that I can't ever recall going hungry and we never had school lunches or breakfasts handed to us. Always ate at home or took lunch with me. My folks bust their butts and provided no matter what. For that I am eternally grateful and remind my kids to be likewise.
Sharon S.
We also grew up eating about half the things on that list and thought everyone else did too. My mom was born at the tail-end of the Depression, and her mother taught her to cook these dishes, just as my mother taught me. I didn't know that these dishes were prepared "just in case" something like the Great Depression came again; if it did, we would know how to make the best of what we had, no matter how little.
Andrea
Hmmm….well….believe it or not, I've eaten many of these meals and don't feel under-priviledged for having done so. There's no shame in eating humbly! My kids LOVE fried cornmeal mush, especially broiled with some tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. And "one eyed Sam", my daughter has that at least once a week for breakfast. A couple more items to add to that list: cocoa gravy and biscuits, fried green tomatoes, bologna salad and bean stew. I also vaguely remember buttered toast with leftover coffee poured over top; that's one meal I DID pass on.
TheSurvivalMom
Mine like fried cornmeal mush, too! I put some butter and maple syrup on top.
Andrea
And 2 more favorites; fried cornbread and bean cakes. Take some stale cornbread, slice it in half and fry it in butter til brown and crispy and OMG. So good with beans and rice, kale, cole slaw.
And bean cakes, oh that's just plain comfort food. Just some leftover beans with salt, pepper, minced onion and enough flour to make a batter. Fry it in some bacon drippings til crispy and serve with ketchup for dipping.
How is it that people DON'T like this food?
Teresa
Please put up how to make cornmeal mush? I remember we had this when I was 4, my great grandmother is not longer with us. I have asked my mom but she does not know how to make.
Thank you!
TheSurvivalMom
Here's a recipe to try: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fried-cornmeal-mush/… It's basically just cornmeal, water, and maybe a little salt. It become very thick as it sits. You can refrigerate it and slice off what you want for a meal, fry it, and serve it with maple syrup. Yumm!
PatTheCat
"cornmeal mush" in Italian is "Polenta".
Sometimes mom baked it, sometimes fried it, sometimes just straight once it was cooked, with a little red sauce on it. She often put in fried onion, olives, parsley. It was great growing up with that kind of food!
CrankyPuppy
Thanks for this really interesting post. I was raised by my grandparents who lived through the Depression and listened closely to their stories about how hard it was to find food, how they reused everything (and still did in 1980!), and how many folks starved to death. The scary thing? It wasn't that long ago, yet we now live in a "disposable society" where everything is plastic and ends up in a land fill and people throw food away like it's nothing. I saw a young couple in Cracker Barrel this weekend – the girl ordered a huge hamburger, ate 3 or 4 bites and then left it sitting. I couldn't help but think about how many people would have loved to have that back in 1930. It doesn't seem that we have learned from history at all and let's pray that we don't find ourselves having to learn a hard lesson at the last minute.
Linda
Many of these are familiar, and still eaten today. Nothing beats a slice of beefsteak tomato with mayo on toast .My mom used to make poor mans supper, and she just called it "recipe" . It was hotdogs and fried potatoes covered in some kind of white gravy. It kept all 9 of us teenagers with enough energy to do all of our chores ! Probably wouldn't eat it now, but if SHTF, we will probably eat worse. Hmmm, can you "can" hot dogs?
Edna
Yes, I can hotdogs and bratwurst, as well as smoked sausage links and sausage patties.
RudeKitty
I'd love to know what the white gravy is.
TheSurvivalMom
I assume it's gravy made with flour and milk.
Free
You mean hot dogs don't COME canned there?!?
It's the only way to buy them overhere; canned (very rarely you'll find some in jars, but canned is the default)
So I'd say yes, they're cannable!
http://www.libelle.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/…
Josh
Some of those sound pretty good. Some of those only sound good until you realize the quality of food storage back then. Most of those ingredients would have been stale, overripe, or questionable in some other way. Really shows the importance of making some of your own food.
I wonder if victory gardens sprung up from WW2 or if they were a natural extension of things people were doing during the 30s.
bob
WOW, it has a lot of my favorites!! I eat fried egg sandwiches all the time, love a fried bolonga sandwich and always put oatmeal in my meat loaf.. Like fried spam sandwiches also. Now I only eat some of these once a month or so to stay healthy. The skin is my favorite part of fried chcken, once in college I almost bought a package of chicken skin at the local grocery to fry up but decided not too. I did always buy the packs of chiken backs to make broth for chicken and dumplings….at like 19 cents a pound you could not pass it up..Now that everything comes pre packaged you can't find deals like that..
Fern
I've eaten all the Kosher ones (road kill and lard/pork-based ones, not so much). And don't forget garbanzo beans, sprinkled with pepper and salt, with a little oil or melted chicken fat on them.
TheSurvivalMom
Fern, I came across a recipe that featured garbanzo beans but didn't include it because it was too long. I hadn't realized garbanzos were such a staple for some people. I use them in hummus.
Hugh Davis
Milk toast – not sure what it is?
Chipped beef on toast – love it
Cucumber and mustard sandwiches – cuke and mayo yes ….
Mayonnaise sandwiches – throw in a bit of pickle relish and yum!
Ketchup sandwiches – nope
Hot milk and rice – barbarians, rice is to be eaten white! Drink the milk ….
Turtle/tortoise – fried, baked, and in soups its all good
Gopher – no way in hell, and not prairie dog either. Both taste disgusting (I speak from experience …)
Potato soup – water base, not milk – yes – dehydrated potato flakes and vegetables of any sort
Dandelion salad – served in high end eateries today
Lard sandwiches – nope though roasted marrow on toast is good
Bacon grease sandwiches – no
Sugar sandwiches – no, but sugar/cinnamon on toast is good
Hot dogs and baked beans – staple at scout camp
Road kill – yup, one benefit of being a deputy is getting called out to take care of road kill ….
One eyed Sam – piece of bread with an easy over egg in the center
Oatmeal mixed with lard – no
Fried potatoes and hot dogs – yum!
Onion sandwich – slices of onion between bread – heat the onion until it caramelizes
Tomato gravy and biscuits – cornmeal biscuits for that italian flavor!
Deep fried chicken skin – like crackling
Cornbread in milk – eat the cornbread, drink the milk
Gravy and bread – as a main dish – gravy and biscuits ….
Toast with mashed potatoes on top with gravy – all the time
Creamed corn on toast – yup
Corn mush with milk for breakfast, fried corn mush for dinner – don't we call it polenta now?
Squirrel – baked, fried, and in a stew
Rice in milk with some sugar – Barbarians! (See above ….)
Beans – three pot rotation going now — one soaking, one cooking, one being eaten — on the wood stove
Fried potato peel sandwiches – with mayo, yum!
Banana slices with powdered sugar and milk – yup
Boiled cabbage — a staple
Hamburger mixed with oatmeal – meatloaf (soft of)
American cheese sandwich, ‘American’ cheese was invented because it was cheap to make, and didn’t require refrigeration that may or may not exist back then. — The "Blender" application used by Kraft is still one of the most complex pieces of manufacturing software around and a key reason why their systems have to maintain 5 9's availability. And yes, love them on a good sourdough bread lightly toasted.
Tomato gravy on rice – yes
Toast with milk gravy – yes
Water fried pancakes – no — you'll have to explain HOW because I can't get them to not stick with oil let alone without
Chicken feet in broth – forget the broth — some of my favorite dim sum!
Fried bologna — and fried spam with eggs ….
Warm canned tomatoes with bread – stewed tomatoes, bread, and bake until crispy
Butter and sugar sandwiches – toasted ….
Fried potato and bread cubes – yup with some wild onion thrown in as well
Bean soup – after every ham
Runny eggs with grits – and cheesy grits and …
Butter and grits with sugar and milk – why waste the milk?
Baked apples – yum! favorite around here
Sliced boiled pork liver on buttered toast (slice liver with potato peeler) – no but only because I don't eat liver no matter how much my mom would beat me
Corn meal mush – a staple
Spaghetti with tomato juice and navy beans – yes but no thank you
Whatever fish or game you could catch/hunt – isn't that normal?
Tomato sandwiches – on toast with a bit of mayo
Hard boiled eggs in white sauce over rice – nope ….
Spam and noodles with cream of mushroom soup – yup
Rag soup: spinach, broth and lots of macaroni – nope
Garbanzo beans fried in chicken fat or lard, salted, and eaten cold – bar dish in the middle east ….
Popcorn with milk and sugar – ate it like cereal – nope
TheSurvivalMom
Love your commentary! My husband grew up in the Pacific and can't stand anything on his white rice, other than a bit of soy sauce. Rice pudding is a huge no-no with him. Oh, milk toast is a piece of toast in a bowl with warm milk poured over it.
MoT
Hugh,
As my mother was a native German she would make "milch reis mit zucker" quite a lot. Maybe it's a cultural thing while trying to survive WW2. I love it My wife is Japanese and I get plenty of it the other way.
Hillbilly Mom
Some of these sound pretty familiar, especially in my college days when money was tight. I remember when I would eat dinner at my parents house, my mom would send me home with the left over mashed potatoes. She would have me make peirogi. They are so cheap to make and freeze well, just make a huge batch and after you boil them pack em up and freeze. When ready to eat, thaw and pan fry. Super cheap:) Here is the recipe http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/recipes/r/pierogie…
Tim
My dad used to say they would have potatoes for one meal and the potato peels for another meal. I guess he wasn't kidding. It was hard to tell because he also said they would have dried apple for breakfast, water for lunch and swell up for dinner.
TheSurvivalMom
Well, I didn't grow up during the Depression, but I've been known to tell my kids that we used to eat dirt and play with rocks when we were kids. Not sure they buy that anymore, though. LOL
Jan
My grandpa said the same thing about eatin potato peels for a meal. The few photos we have of him growing up show the skinniest bunch of kids I have ever seen. He said it wasn't skinny kids, it was starving kids.
LetsPrep
Thank you for the trip down memory lane. Growing up, money was tight so I remember eating mayonnaise and banana and mayonnaise sandwiches. I can add one you might not have heard of. My grandmother, who came from Ireland in 1921, used to boil an unopened can of Condensed milk for an inexpensive dessert. When opened, the milk slid out of the can and was sliced like cranberry sauce. The taste and consistency was similar to caramel pudding. The rich treat was especially good with a dollop of whip cream or vanilla ice cream.
All my life I have held onto my frugal parents and grandparents ways. It saddens me also that many younger people are spoiled and wasteful. They think we’re old fashioned or just plain weird when we suggest they become more economical. If the SHTF, many will not survive without Mom and Dad’s help.
Andrea
Ooohhh…I've heard stories of boiling condensed milk for a dessert, but I've always been afraid that the can would explode!
RudeKitty
My gram still gently boils the condensed milk. It is the most delightful caramel sauce. She also told of ketchup soup.
D T
If you watch the old show "Little Rascals" the kids are always eating a really thick slice of bread (2 inches or so) with a scoop of jelly or jam thrown on top. Obviously canning made jelly and jam a staple in that time. My guess is that no one refrigerated it either because they went through a jar in a couple days and the high sugar content preserved it a bit more.
Lynda
Chip beef on toast aka SOS, was a regular when I was a kid, along with hush puppies and many other Southern dishes my mother creatively made. Learned from my grandmother who to her dying day at 99 still gnawed chicken bones. As the baby of 13 to a Georgia dirt farmer nothing went to waste, and a life time of making the most of what you had was passed on to her kids and a few of the grandkids who would recieve her wisdom. Found in some of her paperwork my mothers "Ration Card" for food from the depression and wartime when as a widow she had to draw on her skills to see her small family through. Tough times created strong people, a legacy I choose to try to emulate.
Terri
I have eaten many of these…yummy stuff…
TheSurvivalMom
I'm in the mood for a tomato sandwich, myself!
James
Yum, I started drooling as soon as I started reading the list…everything on it is delicious. But then again, I love cold, bitter, three day old coffee.
Stephanie
I am fairly young and its funny how much of that stuff I have eaten, currently make for myself, or variations of it.
-Milk Toast was and still is a family favorite for us. I like with with a little bit of cinnamon on it – best when made with homemade bread the store bought stuff just disintegrates.
-We do hard boiled eggs in a white sauce over toast in stead of rice, and call it Goldenrod Eggs.
-Fried egg sandwiches rock
-Fried bologna rocks – more so in a sandwich
-Runny eggs over grits is the ONLY way to eat them
-Rice Pudding is awesome and was made constantly while I was growing up
-Dandelion salad was eaten at my house when it was spring – or added to regular salad
-Cucumber sandwiches are great, in face I haven't had one in a while so I think I will when I get home
-Spam and noodles
-Spam and potatoes
-Spam sandwiches
-Potato soup (I didn't even know it was an "in" thing to do to add milk to it) the potatoes start liquifying and create their own base – you don't need to make one for them.
-Banana slices – check (breakfast food)
-Popcorn cereal -check (my mom used that trick when we ran out of the store bought stuff)
-Bean soup – check
-Fried potato skins – only we ate them with some salt the were just like chips.
-All things involving hot dogs – check, check and check
But ya…we have eaten many of the these its interesting to know where they came from.
Here is one I didn't see. Spaghetti made from Ketchup with Macaroni noodles (with or without hamburger). My folks used to make that ALL the time, my guess? Ketchup is cheaper than Spaghetti sauce.
And also we ate fish tails. Smaller ones from fish we caught fried until they were crunchy. It was like chips.
Grannytraveler
I remember the pasta with ketchup. My mother use to make that for lunch for us. I also remember having mayo and peanut butter sandwiches at friends' houses. Always thought that cucumber and mayo sandwiches were British from my grandmother's side.
Jan
Let's see, I have eaten a majority of the things on the list. Both sets of my grandparents were kids or teens during the great depression and they cooked depression meals for the rest of their lives. My dad is 70, he was born during WWII and he still cooks many things on the list, they were things he was brought up on and raised us with. One grandpa is still with us and some of his favorite foods are on that list. My mom still has mayo and sugar sandwiches once in a great while. White gravy with any type of bread is an acceptable meal in our house.
Guest
Wish hot dogs were still a cheap food. They run about $5 a package here.
Charis
My word– I've eaten just about everything on this list! I am a native Southerner and we ate just about everything that was put in front of us. If you grew up on a farm or had grandparents that farmed, there are a few missing things from this list, including: Wild-crafted foods such as poke salad, dandelion greens, wild berries of all sorts. We also ate every part of the pig: including hog brains (with scrambled eggs), liver mush, souse meat and scrapple (which I was unaware that Amish and Mennonite families STILL eat today).
I'm in my early 30s and it amazes me that so few people know how to COOK or make do with real ingredients. I was out in the backyard today and showed the neighbor kids the ground cherries that grow in their overgrown backyard. There's food everywhere if you know where to look…
PatTheCat
There is a very large market for scrapple in this area among non-Amish and non Mennonites. We STILL eat scrapple, our family always loved scrapple and they were from Italy!
Thoroughly agree with your take on today's lack of cooking skills and making do, and knowing where to look.
Stealth Spaniel
OMG! You walked me right down memory lane- and what a fun trip it was. More depression memories from my mom: one whole chicken, which in 1932 probably weighed 16/18 ounces, fed the entire family of 20+ people for Sunday dinner. Everyone got a piece of chicken-just not a big piece!! And the next 2 days you had homemade noodle soup! The potato peels were NOT thrown away-they went into the vegetable soup broth pan. Frog legs were not a delicacy but a necessary meal because her brothers could catch them for free. (Bleah!) Gardening was survival-not Martha Stewart Fancy. Nut trees and Fruit trees were all over my grandmother's backyard and they were treated like royalty. Cow brains were mixed with eggs for a good scramble. We are such a spoiled society now. Hopefully, we are waking up. I know that I have made a 90 degree turn when it comes to wasting food.
carol
We always used to use oatmeal to stretch hamburger when I was a kid. And bananas and milk aren't really an inexpensive dessert. For a free dessert pick berries.
EverErin
Hubby's comment: A lot of these sound like lazy bachelor meals…(later down the list)…See, I've made that!
Sevina
And… don't forget bone soup. In a large pot place several large (or small) pork or beef bones and fill the pot with water. Bring the bones to a boil and simmer for 6 to 8 hours and/or until the liquid is somewhat opaque. Pour the liquid off and save for soups and stock or just salt it and drink. The second time around for the bones produces the best and thickest stock, believe it or not. Bone soup, great taste, cheap and nutritious.
Rita
The broth and soups made with broth from bones has lots of calcium.
momengineer
Wait, you mean we aren't *supposed* to be eating these now?
Seriously, here in the south- many, many of these meals are still eaten today. You forgot cornbread and milk, though!!
johnny1
I grew up eating this stuff, and it was a real treat then, and i still use and eat a lot of these recipes today. We know for sure there are no fillers in them, less very much fat and what fat content there is would't add up to the junk food we eat in a day now. what goes around comes around and i will eat this and also maybe dress it up a bit with a side dish of rice etc.
Ted Wiley
This really brings back a lot of memories! My mom was not a good cook, but she could fry the best fried chicken ever. I could not figure out how she did it until I remembered that all of the lard we used was used over and over again. She kept the lard in a coffee can on the stove. All of the bits of bacon, potatoes, chicken, and whatever else she fried was in the lard. Believe me, that makes some fine fried chicken. We were so poor we had to reuse everything we had. Do you remember that flour could be bought in cloth bags? We bought flour this way so my mom could make clothes out of the material.
RightWingMom
Great list. Love the ingenuity of our grandparents and great grandparents. I grew up with my grandmother making several of these dishes, or mentioning that they use to eat them when she was a child. I know we are all collecting food storage recipes and planning out our #10 can meals, but it will be amazing how creative we'll become during hard times.
I still make the One Eyed Sam, but renamed it Sunshine Bread. It sounded more appetizing. It's one of my DH and DSs favorite breakfast meals.
ccwaters
Great article. I caught it on Lew Rockwell. Some swell comments also. It's a good notion that we all like these meals. Most won't be able to swing into the hard times with such flare.
Here are some of my favorites:
Soda crackers with milk and sugar. (breakfast cereal)
Fried salt pork with fish and boiled potatoes. ("fisherman's turkey"–mash together the fish and potato on your plate and add diced raw onion and salt pork gravy)
Green tomato pickles. (Lysine is generally lacking in American diet. Adding lysine-rich tomato eaten with beans creates a whole protein. Protein being one of the most difficult nutrients to acquire during hard times)
Soda bread–baking powder biscuits–corn bread (cheap, quick and filling)
Corn chowder. (A spin-off of potato soup or perhaps the other way around)
Sausage gravy. (A pound of sausage goes a long way when in a gravy. over biscuits or fried mush)
Chicken and noodles. (hand cut noodles in gravy, mashed potato and a tiny bird will feed a big family)
Tomato bisque. (A hearty meal, nearly free if you have grown the tomatoes) [post one of two]
ccwaters
cont'd
Nettle soup. (Sounds grim but the fresh taste of nettle soup with dandelions and potatoes is a gourmet treat)
Tongue and cheek (a fish chowder made from boiling fish skin, organs and bones)
Welsh rarebit (rabbit) (A spicy cheese sauce over soda crackers or toast)
Dandelions (Nature's perfect food)
My parents were young adults during the depression. (They suffered thwarted lives due to few opportunities. This scarred them forever. They never escaped this depression mentality. It's happening to our young people today.)
These are a few meals I grew up with and practice still. (I'm 70 years old–take no pills and still work 12 hours a day.) Visit me at rowescorner.com where I occasionally relate some of my strategies for surviving hard times. ccw
45coltauto
Ihave eaten a number of these. Sugar sandwiches are wonderful with brown sugar and butter.
countrygirl
Great post, I'm fond of a number of these. I will say that bone soup is a big one in my northern area. I remember giving some caribou meat to an older friend and her asking me to cut the leg bone into chunks so she could make soup. She boils them and then eats out the marrow. Which is very rich. Normally I cook these for my dogs as homemade treats.
There are a couple of books one is, Make do and Mend, the other is, Eating for Victory, these are books compliled from pamphalets passed out in England during WWII fabric and food rationing. They both have great tips for making do with less.
Kelly
My mom was a teenager in the Depression, so I heard a lot of stories. She used to fix some of these dishes, we were poor. We always like ” Graveyard Stew”, milk toast. I think it was the name, it was like eating ghosts.
Brent
If you can grow a good sized tomato, wrap it in foil and cook until soft and very hot, the best tomato soup you’ll ever have. If you have any veggies like basil, chives, garlic, onion, etc., cut off the very top and stick these in it and replace a small slice you cut off before heating. Make pesto out of nearly every herb you can with the ingredients you have on hand. Basil or other herbs made into pesto with any type of nut is good, cheese to go with it is even better and if you don’t have olive oil, use a veg. oil or a bit of bacon grease. If you have corn meal and milk and bacon grease you only lack a leavening agent to make real cornbread and if you don’t have baking soda, it’s not bad without it as is cooking it without an egg, something I rarely use. Grind up mesquite beans and make a dandy flour. Cook mesquite beans in bacon grease or lard on a griddle with any spice you have and they’re mighty good also. Nearly any fresh plant you know isn’t poison and has the moisture to grow is good food when you’re hungry. Carry a slingshot and let chance be the factor of what you eat. Shoot a bureaucrat and make lots of soap and feed the rest to the pigs. DO NOT consume mistletoe in any way. Lard or bacon grease or any oil(non-petroleum)will make a tasty grasshopper and similar insect meal.
guest
What about liver and onions or cow tongue or ox tail stew? My grandparents told us that every last bit of the animal, including all organ meat was used. Chicken gizzard, necks livers and hearts? Pickled pigs feet or pork rinds or snout? They also told us whippersnappers that people used to eat horse meat until the late 30's-to early 40's (people still do in Europe).
I know many folks who turn their nose up at these sort of things, but then again, most have never been that hungry-yet.
Tony
Chicken gizzards is one of my favorites. That was actually a special treat when I was growing up (I'm 44). When my first son was just a little guy and couldn't pronounce gizzards he'd ask my mother to make him some fried buzzards every time we'd visit my parents.
PatTheCat
Yes! All that! (except the horse… at least that I know of…) Beef tongue and tail are 2 of my favorites, and tripe, and pork skin.
Gizzards in red sauce… mmmmm. When I was a late teen/ young adult, my mom & I used to flip a coin for who would get the neck and/or what she called the "north end"!
Also, souse.
I guess it kind of helps when you grew up in a family that cooked, and knew what to do with all the odd-bits…
And I agree that many, many people have "never been that hungry yet". Was at a dinner party earlier tonight, and there were a couple of gals there that always set my teeth on edge every time they say, "I'm picky…"
My mother would have never let us live with that attitude.
Rita
My grandmother often told the story of having some neighbors show up a little before noon. They were very embarrassed because they only had a couple potatoes and were going to make some soup. They found out that the neighbors came because they had nothing.
My aunt to me they would have baked bean sandwiches in their school lunch.
My uncle told me they would buy wheat by the bushel, sit at the table and clean it, and they would have it cooked for breakfast. The family had 7 children and a bushel of wheat lasted them about a month for breakfast food.
Esther Welsh
Missouri You for got the no nothing pie we made back then
ben
poor mans fish – potatos fried in corn meal , ive eaten everything on this list at 45 yrs old being from the south it is common . bacon grease rules on anything
Barbara Frank
My dad still talks about how his favorite dinner as a child was canned peaches and juice on a slice of torn-up bread. He was one of four siblings raised by their single mom in Illinois during the 1930s.
Interesting topic that reveals just how spoiled we are nowadays!
DiabeticMe
Most of these would send my blood sugar through the roof…I'm diabetic and can't have a lot of carbohydrates or sugar. I'm supposed to be on a high protein diet with lots of lean cuts of meat, fish, chicken, eggs, low fat diary, nuts and a few beans. All that bread, rice, sugar … omg … I'd end up in the hospital or worse, dead.
MoT
I've eaten many of the very things listed here while growing up and I'm not even fifty. Never knew hunger either. Maybe it's because my folks told me to eat what was in front of me or simply do without. Lets say I never forced that issue and learned to appreciate every bite I took.
timeklek
Mom was born in '08 & worked cooking for Threshing crews and as a Domestic before Marriage in '31. Stewed Dried Apricots, prunes & tapioca keeps forever and is a Great Desert. Her homemade whole grain brown breas in round loaves was the Best.
Connie
My dad was born in 1934 and said he remembered a lot of turnip soup. I had quite a few of these on the list as well from my parents and my grandparents (I'm 43). My mom would take bread or crackers and crumble them up in milk (she got that from her dad). My grandmother made Brunswick stew out of squirrel and never told me what was in it. It was really good and I know I could handle squirrel if need be. Unfortunately where I live, I won't be able to get eggs nor fresh milk but over the past 10 years, I've learned a lot about what is edible around the yard. I could handle the dandelion greens cooked like mustard greens (I have a really old cookbook that even has a recipe for cooked dandelion greens).
Lynda
I've eaten many of this meals growing up. My mother grew up during the Great Depression and many times we had meals of vegetables and bread, gravy and bread and some pretty basic dishes.
glad hall
My grandmother said that at the peak you could not find a dandelion anywhere. They were eaten as fast as they appeared. also other wild greens. that was northern Illinois
missouri
missouri
You forgot no nothing pie
Shreela
Cornbread in BUTTERMILK, because buttermilk doesn't spoil when kept cool in the crick (creek) like "sweet" milk will. But since many kids won't like the buttermilk, let them have the sweet milk for the cornbread. Add a teaspoon of finely diced onion, seriously it tastes awesome!
And of course the poke sallet on the side (boiled 3 times, throwing out water each time). Grandma wouldn't show me the poke plants though, because of the stigma of being seen collecting poke. Apparently the families that took longer to recover from the Great Depression gathered their poke where they wouldn't be seen by their neighbors LOL
Katy
What are "water fried pancakes"? K
D T
Dumplings essentially
PatTheCat
I have to say, I've enjoyed the comments even more than the original article! Lots of interesting combinations and some great memories!
It points up the fact that people who know anything about cooking — as opposed to just opening a can or box — can not only can put together very tasty, filling meals with very basic ingredients, but grow or forage for food to enhance the experience. So stock up on some of those basics! When the belly is full we can go on to fight another day.
Another area that our society needs to get back to the very Basics of home economy (aka "home ec. 101").
Gail
Need some recipes
PatTheCat
That's the point: You don't Need recipes. \
Its Improvisation with available ingredients.
AuntB
Got my Grandmother's recipe of hot dog casserole and beef hash. Great meals that basically use leftovers. I am going to hunt down some of the dishes you listed above.