Depression era food

[Gammon]

Anyone else have any recipes for depression era food that you eat in good times as well as bad?

I suddenly got a craving for one last night and thought that considering my current financial situation, maybe I should be eating it more often.

It's called Russian Fluff. I will post the recipe when I get a chance to double check it (I can make it off the top of my head, but whether or not it's the actual recipe...) It's actually really good and worth trying. (But maybe I only think it's good because I've been eating it all my life; my wife hates it.)

I did a search for it online one time just to find out some history behind it. I did find a few recipes, but they all contain rice, and the one that I have does not.

 

[Desdinova]

I would think that a lot of the cajun/creole recipes still do this.

Basically, whatever you have on hand gets thrown into the crock pot.

 

[Hawkeye5]

My father would, on occasion, have a bowl of milk and crackers. Something from his childhood. He was born in 1924 and he and my mother had distinct memories of the depression.

 

[paddy-boy]

Cornbread and buttermilk

 

[Desdinova]

fried bologna with pasta in tomato juice

 

[elkaholic]

My wife and I received a cookbook from my MIL that contains recipes from the pioneers who settled in the small Oregon town that she lives in. It contains several recipes for possum, raccoons, etc.

I would be glad to post some recipes if anyone is interested!

 

[Desdinova]

My wife and I received a cookbook from my MIL that contains recipes from the pioneers who settled in the small Oregon town that she lives in. It contains several recipes for possum, raccoons, etc.

I would be glad to post some recipes if anyone is interested!

mmmmm, roadkill stew!

Yummy!

 

[Gammon]

Possum, raccoon, squirrel, etc are not exactly what I'd consider depression inspired, more like Hillbilly.
I work with a couple people who swear by road squirrel..

 

[Prince]

Cornbread and buttermilk

My grandpa would do this alot. It was one of his favorite "treats".

Made me want to hurl everytime he drank it.

 

[joshmpdx]

I like Riboletta (sp?) which is a twice boiled minestroni soup from italy.

in a pinch i'll make it as follows:
*16 oz Minestroni soup
*8 oz can great northern beans (white bean)
*1/4 loaf of bagette sliced and toasted
*olive oil

toast and crumble the bagette and simmer all ingrediants for 30 minutes.

 

[CMATakashi]

I do spam and rice on occasion. If i'm feeling fancy I can incorporate some nori (sushi seaweed) into it to make poor man's sushi.

Btw: I'm Japanese

 

[Aevum]

This discussion reminded me of a piece i saw on seriouseats.com a few months back, its about an old lady that lived through the original depression and shows on youtube the recepies they use to make,
http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/02/in-videos-depression-cooking-with-clara-poormans-meal.html

 

[Gammon]

Okay, here it is. You can tell it's depression-era because of the ingredients. Especially because part of it is pre-prepared..

1/2 cup diced onions
1/2 cup diced celery
1# ground beef
1 can Franco-American Spaghetti (doesn't really matter what brand)
3/4 cup ketchup
Salz und Pfeffer

Fry onions, celery and beef together. Stir in canned spaghetti. When spaghetti is well mixed in, (usually the noodles are very small by now), stir in ketchup. Stir in unspecified amounts of salt and pepper. (I haven't got round to measuring this yet, but it doesn't really matter)

So, if you try it, let me know if you like it. My mom's entire extended family eats this stuff on a regular basis. I'm guessing this recipe originated in my mom's family. There are other Russian Fluff recipes out there, but none are like this one. The rest have rice. Apparently, no one has any idea why it's called Russian Fluff.

 

[jlanger]

Wash Day hotdish (from my grandma)

canned tomatoes (home canned if possible)
1 lb ground beef
Couple handful of egg noodles
1 small onion, diced.

Basic hot dish, I've added corn to my recipe, as well as garlic, though there is something simple about it all.
My grandparents also got me in the bad habit of having bread/butter/Jelly with most of my hotdishes, I think this was usually to help spread the main course around more, though this recipe makes a lot of food, I'd think that for 8-10 kids in families my grandparents grew up in this wouldn't amount to much.
Most of this information/history was being lost, luckily/unluckily the modern great recession has kicked in some of these lessons in again, hopefully we'll do a bit better job remembering them eh?

 

[Aevum]

I do spam and rice on occasion. If i'm feeling fancy I can incorporate some nori (sushi seaweed) into it to make poor man's sushi.

Btw: I'm Japanese

curious, wasnt sushi originaly a poor mans meal ? the idea was to use rice with sake viniguer to get a bit more time out of less then fresh fish,

 

[alexo]

A simple, cheap and filling Hungarian recipe that's also very tasty:

1 medium/large cabbage cut to small pieces
1-2 cups of noodles/pasta (square shaped are traditionally used)
salt
black pepper

Fry the cabbage in a large pot until a little brown.

Add salt to taste, about a tablespoon, pasta and cover with water.

Cook until soft.

It's fine to sprinkle with black pepper and eat or remove from the pot and bake to brown the dish. It tastes at least as good the day after.

 

[Alacrity59]

My dad was a kid in the depression. He spoke of bakeries adding sawdust to bread. Horse meat was not uncommon and more people were pressed into using more organ meats than they would have liked. A particular favourite with him was cow tongue.

 

[natchez]

My grandparents made a dish with cabbage and noodles. They shredded the cabbage and fried it very slowly until it sort of browned, then added noodles and salt to it. The name in Yiddish is kraupletzle (sp), which translates to cabbage noodles.

Occasionally, I will whip up a batch. Makes a great side dish.

 

[C.Morgan]

My dad was a kid in the depression. He spoke of bakeries adding sawdust to bread. Horse meat was not uncommon and more people were pressed into using more organ meats than they would have liked. A particular favourite with him was cow tongue.

My gran would always give me tonuge sandwiches.Not had it since i was small.She would also make me something called a "fairy piece"

Get two slices of bread and butter one side of each slice of bread then sprinkle sugar over it.Thats a fairy piece.

[EDIT] They would also eat bowls of soupy tripe.....horrible stuff.When i was a kid my mum would make a soup called "cullen skink" its basically a white fish and milk soup.I would always throw a major tantrum when i had to eat it lol

 

[kadett]

All this is fancy food for city folks which isn't truly depression fare. My grandfather ate a lot of squirrels and possum in the depression, or sometimes rabbit, and that's if he was lucky.
On occasion apparently my great grandmother would make a meal by mixing leftover fat with flour to make some kind of slop similar to "white gravy" or "sawmill gravy" essentially making biscuits and gravy. Aside from this it was anything that they could grow in the garden or sometimes they could go fishing at the local river.