http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article

Waste not (want not)

ECONOMY | Great Depression forced creativity out of cooks, but same recipes
don't fly today


January 21, 2009

BY LEAH A. ZELDES

"What did Grandma eat during the Depression?

Parallels between today and the 1930s have many people reaching for history
books, hoping the Great Depression offers lessons for coping with current
hard times.

When it comes to the kitchen, though, changed tastes, new nutritional data
and, most importantly, real differences in the cost of foodstuffs mean that
Grandma's recipe file won't cut it during the recession 21st century-style.


Hard times

In 1933, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25
percent of the labor force was out of work. Like today's unemployment rate
(7.2 percent in December), that statistic probably underestimates the extent
of the crisis. The official numbers don't count freelancers, day laborers
and others doing part-time, temporary or, in some cases, unpaid work;
jobless people who've become too discouraged to keep job hunting; or the
underemployed.

"By and large, government relief programs were such that people didn't
starve to death," says Bruce Kraig, emeritus professor of history at
Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Not that food was abundant. In 1938, activists sponsored a "relief banquet"
at the Congress Hotel, demonstrating the average meal of families on
welfare, Kraig said. The 8-cent dinner included carrots, onion, a slice of
bread and half an apple. In comparison, a lobster dinner at the hotel in
1937 cost $2.75.

Families on relief received $28.50 a month. (Based on the Consumer Price
Index, that's about $466 in today's dollars.) Those lucky enough to get a
job with the Works Progress Administration made an average of $41.57 a
month.

Della Gieselmann, 100, a resident of Smith Village, a continuing care
community in Beverly, worked in New York during the 1930s.

"I got a job doing housework for a family. I had to cook for the family,"
she says. "They paid me $5 a week." Out of that, she sent money to help her
brothers.

"The men, they couldn't get jobs, so we had to help out the family,"
Gieselmann says. "We were glad we could survive."


Survival cooking

If you read cookbooks and glossy women's magazines of the 1930s, you'd never
know there was a depression going on. Publishers must have figured that poor
people weren't buyers.

Dining During the Depression (Reminisce Books, 1996), a collection of
recipes contributed by people who grew up in the 1930s, tells a wider story.
It features a variety of dishes made from weeds, such as poke salad,
dandelions, milkweed and cattails.

Where they could, people grew large gardens. Farmers struggled, but country
folks ate better than urbanites.

Velma Floyd, 91, a resident of the Smith Crossing retirement community in
Orland Park, grew up on a farm in Lawton, Iowa, near Sioux City.

"My dad butchered meat, and my mother canned it. It had a special taste.
Today, I can still tell," Floyd says.

The stove, she recalls, had no way to regulate the temperature, so cooking
in it took considerable knowledge and patience, unlike today's microwave
ovens. "That's all I have now," Floyd confides.


Working-class families had few conveniences.

"Everything was homemade," says Rosalie Schnierle, 89, a Gage Park resident
who grew up in Back of the Yards. "There was a lot of cooking. There was a
lot of baking,"

Her family didn't own a refrigerator, so they had to buy food daily.

"I remember going to the Atlas Market and buying two pounds of meat and a
bone," Schnierle says. Her mother would make it into a stew with potatoes
and vegetables, and that would be dinner.

Stews and soups, which could stretch a long way, made up many people's
principal meals in the 1930s. Cooks made soups out of whatever they could
find: coffee soup, pretzel soup, milk and noodle soup and the famous
Depression soup -- 1/3 cup ketchup and 2/3 cup boiling water.

Charity kitchens ladled out soup to the unemployed. Even notorious gangster
Al Capone contributed, setting up Chicago kitchens to feed 3,000 jobless
people three meals a day.

"Breakfast consists of coffee and a sweet roll, and dinner and supper of
soup, bread and coffee, with a second or third helping permitted," the New
York Times reported.


Then and now

Kraig, whose parents met on a WPA project, said his mother remembers mostly
cooking potatoes.

"That's always poor folks' food. Poor people eat starchy foods," Kraig says.

Dining During the Depression offers many recipes for potato dishes, even
potato candy.

Says a 93-year-old woman named Clara, the star of a series of YouTube videos
about Depression cooking by filmmaker Christopher Cannucciari: "My father
used to buy a sack of potatoes. We ate potatoes every day, potatoes with
pasta, potatoes fried, potatoes with eggs."

Back then, a dollar would have bought 100 pounds of potatoes. The best
Idahoes cost $2.25 per 100 pounds, according to a 1939 ad for Paradise Food
Mart in Joliet.

A Chicago grocery chain recently advertised russet potatoes on sale at $5
for 10 pounds. That's more than double the price of just a few years ago
and, figured in 1939 dollars, 145 percent of that year's price.

Potato prices rose dramatically in 2008, due to partly to weather
conditions, along with a drop in the number of acres nationally devoted to
growing spuds. The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that
farmers planted about 1 million acres of potatoes last fall, down 8 percent
from the previous year.

Cooks could afford little meat, so they made do with meatless recipes like
nut hash and black-eyed pea sausage, according to Dining During the
Depression. Such meat as there was tended to be cheap cuts.

Two pounds of frankfurters sold for 21 cents in 1933, as advertised by the
Fair, a market at State, Adams and Dearborn streets in downtown Chicago--
and you could get free delivery.

Hot dogs are still cheap -- if you're not fussy about their contents. On a
recent shopping trip, the Our Family brand was priced at $2 a pound. The
ingredients include "mechanically separated" chicken, pork, modified food
starch, beef, hydrolyzed soy protein and a long list of additives. By
contrast, Vienna Beef hot dogs, $7.60 at the same store, contain only beef,
flavorings and a couple of routine curing salts.

In the 1930s, chicken was luxury food, as revealed by the ill-fated
Republican promise of prosperity during Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential
campaign: "A chicken in every pot."

Leg of veal, then a cheap byproduct of the dairy industry, was only 9 cents.
Skewers of veal were nicknamed "city chicken."

In 1934, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, ready-to cook city chicken
skewers sold at two for 15 cents. Recent local prices for veal ranged from
about $17 per pound for cutlets to $28 per pound for chops.

Due to factory farming, Great-Grandma's delicacy is now cheap, everyday
food. Whole fryers typically sell for less than $2 per pound.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American ate
just 10 pounds of chicken per year throughout the '30s; today, we eat more
than 61 pounds each annually, much of it in McNuggets and other fast-food
meals.

There is one culinary lesson we can take away from the days when the jobless
went from door to door asking for food and marking with chalk the houses of
generous givers for the next comers, as Mary Owlsley, who spent the early
'30s in Oklahoma, recounts.

Quoted in Studs Terkel's 1970 oral history of the Great Depression, "Hard
Times," the Uptown resident says, "A lot of times, one family would have
some food. They would divide. And everyone would share.

"Even the people who were quite well-to-do, they was ashamed. 'Cause they
was eatin', and other people wasn't."


Leah A. Zeldes is a local free-lance writer.

</>

Gregory Morrow wrote:
> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article
>
>


I remember reading an article some time ago that much of the
Depression-era recipes were very nutritionally poor. it went on to say
that, given the ingredients that were available at the time, much of
this was avoidable too, it's just that at the time nutrition wasn't as
well researched as it is today, and people were chosing ingredients that
tasted best and made them feel the 'most full now' over balanced or
nutritionally complete meals.

Also, i'd guess that due to transportation and (especially)
refrigeration just getting started, that foods would be very 'regional'
in the 1930s. We have little trouble collecting inexpensive but
nutritionally-dense staple foods from around the country today, but in
those days you were probably less lucky in some regards.

My devalued $0.02

-Jared

"phaeton" ha scritto nel messaggio > Gregory Morrow wrote:
>> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article
>>
> I remember reading an article some time ago that much of the
> Depression-era recipes were very nutritionally poor. it went on to say >
> that, given the ingredients that were available at the time, much of >
> this was avoidable too, it's just that at the time nutrition wasn't as >
> well researched as it is today, and people were chosing ingredients that >
> tasted best and made them feel the 'most full now' over balanced or >
> nutritionally complete meals.
> -Jared

What did not happen was a shift from the idea of good eating as a piece of
meat surrounded with a few things. To this day American cooks are more
interested in what they think of as the center or the main. When describing
a meal, most start with what meat or fish is being consumed because they do
not think you know the meal until you know that ingredient. Poverty and
custom have made that different in other kitchens.

Giusi wrote:

> What did not happen was a shift from the idea of good eating as a piece of
> meat surrounded with a few things. To this day American cooks are more
> interested in what they think of as the center or the main. When
> describing a meal, most start with what meat or fish is being consumed
> because they do not think you know the meal until you know that
> ingredient.

Do most people here think in terms like that?

For me, the meal-planning process usually starts with some ingredient or
flavor combination I'd like to use in the meal. It *could* be meat, fish, or
poultry. But it's just as likely to be fruit, vegetable, or a particular
herb or spice (or mixture thereof, like a curry).

Bob

"phaeton" > wrote in message
...
> Gregory Morrow wrote:
>> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article
>>
>
>
> I remember reading an article some time ago that much of the
> Depression-era recipes were very nutritionally poor. it went on to say
> that, given the ingredients that were available at the time, much of this
> was avoidable too, it's just that at the time nutrition wasn't as well
> researched as it is today, and people were chosing ingredients that tasted
> best and made them feel the 'most full now' over balanced or nutritionally
> complete meals.
>
> Also, i'd guess that due to transportation and (especially) refrigeration
> just getting started, that foods would be very 'regional' in the 1930s.
> We have little trouble collecting inexpensive but nutritionally-dense
> staple foods from around the country today, but in those days you were
> probably less lucky in some regards.
>
> My devalued $0.02
>
> -Jared


Depends on what you call "less lucky". I suppose people who lived in big
cities had a much more difficult time of it. If you lived in the country
and had a small plot of land you had vegetable gardens and you raised
livestock. The cost of feed was probably an issue. But if you feed the the
livestock it, in turn, fed you. And you had gardens. And root cellers for
storing potatoes and other root vegetables. My grandmother's recipe for
potato soup is great Rivels (small flour and salt dumplings) were added
to the soup to stretch the meal.

They raised chickens and hogs. So they had fresh eggs, and of course the
occasional Sunday chicken dinner. They had to be frugal, of course, and
nothing went to waste. But they'd kill a hog and have enough meat to last
nearly a year. Refrigeration (or lack thereof) wasn't a problem; they did a
lot of smoking and curing of meat. And you're forgetting "ice boxes". I
suspect you're too young to know about ice boxes.

Where I live now there are ruins of an indigo plantation from the 1700's.
One of the buildings was a "dairy". It was dug into the ground. They made
cheese and butter and stored it (along with milk) there. Blocks of ice were
hauled in, coated in sawdust (which for some odd reason doesn't allow ice to
melt!) to keep things cold during the hot summer months.

Even though my grandmother had a garden, she often sent my dad and his
brothers out to pick dandylion greens. Maybe she just wanted them out of
the house! It's funny, I recently heard dandylion greens being mentioned on
some cooking show, as if it was some new exotic thing.

Jill

jmcquown wrote:
> "phaeton" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Gregory Morrow wrote:
>>> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> I remember reading an article some time ago that much of the
>> Depression-era recipes were very nutritionally poor. it went on to
>> say that, given the ingredients that were available at the time, much
>> of this was avoidable too, it's just that at the time nutrition wasn't
>> as well researched as it is today, and people were chosing ingredients
>> that tasted best and made them feel the 'most full now' over balanced
>> or nutritionally complete meals.
>>
>> Also, i'd guess that due to transportation and (especially)
>> refrigeration just getting started, that foods would be very
>> 'regional' in the 1930s. We have little trouble collecting inexpensive
>> but nutritionally-dense staple foods from around the country today,
>> but in those days you were probably less lucky in some regards.
>>
>> My devalued $0.02
>>
>> -Jared
>
>
> Depends on what you call "less lucky". I suppose people who lived in
> big cities had a much more difficult time of it. If you lived in the
> country and had a small plot of land you had vegetable gardens and you
> raised livestock. The cost of feed was probably an issue. But if you
> feed the the livestock it, in turn, fed you. And you had gardens. And
> root cellers for storing potatoes and other root vegetables. My
> grandmother's recipe for potato soup is great Rivels (small flour
> and salt dumplings) were added to the soup to stretch the meal.
>
> They raised chickens and hogs. So they had fresh eggs, and of course
> the occasional Sunday chicken dinner. They had to be frugal, of course,
> and nothing went to waste. But they'd kill a hog and have enough meat
> to last nearly a year. Refrigeration (or lack thereof) wasn't a
> problem; they did a lot of smoking and curing of meat. And you're
> forgetting "ice boxes". I suspect you're too young to know about ice
> boxes.
>
> Where I live now there are ruins of an indigo plantation from the
> 1700's. One of the buildings was a "dairy". It was dug into the
> ground. They made cheese and butter and stored it (along with milk)
> there. Blocks of ice were hauled in, coated in sawdust (which for some
> odd reason doesn't allow ice to melt!) to keep things cold during the
> hot summer months.
>
> Even though my grandmother had a garden, she often sent my dad and his
> brothers out to pick dandylion greens. Maybe she just wanted them out
> of the house! It's funny, I recently heard dandylion greens being
> mentioned on some cooking show, as if it was some new exotic thing.
>
> Jill
You can also make an excellent wine with dandelion flowers.

My Dad's family had moved to the city at the time the depression
started. They really had to move as the federal gubmint had eminent
domained their family homestead (homesteaded by my great grandfather
Smith in 1872) for a national forest in 1925. They had a milk cow on a
vacant lot and weren't the only ones to do so. They raised chickens,
rabbits, and a pig in the backyard of the house they rented. Big garden
on another vacant lot plus all of the seven kids who were old enough
worked at whatever they could find.

I believe that the people of today can, and will do the same things to
make ends meet if it becomes necessary. Have faith, this too, will pass.

phaeton wrote:
> Gregory Morrow wrote:
>> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> I remember reading an article some time ago that much of the
> Depression-era recipes were very nutritionally poor. it went on to say
> that, given the ingredients that were available at the time, much of
> this was avoidable too, it's just that at the time nutrition wasn't as
> well researched as it is today, and people were chosing ingredients that
> tasted best and made them feel the 'most full now' over balanced or
> nutritionally complete meals.

When WW2 came, inductees were in horrible shape compared to later. I've
read that many ate better eating c-rations and military fare than they'd
eaten in ages. The military had to really boost them up nutritionally to
have a fighting force.

Goomba wrote:
> phaeton wrote:
> > Gregory Morrow wrote:
> >>http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...s-depress21.ar....
>
> > I remember reading an article some time ago that much of the
> > Depression-era recipes were very nutritionally poor. �it went on to say
> > that, given the ingredients that were available at the time, much of
> > this was avoidable too, it's just that at the time nutrition wasn't as
> > well researched as it is today, and people were chosing ingredients that
> > tasted best and made them feel the 'most full now' over balanced or
> > nutritionally complete meals.
>
> When WW2 came, inductees were in horrible shape compared to later. I've
> read that many ate better eating c-rations and military fare than they'd
> eaten in ages. The military had to really boost them up nutritionally to
> have a fighting force.

That's just not so. Back then the general population, especially
young folks were in far, FAR better physical shape than nowadays.
Seventy years ago most young men (and women) did hard physical work
and ate much more healthful diets... there were very few single parent
households and hardly any were a two income households, folks ate
*good* home cooking every day, eating out was a rare occasion, but
even restaurant food then was no different from *good* home cooking,
there was no fast food. Today most young people sit on their obese
butts all day and OVEReat fast food garbage. During the '40s the
typical inductee came off a farm where they worked hard from since
they could walk... farm kids worked harder before breakfast than most
kids do these days in an entire month. Back then young people needed
boot camp for the psychological adjustment, they really didn't need
the physical training... baling hay and shoveling manure is far harder
work than jumping jacks and push-ups... when I was in boot camp
compared to how hard we worked and played we considered the physical
activity a walk on the beach, it was only the emotional adjustment
that was difficult. Even city kids worked and played harder than most
kids today, back then no one needed a spa membership. Nowadays the
most strenuous physical activity most young folks engage in is text
messaging... okay, I'll give you that, today's young folks do have
stronger thumbs. I see the school kids today, only a very small
percentage are in good physical shape, the majority have bodies like
overcooked pasta, and from speaking with school teachers the kids have
brains to match... a good half of today's kids are pushed through the
educational system without them knowing how to read... today teen
pregnancy is higher than ever, and in fact you can't say teen, many
are under twelve years old... todays young folks are more than ever
tomorrow's welfare recipients and prison population.

On Jan 23, 5:41*pm, "Gregory Morrow" > wrote:
> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...s-depress21.ar...
>
> Waste not (want not)
>
> ECONOMY | Great Depression forced creativity out of cooks, but same recipes
> don't fly today
>
> January 21, 2009
>
> BY LEAH A. ZELDES
>
> "What did Grandma eat during the Depression?
>
>
> In the 1930s, chicken was luxury food, as revealed by the ill-fated
> Republican promise of prosperity during Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential
> campaign: "A chicken in every pot."
>
Republicans espousing "Tinkle Down Economics" is nothing new.
That and deregulation.

--Bryan, who is planting an extra large victory garden this year

"Gregory Morrow" wrote:
> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...s-depress21.ar...

Entirely gross exaggeration and misinformation.

There is no way to compare the eating habits from the 1930s with
today... even though there are far more choices now people made better
choices then. Today's food is so processed it can hardly be
classified as food. Even that article claims most chicken now is
eaten as nuggets, how is something consisting of like 80 percent
mystery grease laden breading chicken... in truth it's chicken
flavored toxic waste. I grew up poor, but my mom cooked a whole fresh
killed chicken every week... we only had an ice-a-box, so we walked to
the market every day, I never did feel comfortable about the live
chicken market. There is no comparison of the flavor of fresh killed
chicken to what foks call chicken nowadays... it's like what folks
call beer, if at any time during the process it touched metal it's NOT
beer... no one under 60 in the US has ever tasted beer.

On 2009-01-24, Sheldon > wrote:

> call beer, if at any time during the process it touched metal it's NOT
> beer... no one under 60 in the US has ever tasted beer.

Now you're jes being silly, Shel.

nb

notbob wrote:
> Sheldon wrote:
>
> > call beer, if at any time during the process it touched metal it's NOT
> > beer... no one under 60 in the US has ever tasted beer.
>
> Now you're jes being silly, Shel.

Unfortunately it's true. Today all beer is brewed in metal, piped in
metal, shipped in metal, and stored in metal, and by the time some
beer is bottled in glass it's far too late, the glass beer bottle is
merely a charade. Many years ago beer was brewed in wood, shipped in
wood, and piped through glass... bottled beer never touched metal, and
since beer wasn't pasteurized it tasted good but it didn't store
well. The local watering hole kept beer in wooden barrels in the
cellar cooled by block ice. The beer reached the bar through sections
of glass tubing connected with cork, the metal beer tap was lined with
glass, or made entirely of ceramic. When I was a kid one of my chores
was to bring beer home from a local tavern in a wooden bucket called a
growler. Later there were metal growlers but that defeated the
purpose. Now there are glass growlers but since the beer is now from
a metal container it's a joke.

M-W

growl�er
noun
Date: 1753
1 : one that growls
2 : a container (as a can or pitcher) for beer bought by the measure
3 : a small iceberg
---

http://www.barleysbrewing.com/growler.htm

On 2009-01-24, Sheldon > wrote:

> http://www.barleysbrewing.com/growler.htm

Yes, I know what a growler is. I've also brewed real beer from malted
barely, live yeast, and excellent water. Food grade stainless steel has no
more impact on the flavor of beer than glass and appreciably less than wood.
Besides all that, don't tell me that beer, which is boiled for anywhere from
30-90 mins, is boiled in glass or wooden containers. Copper mash and boil
tuns have been around for centuries.

nb

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 09:13:55 -0500, Goomba >
wrote:


>When WW2 came, inductees were in horrible shape compared to later. I've
>read that many ate better eating c-rations and military fare than they'd
>eaten in ages. The military had to really boost them up nutritionally to
>have a fighting force.

The health of some of the soldiers was one of the factors leading to
the passing of the National School Lunch Act. Childhood nutrition
was realized to be a matter of national security.

Tara

We've decided to substantially enlarge our vegetable and herb garden
this year.

I gave some thought to acquiring a few hens or ducks for eggs and to
help keep the insects down but apparently municipal regulations prohibit
this.

I mean to lean on our alderman about the matter. If it doesn't crow,
stink or transmit rabies, why should anybody else care?

On Jan 24, 12:36�pm, notbob > wrote:
> On 2009-01-24, Sheldon > wrote:
>
> >http://www.barleysbrewing.com/growler.htm
>
> �Food grade stainless steel has no more impact on the flavor
> of beer than glass and appreciably less than wood.

That's just not true. Stainless steel is an alloy of various metals
and other elements. Food grade stainless steel is one of those made
up hyperbole terms like "surgical stainless steel" ... the grades that
earn the food grade designation are the lowest grades. The
"stainless" in stainless steel means it's less prone to be affected by
foods, not that it won't affect food... it will impart a metalic
taste... plastic is better in that regard. Glass is one of the least
reactive materials, it imparts nothing, that's why even though it's
far more fragile glass is used for lab work, and not stainless steel.
Various woods have always been used for brewing/fermentation, because
they do impart flavor, but a desirable flavor, the particular wood is
actually an important ingredient in the recipe. Did you ever place a
nickle in your mouth, perhaps you enjoy beer with that taste, I don't.

On 2009-01-24, Sheldon > wrote:

> That's just not true. Stainless steel is an alloy of various metals
> and other elements. Food grade stainless steel is one of those made
> up hyperbole terms like "surgical stainless steel" ... the grades that
> earn the food grade designation are the lowest grades. The
> "stainless" in stainless steel means it's less prone to be affected by
> foods, not that it won't affect food... it will impart a metalic
> taste... plastic is better in that regard. Glass is one of the least
> reactive materials, it imparts nothing, that's why even though it's
> far more fragile glass is used for lab work, and not stainless steel.
> Various woods have always been used for brewing/fermentation, because
> they do impart flavor, but a desirable flavor, the particular wood is
> actually an important ingredient in the recipe. Did you ever place a
> nickle in your mouth, perhaps you enjoy beer with that taste, I don't.

We'll just have to disagree. I've tasted beer brewed in glasss, plastic,
and SS. You gotta have a better palate than me, cuz I couldn't taste the
diff. I daresay, there are few brewers who even age their beer in wood. I
think Pilsen Urquell was the last commercial brewer to use wooden casks and
they changed out for SS several years back. Microbrewers still use wood,
but it's an adjunct in the form of wood chips.

I do find it interesting that old bar delivery systems you experienced used
glass tubing and ceramic lined spouts. I've seen old beer engines like they
still use in the UK, but many of those have "sparklers" a highly
controverial attachment that purists disdain.

nb

Kathleen > wrote:
> We've decided to substantially enlarge our vegetable and herb garden
> this year.
>
> I gave some thought to acquiring a few hens or ducks for eggs and to
> help keep the insects down but apparently municipal regulations prohibit this.

Poultry attracts far more insects than they eliminate.

> I mean to lean on our alderman about the matter. �If it doesn't
crow,
> stink or transmit rabies, why should anybody else care?

Livestock pollutes the ground water, runoff, and in turn all nearby
water bodies including private wells. Livestock, especially poultry,
carries many communicable diseases, many which infect humans and
wildlife. Livestock smells foul, livestock is noisy, livestock
attracts preditors and nuisance animals, many of which are dangerous
to humans and other domestic animals as well as local wildlife and are
destructive to property, both private lands as well as park lands adn
other government lands.

Municipal codes and zoning laws are in place to proctect all citizens
and the environment. If you want to engage in an agri business then
you need to relocate to a more rural location where it's permited, and
you still must obey the local laws.

Keep in mind there are laws governing flora too, you can't just plant
whatever you like however you like, you cannot use whatever agri
chemicals you like in whatever quantity you like.

In article >,
"Bob Terwilliger" > wrote:

> Giusi wrote:
>
> > What did not happen was a shift from the idea of good eating as a piece of
> > meat surrounded with a few things. To this day American cooks are more
> > interested in what they think of as the center or the main. When
> > describing a meal, most start with what meat or fish is being consumed
> > because they do not think you know the meal until you know that
> > ingredient.
>
> Do most people here think in terms like that?

I sum it up with the one US word, "sides".

I'll ask somebody, casually, what they had for dinner last night. Roast
beef. Just roast beef? No, they had a vegetable and potatoes also.
Very often, there is no mention of which vegetable or how it was
prepared, or how the potatoes were prepared. And, if I hadn't prompted
them, the conversation about dinner would have ended with "roast beef".

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA

In article > ,
"Gregory Morrow" > wrote:

> Where they could, people grew large gardens. Farmers struggled, but country
> folks ate better than urbanites.

I believe it! I remember my brother asking Mom once how our (very
large) family managed during the Depression years ‹ in January, 1937,
there were nine kids between the ages of 4 and 16 in the house, plus my
folks. My mom's response to my brother was that we never had any money
anyway, so she didn't especially notice, and since my family lived on a
big farm, they grew most of our food.

I need to verify some of the details with a couple of my sibs, though;
one of them told me once that there were many times when supper was a
dish of oatmeal. That doesn't quite fit with having enough food without
hardship.

I just looked at a Yahoo site that said the Depression bottomed out in
1933. Between 1917 and 1933, my mom had a baby, on average, every 20
months. After January 24, 1933 (Today! Happy 76th birthday, Bill!!),
the next one wasn't born until mid-1937. I guess Mom put her foot down.
Or something. :-)
--
-Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ
http://web.me.com/barbschaller
http://gallery.me.com/barbschaller/100041
-- a woman my age shouldn't
have this much fun!

"Gregory Morrow" > wrote in message
m...
>
>
> http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/f...ress21.article
>
> Waste not (want not)
>
> ECONOMY | Great Depression forced creativity out of cooks, but same
> recipes
> don't fly today
>
>
> January 21, 2009
>
> BY LEAH A. ZELDES
>
> "What did Grandma eat during the Depression?
>
> Parallels between today and the 1930s have many people reaching for
> history
> books, hoping the Great Depression offers lessons for coping with current
> hard times.
>
> When it comes to the kitchen, though, changed tastes, new nutritional data
> and, most importantly, real differences in the cost of foodstuffs mean
> that
> Grandma's recipe file won't cut it during the recession 21st
> century-style.
>
>
> Hard times



Does that mean my cookbooks from the 30's and early 40's are worth more?

:-)

Dimitri

Melba's Jammin' wrote:
> In article > ,
> "Gregory Morrow" > wrote:
>
>> Where they could, people grew large gardens. Farmers struggled, but country
>> folks ate better than urbanites.
>
> I believe it! I remember my brother asking Mom once how our (very
> large) family managed during the Depression years ‹ in January, 1937,
> there were nine kids between the ages of 4 and 16 in the house, plus my
> folks. My mom's response to my brother was that we never had any money
> anyway, so she didn't especially notice, and since my family lived on a
> big farm, they grew most of our food.
>

That made me wonder if "poor folk" actually coped better during the
Depression than the well-off because they had not as much to lose
and they were used to living with much less.

After consideration, I don't think so. It would be better today to be
down to your last million than jobless and down to your last dollar.

I remember after WWII when I was very little, our back yard was
all vegetable garden and we had a big apple tree, grape vines, and
chicken and rabbit pens.

We may not have eaten high on the hog, but we ate.

gloria p

"Gloria P" > wrote in message
...
>>
>
> That made me wonder if "poor folk" actually coped better during the
> Depression than the well-off because they had not as much to lose
> and they were used to living with much less.
>
> After consideration, I don't think so. It would be better today to be
> down to your last million than jobless and down to your last dollar.
>
> I remember after WWII when I was very little, our back yard was
> all vegetable garden and we had a big apple tree, grape vines, and chicken
> and rabbit pens.
>
> We may not have eaten high on the hog, but we ate.
>
> gloria p

it's much harder to have gone from riches to being poor than poor to being
poorer.
--
C.D

Sheldon wrote:
> it's like what folks
> call beer, if at any time during the process it touched metal it's NOT
> beer... no one under 60 in the US has ever tasted beer.


Back before Prohibition did they have wooden boilers? ;-)

Bob

As a kid ( during WWII )
I can remember being sent to the grocers
for a "fifteen-cent soup bone"

Cooked in a pot with lots of
potatoes and vegetables,
fed a family of four.....
( also, lots of rye bread and oleo )

Gloria P wrote:
> >
> That made me wonder if "poor folk" actually coped better during the
> Depression than the well-off because they had not as much to lose
> and they were used to living with much less.
>
> After consideration, I don't think so.

There weren't m/any po' folk jumping out of windows.

During the Depression, my mother had access to all the free oysters
one could consume. In later years, she couldn't bear the thought of
eating one.

A friend's mother remarked that, being almost the youngest girl in a
family of 9 kids, she only got the chicken neck from the once a week
meat meal. They lived on polenta and the like.

Another friend who grew up in Europe after the war literally survived
on turnips and whatever else they could steal.

C.D wrote:
>
> "Gloria P" > wrote in message
> ...
>>>
>>
>> That made me wonder if "poor folk" actually coped better during the
>> Depression than the well-off because they had not as much to lose
>> and they were used to living with much less.
>>
>> After consideration, I don't think so. It would be better today to be
>> down to your last million than jobless and down to your last dollar.
>>

>
> it's much harder to have gone from riches to being poor than poor to
> being poorer.


The difference is in the relativity.

Rich to poor probably means you still have a roof over your head and
food on the table, even if it's not what you are used to.

Poor to poorer may mean living on the streets and scrounging in
restaurant dumpsters or living in a homeless shelter.

I'll never forget Ken (Enron) Lay's wife crying that they had
"nothing, nothing left." Yeah, just the Texas mansion and the
$12 million house in Vail (or was it Aspen?) they were trying to
sell. Yeah, they had "lost" three houses in the Enron collapse,
but they weren't left with exactly "nothing".

gloria p

In article >,
notbob > wrote:


> diff. I daresay, there are few brewers who even age their beer in wood. I


Budweiser is "beechwood aged". It says so right on the can!

I took a tour of their brewery many years back, the one in Fairfield,
California. There was a whole room full of tanks, each one the size of
my house. Well, maybe bigger than my house. Somebody asked about the
beechwood, since these tanks obviously were not wooden. The guy opened
a door in the tank, and pulled out a little tray, about one foot by two
feet, with wood chips on it. That was it. One tray per tank. We all
laughed. Somebody asked the obvious question. The guide gave the
story. It was pretty obvious that he had told the story many times,
that he knew it was a lie but that was the story, and it was his job to
tell it. He managed to keep a pretty straight face the whole time.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:07:57 -0800 (PST), val189
> fired up random neurons and synapses to
opine:

>
>During the Depression, my mother had access to all the free oysters
>one could consume. In later years, she couldn't bear the thought of
>eating one.
>
>A friend's mother remarked that, being almost the youngest girl in a
>family of 9 kids, she only got the chicken neck from the once a week
>meat meal. They lived on polenta and the like.
>
>Another friend who grew up in Europe after the war literally survived
>on turnips and whatever else they could steal.

My father grew up during the Depression - the first one - in backwoods
Alabama, #3 kid of 4. His father died when he was 13, leaving "nothing
but his name," as my father used to say, and his mother had a 3rd
grade education and no saleable skills. She had a truck garden, raised
chickens, pigs and goats, bartered for what she couldn't raise or
shoot. Dad and his brother picked cotton, and whatever else they could
turn their hands to for money or trade. He used to say that the
sweetest watermelons were the ones he stole. He even stole a
neighbor's chicken and sold it back to him. About the third time he
tried that particular manuever, the neighbor told him he wasn't buyin'
that damned chicken again, then proceeded to wring its neck on the
spot. He handed the dead chicken back to Dad and told him to "git on
home and tell your mama to give you a swat." 10 years later, Dad
graduated from West Point. All 4 kids did their mama - and *their*
kids - proud.

Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd

--

"Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch!"

-- W.C. Fields

To reply, replace "meatloaf" with "cox"

On Jan 24, 3:58*am, "Bob Terwilliger" >
wrote:
> Giusi wrote:
> > What did not happen was a shift from the idea of good eating as a piece of
> > meat surrounded with a few things. *To this day American cooks are more
> > interested in what they think of as the center or the main. *When
> > describing a meal, most start with what meat or fish is being consumed
> > because they do not think you know the meal until you know that
> > ingredient.
>
> Do most people here think in terms like that?
>
> For me, the meal-planning process usually starts with some ingredient or
> flavor combination I'd like to use in the meal. It *could* be meat, fish, or
> poultry. But it's just as likely to be fruit, vegetable, or a particular
> herb or spice (or mixture thereof, like a curry).

Yes, I think that way:
"What's for dinner?"
"Well, you're having leftover beef for lunch, so let's have
chicken."
"How will you cook it?"
"I dunno. Grilled? Picatta? Curry? What do you feel like?"

The side dishes follow from there. Almost always a green salad
and some starch--usually rice or bread.

That's pretty much how it plays out every night. Or else it's like
this:

"I didn't plan anything for dinner. Do you want breakfast for dinner,
or
shall we order a pizza? Or I could defrost some spaghetti sauce and
tortelloni."

Cindy Hamilton

wrote:
>I can remember being sent to the grocers
>for a "fifteen-cent soup bone"
>Cooked in a pot with lots of
>potatoes and vegetables,
>fed a family of four.....

If nearly everyone endured those same hard times, why didn't the grocers just
dispense free meat? I can't imagine anyone was able to afford meat.

Orlando

In article > ,
Orlando Enrique Fiol > wrote:

> wrote:
> >I can remember being sent to the grocers for a "fifteen-cent soup
> >bone" Cooked in a pot with lots of potatoes and vegetables, fed a
> >family of four.....
>

> If nearly everyone endured those same hard times, why didn't the grocers just
> dispense free meat? I can't imagine anyone was able to afford meat.
>
> Orlando

People make choices all the time about how they spend grocery money.

--
-Barb, Mother Superior, HOSSSPoJ
http://web.me.com/barbschaller
http://gallery.me.com/barbschaller/100041
-- a woman my age shouldn't
have this much fun!

In article > ,
Orlando Enrique Fiol > wrote:

> wrote:
> >I can remember being sent to the grocers
> >for a "fifteen-cent soup bone"
> >Cooked in a pot with lots of
> >potatoes and vegetables,
> >fed a family of four.....
>
> If nearly everyone endured those same hard times, why didn't the grocers just
> dispense free meat? I can't imagine anyone was able to afford meat.

Where would the grocers get the meat? Nobody is going to give the
grocer meat without getting paid for it. If the grocer buys the meat
and gives it away, it won't take long before the grocer has to close.
Then *nobody* gets meat, even if they *do* have money.

And it's always the marginal people who suffer. If you have a job, you
might be OK. If you don't have a job, and times are tough, it's hard to
find a job. My grandfather worked for the railroad when the depression
hit. He had been there long enough not to worry about being laid off,
and he had a valuable skill. They weren't going to close down the
railroads.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA

"Dan Abel" > wrote in message
...
> In article > ,
> Orlando Enrique Fiol > wrote:
>
>> wrote:
>> >I can remember being sent to the grocers
>> >for a "fifteen-cent soup bone"
>> >Cooked in a pot with lots of
>> >potatoes and vegetables,
>> >fed a family of four.....
>>
>> If nearly everyone endured those same hard times, why didn't the grocers
>> just
>> dispense free meat? I can't imagine anyone was able to afford meat.
>
> Where would the grocers get the meat? Nobody is going to give the
> grocer meat without getting paid for it. If the grocer buys the meat
> and gives it away, it won't take long before the grocer has to close.
> Then *nobody* gets meat, even if they *do* have money.
>

> --
> Dan Abel
> Petaluma, California USA
>


Right, and no butcher has ever wrapped up steaks for his friends and hit the
ground beef number on the scale.

Dimitri