# Food lessons from the Great Depression



## hacon1 (Feb 4, 2008)

SOURCE: http://www.latimes.com/features/food...0.story?page=1

Today, learning how to cook on a budget is becoming important to more families. In the 1930s, making do was a kitchen art, honed by necessity. Sour grass soup, anyone?



By Mary MacVean
December 10, 2008
When she was a kid, for a treat Pat Box and her seven siblings got "water cocoa," which is pretty much what it sounds like and nothing special today. But that was in the 1930s, when her father's business was reselling bakers' barrels to coopers, and the family would get first crack at them, scraping the wood for any traces of sugar or cocoa left behind.

With luck, they'd also have rye bread and fresh butter they'd buy on Brooklyn Avenue.

"It was wonderful," said Box, 87, one afternoon while she gathered with friends at the Claude Pepper Senior Center on La Cienega Boulevard, just north of the 10 Freeway.

At a time when Americans face frightening and disorienting economic uncertainty, the Great Depression provides valuable lessons. For many people, putting a meal on the table without turning to processed or takeout foods is no longer something just for a weekend dinner party but a skill they must learn. People who remember what it was like to eat during the Depression talk about thrift, growing their own, sharing with neighbors and learning to cope with what they had.

Box grew up in Boyle Heights in a time of desperate need, but no one went hungry at her family's house, though it took work and ingenuity.

Her mother baked bread and made kreplach. Her father turned flour sacks into towels to sell, and her aunt sold chickens. "You'd stick your hand in, feel for fat around the stomach" and make your choice. Her mother made pillows with the feathers.

It was a time when leftovers were planned. A roast chicken -- for Jewish Shabbat or Sunday dinner -- lasted for days, as chicken with rice, chicken and dumplings, pot pie, stew or soup or salad. Women used the wrappers on margarine to butter baking pans. People ate what they could grow or kill or find.

Be honest, now: Can anybody in your house skin a rabbit?

Know what to do with milkweed pods? (Boil them and top with grated cheese.) Get your kids to eat sour grass soup? Those recipes, from "Dining During the Depression," a collection of recipes edited by Karen Thibodeau, are unlikely to find their way into kitchens today, despite the state of the economy.

But in the 1930s, making do was a kitchen art, honed by necessity.

"In the times when the economy is really bad, it becomes an even more important question of how you're going to put food on the table for your family," says Kelly Alexander, co-author of "Hometown Appetites," a biography of the pioneering newspaper food columnist Clementine Paddleford.

"If you want to save money, you're going to have to learn to cook," Alexander says.

She says she recently saw a pot pie recipe that called for precooked pieces of chicken, a premade crust and vegetables from a salad bar -- essentially directions for assembling, not cooking. So by appealing to people who are too busy to cook or unwilling to learn, a modern version of a dish invented to make leftovers appealing becomes a collection of expensive ingredients.

Many Americans never learned to cook as they grew up, and they rely on takeout or packaged food, but dinner was a very different experience during the Depression.

Mix 'n' match soup

"We ate a lot of mashed potatoes, and I'm still hung up on mashed potatoes," says Rosalyn Weinstein, 79, pointing to an uneaten scoop on her plate. Though she does not cook much these days, she says she still makes "mix 'n' match" soup from whatever is on hand.

"Cooking is becoming a lost art," she says. "I've never been a takeout person. And I've never been a fast food person.

Joe Bagley, 81, who moved to Los Angeles during World War II, was born in Texas and raised for a time on a farm. "We were never wanting for food, but you had to raise your own," he says, adding that his family saw plenty of hungry people wandering in search of work. They'd stop at the farm, and Bagley recalls that he'd be sent inside to get whatever was there to feed them.

Though the country is not in a depression today, signs of tough times are all around.

The market is in shreds, food is pricier. A spokesman for Ralphs and Food 4 Less says more people are turning to house brands, and Albertsons has seen more sales of "stretcher" products such as Hamburger Helper, a spokeswoman says...........................


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## TundraGypsy (Feb 25, 2005)

I remember my mother taking saltine crackers, a little baking soda and some tomato sauce or ketchup and making them into patties. She then fried them until golden brown and served them hot. I have NO idea where she got that recipe from; but when you are hungry and have five kids to feed, you fix whatever you can. 

I do remember her telling me that her uncle had a very large garden in New Jersey and all the many canned jars of food they'd put up each year and store in their basement, under the house.


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## Chuck-prime (Jul 24, 2007)

hacon1 said:


> SOURCE: http://www.latimes.com/features/food...0.story?page=1
> 
> Today, learning how to cook on a budget is becoming important to more families. In the 1930s, making do was a kitchen art, honed by necessity. Sour grass soup, anyone?
> 
> ...



Being able to_ hide _what you grow will be an art form.


But even if it were _legal _to hunt for rabbit and squirrel (depending where you live)....would there be enough to go around?




Glad I don't live in a big city, that's for sure.



.


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2008)

*Food lessons from the Great Depression*

Lear to cook. From scratch.

No mixes, no ready made, not any of that stuff. Start with basic staple foods and go from there.

Master that and if it's edible you'll have some idea of what to do with it once you get it into the kitchen.

Scratch cooking is not learned from a book though they can often be very helpful. It is learned by _doing it_. Not everything you make is going to come out well, but that's part of paying your dues. Endeavor never to make the same mistake twice and press on. You get better as you go.

.....Alan.


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## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

I have a great little cookbook called Depression Era Recipes that has many simple, basic and cheap dishes. 

http://www.amazon.com/Depression-Er...bs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228933796&sr=8-3

My grandmother used to tell me how she'd have a ketchup sandwich for lunch, or they'd dig a potato out of the garden and eat it raw. My mother remembers the rationing and shortages during WWII.




> Be honest, now: Can anybody in your house skin a rabbit?


Yes we can. I think people on this board are a lot more likely to have some built-in skills that will help. The people who live in the suburbs or cities will have a hard time of it.


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## avandris (Jun 8, 2007)

That is the nice thing about chickens. They will eat your mistakes and then in the process end up feeding you. So you don't end up wasting anything. 

Also if none of you have read them in recent years read a few of the Little house books. There is a cookbook out for them also. I know that it is a "children's" series, but the Long Winter will really open your eyes about food fatigue. I know it is not the Great Depression reading, but there were depressions prior to the 1930's and we should learn from those times too. Get a few historical cookbooks. Look at what they ate and the main ingredients. I have Medieval adaptations, Colonial, Civil War, Pioneer, Depression era and books from various ethnic backgrounds. Browse them and see what you find. Sorry I am a historical cookbook/food fanatic and like to pass the obsession on to others. I grew up playing Barbies as many girls of the 70's and 80's did, but instead of pretending to go to the mall or to parties, I would take them outside with a shoebox "wagon" and little tiny sewn bags of flour, oats and so forth and pretend to play "Olden Days". I started a few fires and cooked "deer" (hot dogs or soaked jerky) over the twig fires. I was a nerd from the beginning. Well, at least one thing was learned.. I can build a good fire now. I am the official fire starter in this family. Sorry for the thread drift there. 

Elsa


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## Topaz Farm (Jan 27, 2005)

> Be honest, now: Can anybody in your house skin a rabbit?


Yes.

I think I'll go check out that depression era cookbook.


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## teresab (May 25, 2005)

Topaz Farm said:


> I think I'll go check out that depression era cookbook.


I have one...I think there are 4 she has written. They are very good. I highly recommend them.


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## alchemist317 (Nov 12, 2008)

If I might also make a suggestion - learning how to cure, can, and store food in this day and age may be almost as valuable (especially as I'm surmising that most on this forum do more cooking than the average American). We probably won't be "out of food" as in the past, but rather be faced with a "seasonal" food supply and a population that doesn't know how store something without a refrigerator or freezer.


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## ailsaek (Feb 7, 2007)

I don't have any Depression-era cookbooks, but I do have _How To Cook A Wolf_ and highly recommend it. It has one chapter "How To Keep Alive" which is about just what it says, during rationing with very little available and little to no money.


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## avandris (Jun 8, 2007)

Ailsaek, Ooooo I don't have that book... I will have to see if I can find it. By the way before I had my daughters I was a librarian for about 9 years. I have a bit of a book addiction as many of us here do. Thank you for the suggestion.


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## woodsman (Dec 8, 2008)

A.T. Hagan said:


> *Food lessons from the Great Depression*
> 
> Lear to cook. From scratch.
> 
> No mixes, no ready made, not any of that stuff. Start with basic staple foods and go from there....


LOL, I always did. And it always amused me how people "save time" by not doing it considering how much time average person spends watching TV. There are so many better ways to save time than cooking and eating crap really fast, aren't there?


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## Sharon (May 11, 2002)

I have the Depression Era Cookbook and also all 5 volumes of the Depression Cookbooks by Janet Van Amber Paske, which I'd highly recommend (I got them at various places, but Amazon carries them). I can also skin a rabbit! When I was a kid my brothers used to make me hold the feet while they did the skinning.


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## sgl42 (Jan 20, 2004)

avandris said:


> Sorry I am a historical cookbook/food fanatic and like to pass the obsession on to others.


might be of interest: 
http://www.foodtimeline.org/
http://www.foodtimeline.org/food2.html#oldcookbooks

--sgl


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## brosil (Dec 15, 2003)

Thanks for those links, sgl42. I forsee a lot of research on that site.


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## Kmac15 (May 19, 2007)

I went to a relatives (very young, new bride) home a couple months ago and she asked me to make my homemade banana pudding. When I told her what I needed she had everything but the cornstarch, so borrowed it from a neighbor. The neighbor (retired woman) said just keep it, as she bought it months ago and has not used it since. Said it is not something that anyone would need on a regular basis. 
My look must have said it all, because she laughed and said you do though don't you.

When the bride asked why I would keep cornstarch I started to rattle off all the kitchen uses such as pudding, gravy, stew thickener, Chinese food and she just was amazed. 

Anyone else an adult before finding out that people made pudding with a MIX?


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## Freeholder (Jun 19, 2004)

Kmac15 said:


> .
> 
> When the bride asked why I would keep cornstarch I started to rattle off all the kitchen uses such as pudding, gravy, stew thickener, Chinese food and she just was amazed.
> 
> Anyone else an adult before finding out that people made pudding with a MIX?


Yes, LOL! I was also an adult before I found out that not everyone has a big garden, hunts and fishes, and puts up a year's supply of food!

Kathleen


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Kmac15 said:


> I went to a relatives (very young, new bride) home a couple months ago and she asked me to make my homemade banana pudding. When I told her what I needed she had everything but the cornstarch, so borrowed it from a neighbor. The neighbor (retired woman) said just keep it, as she bought it months ago and has not used it since. Said it is not something that anyone would need on a regular basis.
> My look must have said it all, because she laughed and said you do though don't you.
> 
> When the bride asked why I would keep cornstarch I started to rattle off all the kitchen uses such as pudding, gravy, stew thickener, Chinese food and she just was amazed.
> ...


Pretty much. We didn't have any mixes in the cupboards when I was a kid and teaching myself to cook and bake. We DID have "The Joy of Cooking" (early 1950s edition.)


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## rean (Nov 18, 2008)

My grandmother tells of having the biggest and best strawberries in town, because her patch was downhill from the outhouse.


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

I inherited my Mother's 1942 Good Housekeeping Cookbook. What makes it especially interesting is the section titled 'Wartime Supplement' that includes tips on how to stretch coffee, butter and sugar....things that were in short supply or rationed during WWII...as well as canning and pressure cooking instructions. The spine is coming apart as it's been well used over the years. It's my most treasured cookbook not only because it belonged to my Mom, but for it's valuable information and historical significance.


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## uyk7 (Dec 1, 2002)

> Lear to cook. From scratch.


Of course cooking from scratch isn't cheap either. I went through 25 lbs of flour over the last three weeks. It was worth it though: I learned how to make biscuits (2 types), cinamon swirl bread, another type of sugar cookies, homemade cake, homemade icing, and much more. I probably gained a few pounds also but at least I wasn't the only one eating. 


.


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## avandris (Jun 8, 2007)

Txsteader I have a few rationing period cookbooks too. I love them. There are some good British ones too. They had to deal with rationing and limited food supply for a lot longer than the US. 

Sgl42, I have those sites bookmarked and have been there many times. In the second link Cindy Renfrow is mentioned, I have been reading things from her for a long time. She was on some old sites from about 8 years ago that are no longer online. She has some good information. 

The Reminisce books like the one mentioned in the article are pretty good. There are lots of stories, good photos and a few recipes. There is one in the WWII one that is pretty good. It is for faux pork breakfast sausage. It uses oatmeal and no meat. I played with it a bit and came up with a good Salisbury steak recipe(nothing like the nasty tv dinners). It was great the first night, but rubbery the next.


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

My mom said they used to eat fried potato sandwiches--fry slices of potato, salt and pepper and put on bread, I think they're great! mmmm, add a slab of onion!


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## Txsteader (Aug 22, 2005)

uyk7 said:


> Of course cooking from scratch isn't cheap either. I went through 25 lbs of flour over the last three weeks. It was worth it though: I learned how to make biscuits (2 types), cinamon swirl bread, another type of sugar cookies, homemade cake, homemade icing, and much more. I probably gained a few pounds also but at least I wasn't the only one eating.


Just think how much all those baked goodies would have cost from a bakery! Plus, I'm sure yours tasted so much better. 



avandris said:


> Txsteader I have a few rationing period cookbooks too. I love them. There are some good British ones too. They had to deal with rationing and limited food supply for a lot longer than the US.


I hadn't thought about British cookbooks. Great idea, I'll have to look into that. They, indeed, had more experience at stretching their food dollars and making it through very rough economic times.


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## Kmac15 (May 19, 2007)

wyld thang said:


> My mom said they used to eat fried potato sandwiches--fry slices of potato, salt and pepper and put on bread, I think they're great! mmmm, add a slab of onion!


My mom used to take those, on leftover biscuits from breakfast, to school for lunch.
I loved the idea so much I begged until she would let me do it as well. One of my favorite middle school memories


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

I missed out on learning a lot b/c I was "dad's helper". I learned how to slop hogs, tend the garden, and do outside chores, but didn't learn cooking or housekeeping from mom. My sister did all the inside work. I guess it didn't hurt me much. Now I'm the one living on a homestead, and sis is the one in an apt in town. She can keep a nice clean home while mine is dusty and a bit messy. But when it comes to eating, I'm so far ahead of her that she'll be knocking on my door when food shortages start. 

I have to disagree with Alan about learning to scratch cook from a book. That's mostly how I learned. Old cookbooks with real ingredients instead of "open a box of this and a can of that" are worth their weight in gold. I also have lots of recipes in letters where I wrote to my mom and grandmother for advice when I was young. I kept every one of them and now have them in a home made cookbook. 

A good old fashioned cook book is a great learning tool. You can learn the recipes, then go forth to adapt them to fit your needs with various ingredients that are available to you. Many of the old books even have pages with lists of recommended replacements if you are missing an ingredient or two. For example, one of my books says to use a tablespoon of mayo if you don't have an egg. Those things are good to know and you could ruin a lot of meals by experimenting instead of having the info at your fingertips.


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## firegirl969 (Nov 3, 2008)

Spinner,

I love old cookbooks. Can you name some of your favorites for us? I would love to search for a couple of really good old cookbooks,

Thanks, firegirl969


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## davisdj (Feb 14, 2008)

sgl42 said:


> might be of interest:
> http://www.foodtimeline.org/
> http://www.foodtimeline.org/food2.html#oldcookbooks
> 
> --sgl


My god, I may spend the next week exploring this site. Thanks so much for posting it!


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

firegirl969 said:


> Spinner,
> 
> I love old cookbooks. Can you name some of your favorites for us? I would love to search for a couple of really good old cookbooks,
> 
> Thanks, firegirl969


One of my favorites is the *1942 edition of "The Good Housekeeping Cookbook"*. It has over 1000 pages and includes instructions on how to set a table for different types of dinners, how to carve meats, how to set up a kitchen for ease of use, etc.

My very favorite is one that I bought with blank pages and filled with recipes from friends, family, & clippings over the past 50 years. That one has letters from my mother & grandmother with their favorite recipes that they sent to me about 40 years ago. It also contains recipes clipped from baking powder cans, bags of flour & sugar, the pumpkin pie recipe from a can of pumpkin, etc. I highly recommend that all young women get one of those blank books and fill it in over the years (and it's amazing how some of my favorite meals that I didn't write down cause they were so simple, are now forgotten forever!  ). It'll be a wonderfully personal gift to leave to a daughter or granddaughter someday.

Another good one is an old *"Farm Journal Country Cookbook" published in 1959*. It has 25 years of their best recipes in it so some of those recipes date back to 1934. 

Most of the other books I've collected are the kind that are published by schools, churches, etc and sold as fund raisers. The ladies that contribute to those little cookbooks always give their very best recipes, and they pride themselves on real cooking so most of the recipes are scratch recipes instead of opening boxes & cans. 

I sometimes find really old ones at flea markets, yard sales, etc. If you glance thru one you'll instantly be able to tell if it has old time recipes by looking at the lists of ingredients on a few pages. If it has a lot of modern stuff listed, I pass it up.

As a general rule you can almost bet that any cookbook published before 1950 will be excellent. 

Some of the best recipes I have came in owners manuals that came with pans I bought years and years ago. That's where I got my award winning chili recipe (I tweaked it a bit, but it was good right from the book).


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## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

No one asked me, lol, but I agree with Spinner. Old cookbooks before 1950 or so are the best! I pretty much love anything by the Farm Journal. I have the original Farm Journal Country Cookbook, the Freezing and Canning Cookbook, Great Home Cooking in America, Family Favorites, Homemade Cookies, Complete Pie Cookbook, Homemade Breads, America's Best Vegetable Recipes, Homemade Candy, Homemade Ice Cream and Cake, and a few more I can't recall at the moment. 

I also love church and school cookbooks, but you do have to watch for the "cans and boxes" versions. I also recommend anything by the Amish or Mennonites, they always use fresh home-grown ingredients and their food is wonderful if you like just plain home cooking, nothing fancy. Also, the little booklets that different food companies put out have some good stuff sometimes. You can pick them up in lots on eBay pretty cheap sometimes.

Then of course, there are the old standbys like the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, old versions of Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Pillsbury, etc. 

I have lots of really old cookbooks, back into the early 1800s and even one reproduction from the 15th century...now those are some strange recipes! But they're really interesting to read. Unfortunately, they're all still in boxes since my move. I may have to start digging them out, I'm going into withdrawal!


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## MoGrrrl (Jan 19, 2007)

Well, they aren't Depression era or even old cookbooks, but I think the Alton Brown and Cook's Illustrated books are very good at explaining and teaching cooking from a book. They let you know why things work (or don't). Now, the ingredients may not be on the thrifty side, but I don't think they call for "bag of chopped vegetables from salad bar."

I made one recipe from a "Semi-homemade" cookbook, and we decided that tv "cook" was banished from the house.


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

If you have a lot of cookbooks, its a good idea to have some way of marking recipes that you like. I take post-it notes and cut them into narrow strips and put the sticky part on the page with it flagged outwards to mark the page. The post-its don't damage the page and don't fall out like a bookmark will. I've also used paper clips but they will damage the page. One of my favorite cookbooks is "More-With-Less Cookbook". It has a lot of recipes from around the world that are inexpensive and from scratch. I use the pizza crust recipe from that book. I have a "Joy of Cooking" circa 1946 which was the first edition after WWII. I think the only pre-prepared item called for in it is canned soup. However, it does give the recipe for various sauces the canned soup replaces. It also deals with various wild game some of which I will need to be VERY hungry to try! My m-i-l got tired of me borrowing her 1950's Betty Crocker Cookbook and gave it to me. I cooked at home, had home ec in high school, but I really learned to cook from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I checked it out of the library so many times for a couple of years that I doubt anyone else got a chance at it. It lists ingredients you need in your pantry. Shows different types of pans, baking dishes and tells what they are for and how to set a proper table.

One thing I've learned thru the years is presentation. If your kitchen is clean and smells good, you set the table properly with placemats or table cloths, cloth napkins, pretty dishes, etc., your family is less likely to complain about the food. For some reason everything just tastes better when the table is attractive. Extras like jam, apple butter, and pickles can also pick up a not so great meal.


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## freegal (Mar 4, 2005)

My MIL tells of eating lard & sugar sandwiches, but that was just farm-life, not necessarily Depression era. Her mom would kill, dress and fry a chicken for breakfast. Potatoes were a staple at every meal and they ate a lot of cabbage, sauerkraut & rutabagas. They were never hungry but they did lack enough clothing, especially warm clothing for those cold Wisconsin winters.


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## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

I grew up the youngest dtr of depression era parents who still saw hard times well after the depression was over. I don't remember ever being short on food, but my oldest sister (13 yrs older) remembers times when the only food available was home canned green beans - and that's what they ate. My parents had 4 kids in 4 years, and little money at the time. They lived next door to my grandparents on the farm, so I don't know if it was pride that kept them from asking for help, or if my grandparents were no better off...I guess I'll have to ask my sibs more about that. By the time I came along, times were better, my parents had moved into the big house (inherited from the now late grandparents), had a small cattle herd for both milk and meat, a huge garden that was preserved for winter, and plenty of food on the table - all cooked from scratch. I remember Mom using the WWII era Joy of Cooking, which talked of rationing and how to stretch the points. She had also clipped articles out of women's magazines of the era and put them in a recipe book. That recipe book is one of my treasures, as my dad made her a wooden cover for it, leather hinges, and filled it with blank pages for mom to fill. 
I also have a copy of the same Joy of Cooking cookbook Mom used, and it is a great resource. My favorite recipe in it is for cornstarch based pudding, and I make it often, especially when the goats are fresh and we are swimming in milk. It is economical in that you can use powdered milk (traditionally cheaper, although not right now), and no eggs. And, as another poster asked, I didn't know until high school home ec that some people made pudding from a mix! Man, I thought Top Ramen and Raisin Bran were great modern fast food, lol!


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## firegirl969 (Nov 3, 2008)

Thanks spinner and calliemoonbeam. I will start looking for deals from your suggestions.


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

When I knew him my f-i-l would never eat corn bread. During the Depression that was often the only food available in their home day in and day out. Knowing his mother it was probably only half cooked or burned as she was one of the worst cooks I've ever known!! Actually, he and his sister often were fed by neighbors or they would probably have starved. 

My mother, still doesn't like gravy because they had gravy at every meal including breakfast during those years. I thought when I was growing up that she didn't know how to make gravy!! I do remember her making chicken gravy on Sunday's for my dad. 

I have a friend who browned flour and made gravy (without any meat drippings) to feed her 5 kids when her lazy spouse wasn't working. She also had the gumption to poach a deer or antelope to keep her kids from starving and that was in the 1970's.


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## MaggieJ (Feb 6, 2006)

I am blessed that I grew up in the 1950's-60's in a home where gardening, freezing, canning and preserving food and hunting and fishing were all part of normal life. We were rural until the city expanded and swallowed up our community, but we did not have a farm so I missed out on animal husbandry. Other than that I got a good grounding and I am so grateful to my parents for it, more so with each passing year.

An unusual and fascinating book that some of the more historically-inclined people here might enjoy is Dorothy Hartley's *Food in England*. It is not a cookbook, although it has recipes, but it is a very comprehensive history of food and food preparation and preservation down through the centuries. There is information on choosing a good chicken in the marketplace, for instance, and on fattening geese, the pig at the bottom of the garden and many fascinating bits of food lore and snippets about rural life in England. This book was written in the 1950's by a woman who was elderly then and who had made a life study of such subjects. Much of her information was derived from her mother's and grandmothers' experiences and the country homes she lived in over the years. Dorothy Hartley was quite a character. Once, interrupted from her writing by the incessant ringing of the phone, she grabbed the receiver and yelled into it without waiting to see who was on the line. "I can't talk now! I'm in the fourteenth century!"

What I found so worthwhile about this particular book was that it pulled together and made sense of so much that I "sort of knew" from a variety of sources. If I could only have ten books, this would be one of them. It's not too hard to find since it was reissued in the early 1990's, but it is a bit pricey so maybe try your library first. Not everyone will love it the way I do.


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## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

Firegirl, you're very welcome! Hope we didn't overwhelm you. 

Thanks Maggie, I'll definitely look for that, it sounds very interesting. It doesn't seem too expensive on Amazon, but I'll check the library first.


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

Ann-NWIowa said:


> When I knew him my f-i-l would never eat corn bread. During the Depression that was often the only food available in their home day in and day out. .


 Thats the same reason my Dad would not eat rice, its what his family survived on during the Depression


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## pickapeppa (Jan 1, 2005)

Has anyone tried the websites with copyright free pdf publishings of old, old books?

I've spent several cold, windy winter nights perusing recipes from the 1600 to 1800s. It was quite fascinating.

I'll see if I can dig up some links.

Here we go:

Project Gutenberg

ibiblio

Those are just beginners. On quiet nights marked by insomnia, I sometimes find a classic in either of those and just start reading. But if you would like to know how to cook and dress game, you'll find it there, along with what spices. It can be tricky interpreting the amounts sometimes. The language has changed enough to make it a challenge.

My favorite cookbooks are older as well. The best one I have on the shelf is from my grandmother's home ec class from high school. I've learned a great many family traditions in there - macaroni and cheese (nobody makes it like my family anymore - this would be why), and that browned flour gravy recipe is in there. I love the chapter on cooking for the infirm. This is something I never knew until reading that text. It was printed in 1931, I believe.


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## Riverrat (Oct 14, 2008)

Here is a link to an old cookbook that I have from another site I am on....Some of the recipes are great. Hope this helps.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/receipt/receipt.html


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## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

Thanks Riverrat - that's a very nice book to have... maybe printing it out and putting in a binder for when the computer is off.

Angie


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## jehoshaphat (Feb 13, 2004)

I have the More with Less cookbook and have it used it much over the pst 15 yrs. It really does help when there's not money. I use the pizza crust recipe all the time!!!Simple & tastes good. I add herbs, parmesan or olive oil when I have them for variety. Have used it with varying amounts of whole wheat & white flour & still tastes good. I am one of those who has been blessed to have had many family members who learned to cook from scratch & use a little of this & a little of that to make a meal to nourish the soul & body. I also think that food prepared & served with love and eaten with thanks taste better than any other! In my family we laugh about the year of the green beans. I think there were other years that would fit in but one in particular stands out. My mom & dad found so many ways to serve those green beans that even now I am amazed! With or w/o meat(whatever was on hand be it gr beef, bacon,chicken, ham &/or mystery meat), w/ tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots, rice, noodles.Combinations of many or only a few of them. Whatever was in the house was game! I still eat them & enjoy them. I even canned some myself this year!


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## Mutti (Sep 7, 2002)

I use my "From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens" cookbook alot 'cause ALL the recipes are from scratch..the only way I cook. I am grateful my mom made my twin sis and me take turns cooking each evening. And even though my folks had well paid jobs Mom still used her summers off from teaching to can peaches,plums, pears, applesauce and always kept a well stocked cellar...she was a Depression baby and there was no waste at our house. DEE


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## wyld thang (Nov 16, 2005)

I have one of my grandma's earliest cookbooks (she also had my grandpa's norwegian mother to crack the whip to learn the norwegian stuff too). SHe wrote down recipes and information on the end papers, and notes alongside recipes. I do that too in the couple of cookbooks I use all the time--I figure why not mark it all up, and when it gets passed down to someone, if they care then they have an "invaluable" (or so I think) bunch of cookign secrets. I also keep a (cheesy sloppy) scrapbook of holiday dinners and cooking, I paste a few photos inside, makes lists of guests, and foods I gave for gifts, wrote down new recipes to try, etc. 

THere are some scarps of paper stuck in my grandma's book--like a slip of paper from a box of brown sugar "To our customers--Absent from this package is the usual lining of waxed paper--a war measure to help us meet your Brown Sugar needs...".

It's called "The Household Searchlight Recipe Book" by the Household Magazine, TOpeka Kansas, 1931

Here is instructions on how to make whipped cream from evaporated milk--het milk over hot water until a film forms on the surafce. Stir until blended. Pour into a bowl, chiull thoroughly. Beat until stiff. Evaporated milk may be prepared for whipping by boiling the can for 5 minutes, and thoroughly chilling before whipping it. Evaporated milk, when whipped, trebles in bulk.

It's kind of a funny book--like it has recipes for luxury items involving caviar, but also has recipes for making stuff from scraps, like brains and stomachs and such.

My grandma wrote this on the back page--
"Food One Should Take In a day:
cereal--6 slices of bread
1 egg
fruit(2 kinds)
1 quart milk
vegs--3 kinds, leafy raw and cooked
meat, fish or substitutes(potatoes)
Example
breakfast--orange, 2 slices bread, cereal, some milk
lunch--2 bread, egg, 1 veg, fruit sauce, more milk
dinner--meat, 2 slices bread, 2 veg, potatoes, more milk

Ha, love that "more milk". I also grew up drinking milk at every meal, my husband thinks that's freaky. BUT I've got great bones!!! still drink a lotta milk! Just thought that was interesting take on the four food groups from the 1930's


Darn it, I'm trying to upload a photo of the cover, it's snowing and it's slow going. Here is the cover, I think that embossed insert is really pretty.


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## bekab (Oct 14, 2008)

I have a recession cookbook (packed in box as we're moving right now) and it's just ridiculous. There really aren't any "cheap" recipes in it and it also has nasty recipes like Fish Pudding (blech!) and other little gems like that in there. I'm not a picky and will eat almost everything set in front of me but not the fish pudding


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