# Depressio Era Cooking and Recreation (cooking & relaxing)



## Tweetybird (Oct 15, 2005)

Any of you old enough to remember WW 2 or the Great Depression?? Do any of you remember hearing your parents or grandparents talking about it? What did you cook, and how? What are some of the recipes you or your family made, especially some of your favorites? What did you do to stretch expenive things like meat?

Also, with the rationing of fuel, limiting travel, what were some of the things you or your family did to enjoy yourself? During these hard times ahead, we will not be able to spend that essential dollar on "playthings", we will need it to pay bills, buy food and clothing etc. We will need time to decompress and just "have fun" without the worry about the cost, or concern that we are wasting precious pennies.

Anything else you did to save?

I have learned alot from my older freind, who often talks about the depression and WW2, and is VERRY concerned about the upcomming downturn.

Thanks for your words of wisdom.


----------



## momlaffsalot (Sep 9, 2004)

Great thread, tweety..I look forward to reading the responses.


----------



## Guest (Jan 18, 2008)

A lot of present day convenience foods will go out the window. I'm too young to have experienced either the Great Depression or the Second World War, but I used to love to talk with my grandmothers about such stuff.

With the exceptions of staples such as salt, pepper, refined sugar, and flour if they didn't produce it themselves or trade with neighbors for it they didn't eat it. Of the very little that was bought from the store they were not extravagant with the way they used it. If we see similar such hard times again then we're gong to end up having to go back to similar ways again. Money may well be worth a lot more than your time which means time saving convenience foods are going to be too expensive to buy. 

This is going to lead to a period of readjustment for a lot of folks who buy convenience foods now that don't think of them as such. Sliced bread from the store is a convenience food to me.

.....Alan.


----------



## Sustainable Joy (Nov 17, 2007)

I'm still in my 20's... too young to remember those days. I have been trying to scare up info on The Great Depression myself, because that info can be very useful for our family. I wish I had access to some women who ran a household in those days, so I could pick thier brains. I'm half ready to head over to the old folks home to start asking questions!!! The internet hasn't been too helpful so far. Everything I find is stuff we already do, like cook at home instead of eating out.

Looking forward to learning whatever anyone can scare up.


----------



## Pelenaka (Jul 27, 2007)

Didn't live thru it but have found that following that mindset has really help us be frugal and to a greater extent live simply.
Been meaning to do an entry on depression era cookbooks, thanks for the nudge Tweety.
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/2008/01/brother-can-you-spare-10.html
~~ pelenaka ~~


----------



## Guest (Jan 18, 2008)

My mother grew up in the depression and WWII. They grew most of their food. They had to buy flour and sugar and a few things like that. With rationing, they had to learn how to substitute ingredients in their cooking and baking.


----------



## farmerpat (Jan 1, 2008)

Tweetybird:
There is a GREAT book that I'm in the middle of, called "Making Do - How Women Survived the '30s" by Jeane Westin (ISBN: 0-695-80593-2). It has actual accounts by the contributors themselves on each of their stories. Also, I have "Stories & Recipes of The Great Depression - Vol 1" by Rita Van Amber, and it has some really good recipes in it too. There's another one I've been reading similar to "making do", but can't find what I did with it right now - will post the name when I find it. I've just searched on EBay and alibris and other sites for "The Great Depression" or "Depression-Era", and you'd be surprised the books you can come up with! Good luck! Pat


----------



## farmerpat (Jan 1, 2008)

Also - check out WW2 cookbooks and "ration" cookbooks on the web - alot of times you can pick them up CHEAP, and they have all kinds of substitutions and very frugal recipes.
Pat


----------



## swampgirl (Aug 29, 2006)

I was born in 1944, but in South Louisiana it still felt like the depression. I remember the many stories my mother & grandmother told. The one I remember most is of a great uncle who was lazy & did not plant a garden. My grandparents saw him digging potatoes from their big garden during the night, but didn't say anything because they new his kids needed to eat. Most of the recipies they spoke of were stews. Like turnip, potatoe, and crab. The kids, my mom & siblings, would catch crabs off a warf on the Atchafalaya River and my grandmother would make a dark roux, add some onions, & some crabs. I often ate this stew as a child & it was delicious! They ate any game that they could get, such as rabbits, various birds, & an occassional deer, but their biggest source of protein was fish & crabs.


----------



## NJ Rich (Dec 14, 2005)

I have my grandmother's Victory Cook Book Wartime Edition. I haven't looked through it much and actually only recently found it in my mother's crate of cookbooks she left when she passed.

My English grandmother had a Wartime Cook Book also but I don't know what happened to it. As much as rationing was a hardship in the USA during WWII it doesn't compare to the hardships endured in England. 

I wish I had the English Cook Book and I will continue to look for it. Farmerpat gives some good advice saying to look for these books and look to "on-line".


----------



## farmerpat (Jan 1, 2008)

Also, another money-saving trick I've found ref: books...if you find something on EBay, or alibris, or amazon, try to find one of the ISBN numbers, and search by that instead of by title or subject. I have found the exact same book at different sites and saved as much as 95% off the first book I found! And, some of the sites on EBay show a picture of the book but don't exactly quote the title. Alot of times I've been able to squint and read most of the title, and then search for the title and then find the ISBN number. After that, I just search by ISBN.


----------



## farmerpat (Jan 1, 2008)

NJRICh: I just searched EBay under "wartime cookbook", and found a BUNCH, including two from international sellers in the UK - maybe one of those is what you're looking for.
Good luck in your search!
Pat


----------



## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

I was searching via google and found this site and the recipes look interesting.

http://coveredbaptists.proboards31.com/index.cgi?board=recipes&action=print&thread=1120673253

Angie


----------



## JGex (Dec 27, 2005)

Recipes? Heh..... Granny raised 4 kids during the Depression by herself. They told me they often didn't have enough ingredients to make a "recipe." Most often, biscuits with sawmill gravy was "what's for dinner." Hoe cakes were popular, too.

South AL, LA & MS is abundantly rich in po' people food.... gumbos, stews and beans and rice were all staples when I was growing up. You can def stretch your meats in all of those.... most pots of beans were cooked with just a ham hock or fatback for seasoning anyway. 

The stories I remember Granny telling included most folks having their own garden for at least tomatoes, okra, eggplant, peppers, onions, celery and squash. Onions, green peppers and celery are considered the "Holy Trinity" of Southern cooking. Almost all gumbo, stew and casserole recipes call for all 3 of them. Living on the Gulf provided seafood. Rabbits, possums and '***** were also pretty fine eatin' for some folks. Granny used to tell me a story about my greatgrampa eating possum until the grease dripped off of his elbow. Most people also had yardbirds for eggs and meat.

As far as recipes, I learned to cook starting with a good base like broth, stock or roux and then just winging it with whatever ingredients you have on hand. I still cook like that.... and am very thankful I don't have to rely on a recipe most of the time. Although, I do have a pretty good collection of recipes..... :baby04: 

This is from http://www.gumbopages.com/ but is slightly adjusted to how I was taught to cook my red beans. 

The Best Ever Red Beans and Rice

* 1 pound red kidney beans, dry
* 1 large onion, chopped
* 1 bell pepper, chopped
* 5 ribs celery, chopped
* As much garlic as you like, minced (I like lots, 5 or 6 cloves)
* 1 large smoked ham hock for seasoning
* 1 to 1-1/2 pounds mild or hot smoked sausage or andouille, sliced
* 1/2 to 1 tsp. dried thyme leaves, crushed
* 2 bay leaves
* As many dashes Crystal hot sauce or Tabasco as you like, to taste
* Creole seasoning blend, to taste; OR,
red pepper and black pepper to taste 
* Salt to taste
* Fresh Creole hot sausage or chaurice, links or patties, grilled or pan-fried, one link or patty per person (optional) 

Soak the beans overnight, if possible. The next day, drain and put fresh water in the pot. (This helps reduce the, um, flatulence factor.) Bring the beans to a rolling boil. Make sure the beans are always covered by water, or they will discolor and get hard. Boil the beans for about 45 - 60 minutes, until the beans are tender but not falling apart. Drain.

While the beans are boiling, sautÃ© the Trinity (onions, celery, bell pepper) until the onions turn translucent. Add the garlic and saute for 2 more minutes, stirring occasionally. After the beans are boiled and drained, add the sautÃ©ed vegetables to the beans, then add the ham hock, smoked sausage, seasonings, and just enough water to cover.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook for 2 hours at least, preferably 3, until the whole thing gets nice and creamy. Adjust seasonings as you go along. Stir occasionally, making sure that it doesn't burn and/or stick to the bottom of the pot. (If the beans are old -- say, older than six months to a year -- they won't get creamy. Make sure the beans are reasonably fresh. If it's still not getting creamy, take 1 or 2 cups of beans out and mash them, then return them to the pot and stir.)

If you can ... let the beans cool, stick them in the fridge, and reheat and serve for dinner the next day. They'll taste a LOT better. When you do this, you'll need to add a little water to get them to the right consistency.

Serve generous ladles over hot white long-grain rice, with good French bread and good beer. I also love to serve grilled or broiled fresh Creole hot sausage or chaurice on the side. 


To make Chaurice http://www.nolacuisine.com/2006/11/11/chaurice-sausage/


----------



## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

Grandparents talked about this very topic many times. Because of costs/rationing what they did was have small gatherings a couple of times a week. Everyone would load up and go to X's house. They had used stuff from the garden, wildgame, whatever and threw together a simple meal. The adults then sat around and played card games and the kids played in the yard. The next night, family Y took their turn....The cooking was spread out among several families on successive nights. They "joked" about who would add a little more water to the stoup and who always had meat......Once a month the whole community had a pot luck supper and dance. Gave everyone a chance to check up on neighbors and see who needed a little extra help. Men folk made plans to help someone by replacing the roof on their barn, women folk saw which kids needed new clothing and provided hand me down clothes their family had outgrown, exchanged material, patterns etc....Barter system was KING. Trade value was based on the "needs" of the giver/receiver. Many times you traded uneven just to help someone out. No one wanted a handout and many fights were started when one party felt like they were being given "charity". Of course, as soon as their backs were turned the item(s) were handed to the wife anyway.....Proud people they were.


----------



## haradda (Oct 11, 2007)

On Project Gutenbergs main site there are numerous cookbooks of the sort you are looking for.

13887 Allinson, Thomas R.	The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book	English 
19775 Anonymous	Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) 
How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs	English	16514 Benton, Caroline French	A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl	English 
15360 Campbell, Helen Stuart, 1839-1918	The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking
Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes	English 
10632 Daniel, Florence	The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed.	English 
16441 Digby, Kenelm, 1603-1665
MacDonell, Anne [Editor]	The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened 
Contents:
Introduction 
The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened: Title Page Of The First Edition 
To The Reader 
Receipts For Mead, Metheglin, And Other Drinks 
Cookery Receipts 
The Table 
Appendix 
I. Some Additional Receipts 
II. The Powder Of Sympathy 
III. List Of The Herbs, Flowers, &c., Referred To In The Text 
Notes 
Glossary 
Index Of Receipts	English 

22114 Francatelli, Charles ElmÃ©	A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes	English 
13923 Gillette, Mrs. F.L.	The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) 
The Whole Comprising a Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home	English 
15464 Goudiss, Alberta M.
Goudiss, C. Houston	Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918)	English 
15464 Goudiss, Alberta M.
Goudiss, C. Houston	Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918)	English 
12350 Greenbaum, Florence Kreisler	The International Jewish Cook Book 
1600 Recipes According to the Jewish Dietary Laws with the Rules for Kashering; 
the Favorite Recipes of America, Austria, Germany, Russia, France, Poland, Roumania, Etc., Etc.	English 
6912 Greer, Carlotta Cherryholmes	School and Home Cooking	English 
12293 Hazlitt, William Carew, 1834-1913	Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine	English 
24125 Hubbard, L. P.	A Little Book for A Little Cook	English 
6385 Isola, Antonia, [pseud.], 1876-	Simple Italian Cookery	English 
5889 Jones, Steven E., 1949-	The BYU Solar Cooker/Cooler	English 
9101 Lea, Elizabeth E.	Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers	English 
9624 Leslie, Eliza, 1787-1858	Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches	English 
16441 Digby, Kenelm, 1603-1665
MacDonell, Anne [Editor]	The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened 
Contents:
Introduction 
The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened: Title Page Of The First Edition 
To The Reader 
Receipts For Mead, Metheglin, And Other Drinks 
Cookery Receipts 
The Table 
Appendix 
I. Some Additional Receipts 
II. The Powder Of Sympathy 
III. List Of The Herbs, Flowers, &c., Referred To In The Text 
Notes 
Glossary 
Index Of Receipts	English 
22790 May, Robert	The accomplisht cook
or, The art & mystery of cookery	English 
11067 Mill, Mrs. (Jean Oliver)	Reform Cookery Book (4th edition)
Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century.	English 
12327 Montefiore, Judith Cohen, 1784-1862	The Jewish Manual
Practical Information in Jewish and Modern Cookery with a Collection
of Valuable Recipes & Hints Relating to the Toilette	English 
10072 Moxon, Elizabeth	English Housewifery 
Exemplified in above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions 
for most Parts of Cookery	English 
4219 Muskett, Philip E., -1909	The Art of Living in Australia ; 
together with three hundred Australian cookery recipes and accessory kitchen information by Mrs. H. Wicken	English 
10520 M., W.	The Compleat Cook
Expertly Prescribing the Most Ready Wayes, Whether Italian,
Spanish or French, for Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering
Of Sauces or Making of Pastry	English 
6745 Parloa, Maria, 1843-1909	Miss Parloa's New Cook Book	English 
14594 Payne, A. G., 1840-1894	Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery 
A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet	English 
8102 Pegge, Samuel, 1704-1796	The Forme of Cury
A Roll of Ancient English Cookery Compiled, about A.D. 1390	English Middle English 
1979 Perdue, Mitzi	The Perdue Chicken Cookbook	English 
18542 Reed, Myrtle, 1874-1911	How to Cook Fish	English 
6429 Rorer, S. T. (Sarah Tyson Heston), 1849-1937	Many Ways for Cooking Eggs	English 
13669 Royal baking powder company, New York	The New Dr. Price Cookbook	English 
6703 Shuman, Carrie V.	Favorite Dishes : a Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book	English 
12815 Simmons, Amelia	American Cookery
The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables	English 
722 Various	The Belgian Cookbook	English 
930 Waters, Mrs. W. G. (William George)	The Cook's Decameron: a study in taste, containing over two hundred recipes for Italian dishes	English 
9561 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892	Narrative and Legendary Poems: the Bridal of Pennacook
From Volume I., the Works of Whittier	English 
17438 Wilson, Mary A.	Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book
Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions	English 
14377 Wolley, Hannah	The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet 
Stored with all manner of rare receipts for preserving, candying and cookery. Very pleasant and beneficial to all ingenious persons of the female sex	English 
9935 Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences	Woman's Institute Library of Cookery 
Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads	English 
9936 Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences	Woman's Institute Library of Cookery 
Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables	English 
9937 Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences	Woman's Institute Library of Cookery 
Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish	English 
9938 Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences	Woman's Institute Library of Cookery 
Volume 4: Salads and Sandwiches; Cold and Frozen Desserts; Cakes, Cookies and Puddings; Pastries and Pies	English 
9939 Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences	Woman's Institute Library of Cookery 
Volume 5: Fruit and Fruit Desserts; Canning and Drying; Jelly Making, Preserving and Pickling; Confections; Beverages; the Planning of Meals	English


----------



## Carolyn (Jan 5, 2008)

A couple of my cousins and I were just talking about this. My mother was born in 1924, #6 of 8 children, my great aunt (my grandparents raised my grandpas youngest sister) his dad (my great grandpa) and several hired men, we think that they may have traded labor for board and room. My mother and her siblings never remember being hungry or extremely cold. they did lose the orginal homestead during the 30's, but they moved down the road a ways, where one of my uncles still lives and where I have inherited some land. They had a couple of cows for milk, chickens for eggs and my gramma canned and canned and canned. EVeryone worked together and very hard, but no one was ever hungry. Dumblings was a big thing! Egg dumplings served with saurerkraut or light fluffy dumplings served with butter, cinnanon and sugar. The root crops were kept in a root cellar. My gramma had cast iron dutch ovens that she put heated stones and coal in for the ride to school in a horse drawn sleigh. My dad's family weren't so fortunate. Only my dad would admit that my grandpa was not an ambious man at all. My dad was born in 1929 and they were hungry and cold most of the time. But my dad overcame a lot and when he was 15, he built a house out of rail road ties for his family. It does show how knowledge and hard work made a difference. There was aways something going on in my mothers family, they did play card games, great grandpa used to teach the children how to play cards until they caught him cheating LOL, then he would take the next one. They went to dances at the township halls oh they all could sing, man could they sing!! My mom talks about having an old old car without doors and no wheels, she would take her doll and her younger brother would take a hat and they would "drive" everywhere and anywhere. they had a ball talking about where they would go and what they might see. We have many of the childrens games to play and cards and volleyball and horseshoes of and crouquet to play. But my DGS's love to play with boxes and paper bags. And we have fun doing chores. Ohh I am too long winded I know. CArolyn


----------



## PyroDon (Jul 30, 2006)

Let me see if I can find them 
I had a victory cookbook 1939 printed by the LA Times and another on stretchig your rations from around the same time.
I'll see if I can find them and scan them for you


----------



## motivated (Sep 6, 2004)

My father and his 5 brothers were always out fishing , trapping and shooting to help with dinner. His mother also made turtle soup. That was to supplement the homemade pasta and homemade wine.  

Not being a farm girl I would not know how to clean some of the critters they ate. What a woman.

My dad told me they did certain chores on certain days and clothing was worn for more than a day. The clothesline took up the whole backyard.

motivated


----------



## YounGrey (Jun 7, 2007)

The only recipe that I have that calls out 'depression' is this one:

Depression Tomato Cakes -
http://homesteadingrecipes.blogspot.com/2007/08/depression-tomato-cakes.html


----------



## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

for the ladies more than guys.... there is an authorist.... Grace Livingston Hill, Christian stories but the timeframe is 1930's and you get a pretty good picture of the times from her stories.

My favorite of her's is, "The Enchanted Barn". Not enough money to pay the rent in town, found the barn for less rent, and rode the trolley to and from work.. the details will give you some ideas. Of course a happy ending.

Angie


----------



## Guest (Jan 20, 2008)

AngieM2 said:


> for the ladies more than guys.... there is an authorist.... Grace Livingston Hill, Christian stories but the timeframe is 1930's


I've read some of those. Great reading!


----------



## unregistered29228 (Jan 9, 2008)

I'm only in my mid 40s, but the Greatest Generation is very special to me. My grandparents were born in 1915 and 1919, and I grew up listening to the stories of the Great Depression, the Charleston and WWII. Not too many people have that kind of backbone, fortitude and resourcefulness these days. I inherited a lot of sentimental things from Nannie when she died, among them a cassette collection of WWII swing and Big Band music. I listen to them and think of her...and get all sentimental for a time long ago and people who selflessly fought for our country and lived through the Dust Bowl (my family is from Oklahoma), poverty, rationing, and ketchup sandwiches.

I have a cookbook called Depression Era Recipes, which has not only recipes, but tips on how to stretch foods and substitute when ingredients aren't available.

Great thread!


----------



## TundraGypsy (Feb 25, 2005)

OMG! YounGrey, I remember my mother fixing those Depression Tomato Cakes! She used to fix them every so often when we asked her. We ate them in the late 50s; it was one recipe that she brought with her after the Depression was over. She later called it Tomato Oyster; perhaps she used the little oyster crackers instead. The little cakes weren't bad at all. Thanks for the memory. My dear mother passed away last February at the grand old age of 90.


----------



## radiofish (Mar 30, 2007)

In talking with my dad who was born in 1932, I have learned much of how his family got thru the depression and WWII in Eastern Oklahoma. He remembers as a child going to town MacAlister, Oklahoma on the bus and getting a dry cell battery for the family radio. He could only listen to the radio for 1/2 hour per day. The family (my grandma was one of 13 surviving children) all had gardens, kept livestock and horses, and hunted and fished a lot. 

Dad recalls his childhood as a good time, and they never did without, even if times were tough. He even used pieces of wood for spokes, in order to ride his bicycle during WWII. Everyone played checkers, cards, or chess. Oil lamps were used for a few hours to provide light after dark. They had a spring house, that kept things cold for them. Reading was fundamental, for a lot of their entertainment. They would get older newspapers and magazines each month when they went to town...

Dad keeps telling me that when things were finally getting good for him, he got drafted and was sent to Korea in 1950.


----------



## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

I hang around a lot with my 76 year old uncle and listen to his childhood stories. He would get his red wagon out, and buy a block of ice and put in the wagon, and get his scraper and the flavored syrup my grand ma made for him, and he'd go around the construction sites and other places around York, AL and sell shaved ice cups for 10 cents each. He was rich when he would have a $1 or $2. They use to go to the movies for 25Cents and that included a drink. And they did not get run out after once showing, they could stay and see it again.

Angie


----------



## whiterock (Mar 26, 2003)

Mom_of_Four said:


> I have a cookbook called Depression Era Recipes, which has not only recipes, but tips on how to stretch foods and substitute when ingredients aren't available.



Would you recommend this book?
Ed


----------



## Delrio (Mar 11, 2007)

I think things will be kept quite basic and simple, like soups, stews, beans, rice. None of the gourmet stuff that calls for 29 ingredients!!


----------



## Wisconsin Ann (Feb 27, 2007)

My parents were both teens during the great depression, from different backgrounds. Neither was from the rich folks, but it's an interesting comparison of how people coped.

Mom was from a farm family in Wisconsin. They barely knew the depression was any different than normal. Other than not having tires for the truck, and actual cash being tight, it was pretty much as it had always been. Bartering was the way farmers did business in the area anyway, so that didn't change. They raised their own beef, pork, chicken, and hunted, so meat didn't change. Milk, egggs, vegg, fruit, honey. no changes. 

My mom said the biggest thing she remembered was the hopelessness she'd see on the faces of folks that lived in town. There were more people standing around doing nothing. And there were people who would jump at the chance to help harvest so they could earn food, or have a place to stay for a few nights.

My Dad was from a circus family. They saw a lot of hardships. Folks would come out and watch the circus set up. See the animals unloaded, maybe help. But actual paying crowds were thin. Even if they had a crowd paying to get in, there was a lot less money made in the Carni area. They'd have a hard time getting enough money to move from one place to another. performers would often go unpaid so they could move on to the next place. Grandpa was Paymaster and Trainmaster, and things were NOT good, but they managed. Often they'd barter a show for feed for the animals or even the people. Grandpa said if he NEVER saw a boiled or baked bean again, he'd die a happy man.  

The drunks got worse. Lots of men (and some women) turned to drink to forget. 

Both sides of my family, when talking about the great depression, said it was a time that either pulled a person up to his best...or dropped him down into his worst side. If a person was negative to begin with, they usually didn't survive well.


----------



## FalconDance (Feb 4, 2007)

Thanks for the list, haradda! I now have several saved files to peruse . Even if not handy for preparedness (which they are, of course), I enjoy reading the older receipt books.


----------



## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

Radiofish- I bet your dad has a lot of cool stories of McAlester's early days. I'll bet one of the reasons those folks had it better was because of the coal mining and predominantly European immigrants in that area. Those folks CAME from countries where our depression era survival was a way of life. Growing up in S.E. OK, I've had the opportunity to speak to a lot of folks from that area. Most of the old timers I've met from the McAlester/Krebs area have said- "depression....what depression, we had never had it so good as we did in America"...Their stories of the homeland (passed down for generations) will set you back on your heels and give you a greater appreciation for what fires tempered their steel.


----------



## diane (May 4, 2002)

Although I am pretty old, I was born just before Dad went off to WWII, I spent a lot of time with grandparents born in 1900 and great-grandparents and my parents lived through the great depression. I do remember when in my family ready made noodles were considered convenience food, as was store bought, sliced bread. I have tryed to keep many of those skills alive in my daily life and continue to learn to cook with only the most basic ingredients. I would encourage folks to try it and if you once taste the soups, including homemade "cream of" soups, you won't want to go back to the store bought canned stuff that gets more expensive every month.

While I was in Haiti I learned that rice and beans can be a different meal every day of the week when you learn to make all the various sauces. If we garden and can a variety of fruits and veggies, root cellar, dry and freeze, we can still do some pretty wonderful cooking that might even take all sorts of ingredients, but we have them on our pantry shelves.


----------



## Guest (Jan 20, 2008)

diane said:


> I would encourage folks to try it and if you once taste the soups, including homemade "cream of" soups, you won't want to go back to the store bought canned stuff that gets more expensive every month.


I make homemade "cream of" soups. You can't even compare them to the storebought stuff. They are sooooooo heavenly!


diane said:


> While I was in Haiti I learned that rice and beans can be a different meal every day of the week when you learn to make all the various sauces.


I have dozens of ways to make bean-based meals. Each one is a completely different experience. They are a cheap source of protein, packed with nutrition.


----------



## Guest (Jan 20, 2008)

Some things I wonder if they would be possible to do that they did during the depression era. My mom would talk about some of their clothing was made out of feed sacks. Back then the feed sacks were cloth, today they are paper or plastic, sometimes both. She would talk about selling extra eggs and cream to the local grocerey store who would then sell to bigger stores in cities. Today that practice is illegal and am not sure if they would ever allow that again. 

And to make things worse during the depression, the state of Oklahoma got hit with a major drought that they called the "Dust Bowl day". Mom said you couldn't grow anything, and with a drought comes a horde of grasshoppers that eats anything that does grow. Let's hope it doesn't get that bad again. I think I could survive a depression, but both a depression and a drought at the same time would be unbareable.


----------



## Karen (Apr 17, 2002)

One thing to remember about the depression is that we can't compare recipes for the future against many of those. The depression wasn't so much about frugal cooking as it was about what was available due to shortages and, in the later years of the depression, rationing. We will, in most probability, experience an entirely different set of shortages.


----------



## radiofish (Mar 30, 2007)

Bump....

Just in case the economy keep heading South, towards the border!!


----------



## woodsy_gardener (May 27, 2007)

Born in 1943, spent many early years in Alabama Village in Mobile Alabama; the tri-plexes were formerly Army buildings from WWII. The adults there had a game called 'Washers' much like horseshoes. Two pits a distance apart, points for in the pits, leaners, on top of opponent, etc. We're talking silver dollar sized washers. 

Having fun, story telling, music, dancing, I think things are about to get more local.


----------



## Parrothead (May 3, 2009)

My grandparents all grew up on farms during the Depression. They used to say they didn't have it that bad off because they were self-sufficient. The ones that suffered were the townies and people in the cities. 
During WW2 everyone that could worked ridiculous hours and more than one job to make ends meet.

But they also used to say that, in general, being poor was far worse back in the early-mid 1900s and more common. Most people didn't have money to start off with. Extended families would live in the same property. The meals were basic in order to feed a large amount of people.


----------



## Carolyn (Jan 5, 2008)

Very honestly- IMO--I know that things are tough, but I don't think things are quite as tough as it was in the depression, I really don't think that people would make it through anything quite like that. Here we talk about being self sufficient, but we are only a few. Out there, even those who have things really tight still rely on modern conviences. My daughters just picked 75 lbs of chokecherries to can into juice, jelly and syrup, they are slow to ripen this year, so we are hoping to get more and the rose hips for jelly and to make into oils for our soap. We have a friend that is going through tough times and I offered her some chokecherries and she laughed at me. She said who is going to go to all that work? HMM we are and did and it is going be be very good this winter! I also asked this friend if she wanted to come and make sausage and jerky with us, we acquired some venison from last year's hunting season, we had some pork in the freezer  and we are making summer sausage and jerky--there again--why would they go to all that work when they can buy it in the store and things like this take up valuble time-ummm you are unemployed--if you help, I am willing to share. Same with gardening, they just don't have the time to mess with it, but if you some extra, we will enjoy it, NOT. I don't want to be selfish, but both my daughters don't have out of the home jobs right now either, one will start a CNA job in Oct. We are not sweating it at all--but everyone works, the goats pay for their upkeep, we garden and right now we get eggs from my cousin until we redo our chicken coop, then he is giving us some chickens. Screenings, good wheat screenings are 2 cents a lb and I already have a couple people willing to put in a bag of layer feed in exchange for eggs. I have the basics stocked up, some weeks we might spend $10 for extras, but not every week. During that time, everything was used--pickled pigs feet, blood sausage( ohh my mother hated it and making it!) My grandmother sewed everything they wore, yes some our of flour sacks on an old treadle machine. My mother at age 6 had the job of taking apart the separator and washing it every night, each child had a job and did it uncomplaining-how many children do chores uncomplaining now? My mom said they always had home made bread and butter with either jelly or a sauce, left over dumblings or bread pudding for lunches, whereas many others just had lard sandwitches or nothing. Maybe my grandma was just plain creative. I really don't see foresee many modern day people even thinking about how to live that way--they won't open their eyes until it is tooo late. Well I have incorporated much into my children ages 32, almost 30 and 23. They are quite SS, although DIL is not impressed with this lifestyle, DS kinda balances things out. I really don't see that people now have that work ethic or as my dad would have said "sticktoitiveness". Very sad.


----------



## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

Reading this thread has brought back a lot of memories. My parents and grandparents lived through the depression and WWII. Dad loved coffee and Mom liked to bake. I remember them talking about rationing coupons and how hard it was to get sugar and coffee.

I also remember when my Mom cooked on a woodstove. Water was drawn from the well, one bucket at a time. Block Ice was kept in the "ice box". During the summer almost all of our food came directly from the farm. Chickens, eggs, milk, butter, buttermilk, and vegetables from the garden. Mom canned all summer. Dad raised hogs. He salt cured the hams, shoulder, and side meat. Sausage went into cloth sacks, was hung and dried. 

During the winter, dried beans and peas supplemented, the canned vegetables and cured meat. Fatback was a staple year round. The grease from cooking fatback supplemented the stands of homemade lard. 

Mom made biscuits twice a day, unless we were having cornbread for supper. Leftover biscuits were used as bread crumbs to go into fried mackeral cakes. Canned salmon was too expensive or wasn't available. I never remember Mom using it. 

Leftover biscuits were cut in half. Topped with some homemade butter and put under the broiler, after Mom got an electric stove. If we wanted a snack after school it was toasted biscuits or saltine crackers toasted the same way. 

I grew up eating everday simple food. Mom did her "special" cooking for Christmas. While it was simple food, I'd rather have it than most of what comes from any fancy resturant today. I could eat my weight in her fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, and brown chicken gravy. 

Wish I could still eat homegrown tomatoes, diced, and topped with hot fatback grease, a little salt and pepper. Use a fresh homemade biscuit to sop up that 'made in heaven' simple plate full of goodness. 

When times were tight, breakfast was supplemented with molasses or cane syrup mixed with a pat of room temp homemade butter. Again, a hot homemade biscuit was all that was needed. Or maybe a hot biscuit with butter and a dollop of strawberry preserves. Today, I could make a meal from either of those and a hot cup of coffee. 

Turnip greens, turnips, collards, cabbage, fried okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, butter beans, green beans, purple hull crowder peas, yellow squash, corn on/off the cob -- come to think of it, maybe our meals weren't all that simple. Uhmmmm..... country ham, homemade sausage, fatback, ribside, pork chops, chicken, neckbones, pickled pigs feet, pickled eggs, fresh caught fish. No, not simple, at all. Just simply prepared so it didn't need a bunch of condiments to cover/hide/disguise the flavor.

This post is getting too long. One of my treasured cookbooks is The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, dated 1941. Originally printed in 1931. http://www.amazon.com/Household-searchlight-recipe-book/dp/B00005W35T

This is another one. All About Home Baking, printed 1933
http://www.amazon.com/baking-Genera...=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251564564&sr=1-8

Lee


----------



## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

Carolyn, you posted while I was typing. 

So much of what you said is true today. That's sad.

FWIW, I remember wearing new outfits made from chicken feed bags. Mom liked it when Dad picked out pretty patterns. She taught me how to sew on a treadle sewing machine. So, I well understand what you're saying.

Lee


----------



## firegirl969 (Nov 3, 2008)

My grandparents and great-grandparents lived through the GD and both WW. 

I remember my great-grandma's still canning and making do with whatever they had and not wasting anything when I was growing up in the early 70's. One great-grandma had a root-cellar under the dining room table with a big rug over it so no one knew it was there. She had rows and rows of canned goods in there along with potatoes and apples. Her husband committed suicide during the GD because he couldn't take care of his family. She went to work at the blind school in Louisville, KY and made enough to care for her 3 kids and herself. 

My other great-grandma lost her husband during the GD in an accident at the wood mill where he worked. She had 5 children, the oldest being 12. He quit school and worked at the local grocery store as a delivery boy and stockboy. My grandma worked at the phone company as an operator at night and actually spent the night on a cot there and then went to school the next morning. The money they made was given to their mother to take care of the family. Great-grandmother (we called her Belle) canned lots and lots of jars of stuff. She is the one that taught me to can. She made watermelon rind preserves. This is just an example of her not throwing anything away.

My granny and papa grew up in the GD. Their families were farmers and raised their own cows, pigs, had chickens for meat and eggs, and raised huge gardens and canned extras and picked and foraged for wild fruits to make jams out of and for cobblers. They married around the time of WW1. Daddy said you could see the chickens through the floors in their old wooden house. They had a wood-burning stove and slept with lots of quilts on them in the dead of winter (In south GA, they didn't have too much cold.) They raised their own meats, fished in their pond and the river, and raised a large garden and Belle came and spent a month in the summer and canned on halves with my Granny. My grandpa went to work in Savannah in the shipyard during the war. He loaded ships for the military during the war. He and his brother both did this and took the bus back and to on the weekends to come home. The money bought the sugar and flour and coffee that they bought. Daddy said that Granny stored the extra sugar under the floor joists so no one would find it. Papa like a toddy to drink and bartered for the occasional jar of 'shine or make "skippy." That was a homebrew like beer that made one run to the outhouse after drinking it thus the name, "skippy." Papa did make a Hoover Car. Which was the seats and axles with tires of an old car without the motor. He cut it down in size and hooked the horses to it and "drove the family to town about once a month."

My other grandad lived with his mother in KY and he went to Ft. Knox and loaded the trains with the gov't gold during the war for money to send to his family.


----------



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

My MIL was a depression era farm girl in the Ozarks.

EVERY! day they had biscuits, cornbread, milk, jelly, white beans, and pork. 

Any variety in their diet had to come from their really big garden, as they bought very little excepting for the big bags of white beans. 

They had chickens but they never ate the eggs: the eggs and the dairy calves could be sold, and not much else could be. When they had vegetables, so did everyone else and so they could not be sold. They raised pigs on-I think- their own corn and milk but there was no market for pigs. Thay ate them.

Without the big roads we have today their markets were there friends and neighbors, and what they had, everybody else had!!

The only time they had beef was when their father threw a rock at a milk cow to make her move and it hit her on the joint and broke the leg. They ate her.


----------



## Guest (Aug 30, 2009)

Terri said:


> My MIL was a depression era farm girl in the Ozarks.
> 
> EVERY! day they had biscuits, cornbread, milk, jelly, white beans, and pork.


My mother grew up in the Ozarks.

Her daddy grew sorghum and made his own molasses. They had a milk cow, so had milk most of the time with their meals.

For breakfast they had biscuits and molasses. Sometimes they had pork from pigs they raised.

For supper they had pinto beans and cornbread, plus whatever veggies they had from the garden, or wild edible plants they gleaned from the woods.

Lunch was leftovers from breakfast, or leftover cornbread crumbled in milk (yuk).

They would butcher a chicken now and again for Sunday dinner.


----------



## GoldenCityMuse (Apr 15, 2009)

My Grandparents were born in the teens, and had to really make do.

Even I as a kid we did not have much money. Beans & corbread were at most meals, along with some chicken or sometimes pork.

So who else used half dried milk and half fresh milk mixed up together? Since the mixed dried milk did not taste very good, mom would combine it with frsh milk, and it was not too discernible from regular fresh milk.

very interesting reading .


----------



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

ladycat said:


> Lunch was leftovers from breakfast, or leftover cornbread crumbled in milk (yuk).
> .


MIL once said that cornbread in milk was best if it was buttered, and eaten out of a glass!

She would drink a little and spoon up some solids: drink a little and spoon up some solids.

Of course, we eat corn flakes in milk but somehow that feels different!


----------



## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

Fried (not baked) cornbread (not hushpuppies) using fatback grease. Crumbled in an ice cold glass of REAL buttermilk! 

Wishing I had some right now.
Lee


----------



## AngieM2 (May 10, 2002)

This looks like an interesting thread to bump for current group here.

Angie


----------



## ChristyACB (Apr 10, 2008)

The grandparents that mostly raised me were both depression kids and never grew out of it. Seriously never did. My grandma abode by the concept of having enough canned in case there was no harvest the next year like a religion!

Big gardens, animals, hunting, fishing..you name it. I shot my first deer at 7 yrs 11 mos and proudly stood for the photos! Skinning animals trapped as young as 5 since it was my kindergarten year.

My dad's side, the side of these particular grandparents, are from NC and have been since 1632 on the same property. Very savvy in local area and what you can get there so nature still provided for them. My Grandmommy's Daddy...Grandsob...was also a...umm...koff koff...a notorious moonshiner and whiskey runner. You should SEE some of my photos! Look like Bonnie and Clyde..lol, those two. They did pretty well in the depression. 

Of course, that is offset by the shear number of people they had to support from other members of the family that lost everything and moved back to the farm. All in all, they did well. BUT, my Grandmommy said the visiting of people who were literally starving and bringing them food and the desperation everywhere is what scarred her like that.

Now, my Mom's side...not a lot is really known because no one will talk about it at all. It's almost like that whole decade didn't happen. I know they were very wealthy and GGma Nidehardt's hubby owned every business in one town, including the bank. The other side of her parents were farmer's. I'm thinking that since no one owned any town by the time I visited with my GGma (she was the one who played Mars Mission with me on the sly when I was supposed to be sleeping since I slept with her and the carvings on her bed were my control panels) they must have lost a good bit or all of it and had it pretty rough.

Tomato cakes are a staple in our family. As it eating whatever you can catch. I do love squirrel...but won't eat it now because of the prevalence of disease and contamination in them. Different in the country.


----------



## Tracy Rimmer (May 9, 2002)

My personal belief is that if things get really bad, it's unlikely to be like it was then -- it's much more likely, IMHO, to have Orwellian leanings, probably with rations of Soylent Green-like foodstuffs. More processing, not less, and "streamlining" of the food industry, in the name of "efficiency", rather than food independence.

But I'm a bit of a pessimist that way.


----------



## Becka (Mar 15, 2008)

My grandmother is now deceased, but I remember watching her cook many, many times. She never kept her butter in the refrigerator, but in the cupboard so it would be soft when she wanted to spread it on bread. We always worried she'd get sick from it, but she never did. She was one of 13 children, and as a kid I always wondered why she added extra ingredients when she cooked. When she made spaghetti, she always added chopped onion and green peppers to the ground beef as she browned it, then she'd use a jar of spaghetti sauce. It was unheard of just to use the sauce and noodles! She'd make bologna salad and would get mad if I just used bologna and mayo--oh no! We had to add boiled eggs, relish, stale cracker crumbs, and a bunch of this and that. Now that I'm grown up, I realize, this was her way of making food "stretch." If you had half and onion or green pepper, you added it to whatever you were cooking. If you was hot you made a salad with the raw veggies instead. You didn't let anything go to waste. She always made REAL mashed potatoes, never instant.

Any peelings or scraps were tossed to the chickens. Apple cores, melon rinds, molded bread, you name it and those chickens ate it. She'd make chicken n' dumplings from scratch, never using a recipe. She just looked at the food and seemed to know how much to add. I don't think I ever saw her use a recipe or cook book for anything.

She always burned her trash, whether it was "legal" or not. Even in the 1980's, I helped her wash laundry in the wringer washer and hang it on the clothesline to dry. Like items had to be hung with like items, because it was sloppy housekeeping to mix the laundry. I remember ironing sheets and doilies and starching tablecloths. 

One dish she used to make, she called "Dutch Eggs." She cut up cubes of bread and bacon and cooked it with scrambled eggs. I don't know what all she put in it, but whenever I spent the night, I'd ask her to make it for me for breakfast because it was delicious. Again, I think was a depression recipe to use up little bits of this n' that.


----------



## ChristyACB (Apr 10, 2008)

Becka said:


> My grandmother is now deceased, but I remember watching her cook many, many times. * She never kept her butter in the refrigerator, but in the cupboard so it would be soft when she wanted to spread it on bread. We always worried she'd get sick from it, but she never did. * She was one of 13 children, and as a kid I always wondered why she added extra ingredients when she cooked. When she made spaghetti, she always added chopped onion and green peppers to the ground beef as she browned it, then she'd use a jar of spaghetti sauce. It was unheard of just to use the sauce and noodles! She'd make bologna salad and would get mad if I just used bologna and mayo--oh no! We had to add boiled eggs, relish, stale cracker crumbs, and a bunch of this and that. Now that I'm grown up, I realize, this was her way of making food "stretch." If you had half and onion or green pepper, you added it to whatever you were cooking. If you was hot you made a salad with the raw veggies instead. You didn't let anything go to waste. She always made REAL mashed potatoes, never instant.
> 
> Any peelings or scraps were tossed to the chickens. Apple cores, melon rinds, molded bread, you name it and those chickens ate it. She'd make chicken n' dumplings from scratch, never using a recipe. She just looked at the food and seemed to know how much to add. I don't think I ever saw her use a recipe or cook book for anything.
> 
> ...


Butter bell's are the best way to keep butter I've found. It works for store bought and freshly made. The one I use is here:

http://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitche...r___Ancient_Style_Butter_Crock___100284?Args=

It works fabulous and keeps butter perfectly.

Dutch eggs, though we didn't call it that, are a favorite here too. We used the ends of the bacon when we cut it (we hung it up on a hook and sliced stuff off and the ends were hard to work with and perfect for this) and the ends and stale bits of the old bread before baking day.

Great dish and super filling!


----------



## rean (Nov 18, 2008)

My grandmother made a dish, she took cooked macaroni, cooked breakfast sausage links, canned (chopped) tomatoes, and shredded cheddar cheese. She baked it until hot through out and the cheese melted. It's very good.


----------



## jassytoo (May 14, 2003)

I was born at the end of WW11 in England. There was rationing until the early 50s. My parents weathered the depression and WW11. I have two cookbooks by a Marguerite Patten who was hired by the government to teach women how to cook with the rations they were allowed. Rations were pretty scimpy so most folks had to suppliment them with their own fruits and veg. Those that didn't have room to garden had pea patches. My parents had chickens, rabbits and some ducks, plus a garden in their backyard. They kept that up through my childhood. Nothing was wasted and it seems to me that we did't eat as much as we do now either. There were community canning places.No refrigeration so stuff was dried pickled or salted as well as canned.Out of the cookbook here is the ration for 1 adult for a week.

Bacon,ham and meat 4oz.
Butter 2oz.
Cheese 2 oz. ( sometimes 4oz)
Margarine 4oz.
Cooking fat 4 oz. ( sometimes dropping to 2oz )
Milk 3 pints also dried milk 1 pkt every month
Sugar 8oz
Preserves 1lb every 2 months
Tea 2oz
Eggs 1 shell egga week if available sometimes 1 every 2 weeks
dried eggs 1 pkt every month
Sweets 12 oz every month.

There was also a point system , although it doesn't say how it worked. 16 points could let you buy 1 can of fish or meat or 2 lbs dried fruit or 8 lbs split peas.
Babies, young children, exspectant and nursing motheres got orange juice and cod liver oil from Welfare clinics.

This varied from week to week depending on availability but on the whole people ate healthy food with lots of whole grains and veg.Not much fat, meat or sugar.
The book has lots of recipes including desserts and holiday fare. Lots of pseudo recipes like Mock cream and unusual recipes like parsley honey, dripping cake and vinegar cake. 
I bet I could cut my food budget if I started using some of these recipes myself. Think I'm going to try it.


----------



## Sarabeth (Sep 14, 2008)

Angie, Thanks for the bump. Great thread.


----------



## ACountryMomma (Aug 10, 2008)

Tweetybird said:


> Also, with the rationing of fuel, limiting travel, what were some of the things you or your family did to enjoy yourself? During these hard times ahead, we will not be able to spend that essential dollar on "playthings", we will need it to pay bills, buy food and clothing etc. We will need time to decompress and just "have fun" without the worry about the cost, or concern that we are wasting precious pennies.


My Father was born in 1927 and I was raised around my Great Aunt who was born in 1906. Sadly I didn't get many stories about recipes from the depression, but I have heard MANY tales of the way time was spent - both in work & play...

Work - EVERYONE worked Mamas at home most of the time - growing kids and gardens and chickens. Lots of canning. Lots of sewing. Lots of keeping house. In my mother's family they let a room for extra income... (as a side note I recently saw a country room for rent in our weekly paper - never have seen anything like that before around here!)

The kids worked in the fields for local farmers, my Dad carried water to fellows working on building one of the Mississippi dams, in the winter they shoveled the street and drives.

Play - In nice weather my people spent a LOT of time outside. Fishing, swimming in the lake, taking a stroll, hunting, playing baseball, marbles for the kids. Evenings and bad weather entertainment included playing dominoes & cards, reading, doing puzzles and listening to the radio... along with knitting, crochet and quilting. Church and various clubs played a BIG role on my Mother's side of the family, they all knew how important community was and they invested their time in it. My Aunt and Uncle were members of the Odd Fellows - I don't hear that much about them anymore - but there were LOTS of lodges for people to be members of & church organizations.

These are a few of the things I learned about the every day life of my family during those days. Hope that helps a little.


----------



## viggie (Jul 17, 2009)

Although my father isn't quite that old, he did grow up very poor. I remember him having my mom make "chicken fricassee" which is one he loved growing up. It was just rice topped with a glob of heated undiluted cream of chicken soup. It stands out so clearly in my mind because of my moms horror, but it was actually really good with plenty of pepper.

I've tried looking up depression era recipes too without much luck of finding things that'd actually work for me. I think we just need our own wave of creativity based on what's inexpensive these days...like dad's chicken fricassee.


----------



## cast iron (Oct 4, 2004)

Just a few things I picked up from family members.

- Mornings were spent out looking for work or working if you were fortunate to have a job. 

- Travel to town or other parts of the county was expensive so effort was made to combine trips - job hunting, bartering, shopping etc.

- While looking for paying jobs people would also attempt to get on 'volunteer crews' and work for free hoping to work their way up the line to a part time or full time paid position, as well as network for other job or barter contacts.

- With income severally limited or none at all, most projects around the homestead were put on hold. Yes, not all projects take money, that's true, but you would be surprised how fast things come to a screeching stop when the income ceases to flow. There was massive deferred maintenance and repairs around the homesteads, as well as tough decisions relative to the type of animals kept, the type of crops grown, and the type of gardens kept in order to just squeak by with a mostly self-sufficient down and dirty lifestyle.

- Given the above, there was a fair amount of free time to be filled. Yes, of course the chores needed to be done, and whatever projects that could be done for no money, and job hunting, and bartering, but still there was free time available.

- The bartering system was fraught with inefficiencies, mostly due to requirement of face-to-face communication. Meaning people had to travel to barter with other people and many times the barter did not work out so the trip was a waste of time and money. In some cases repeatable bartering with the same group or individual could be set up and worked ok for awhile. But even this was prone to break-down over time as an individual would become suspicious of the bartering partners motives for one reason or another, and eventually the relationship would breakdown as a mistrust developed between the two partners. 

- Trying to maintain some semblance of social contact and social normalcy was very important, although most of the folks didn't realize this at the time. Towards this end, the men would gather once a week or once every two weeks at someones house for a game of cards. If they were lucky a half bottle of whiskey or some moonshine concoction would be shared amongst them during the evening. They would use small stones or other item of variable size as the currency for the poker games. The larger the stone, the higher it's monetary value. Similarly, the women would gather for knitting/sewing circles at one of their homes.

- Much of the social contact and facilitation of bartering happened at the place of employment, or the volunteer camps. This was the primary means of networking at the time and was particularly critical when trying to find a job. Most jobs found were via word of mouth and if you were not physically present when the word spread through the group then you had no chance at the job because you never knew an opening existed.

- My grandfather always told me that it was critically important (both then and now) to have a 'purpose' each and every day. What he would term 'purpose' I would probably call a task. This is something in addition to the daily stuff like job hunting, bartering, chores etc. 
At any rate, it didn't really mater what type of purpose, but it was important to have at least one each day. It could be a matter of using the last half gallon of paint to paint one half of one wall of the barn to protect it from the weather, or maybe have a task of sharpening all your edged tools one day. The task itself was not important but act of achieving and Completing something each day helped to provide some sense of purpose and self-satisfaction during tough times.


----------



## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Both sets of grandparents were from agricultural backgrounds. During the Depression, they never went hungry, but they never got fat.

One of them took the only 'real job' he ever had during that time period... they needed the cash for extras and to pay of some land notes. The rest of the time, he was plowing, planting, logging. After the land was paid off, he went back to hogs, cattle, and farming. My father's folks took in 'strays', fed em, sheltered em, nourished them, and when they were old enough to get out on their own, off they went. I can't remember ever going to their house (a mile away, a brisk walk, bike ride, or horse ride) and there not being extra food on the table. Granny never knew who might show up, and had extra vittles. She'd put up a years worth of peas at a time. There was always several barnloads of whole corn. Never a lack of peas, cornbread, steak or pig meat on the table.

Mother's folks lived off their land, and granpa took outside work to make ends meet. They never went hungry... but they knew neighbors who did. They didn't have the barns full of corn, the cattle or hogs, so they canned years worth of vittles at a time. When they both passed away, I inherited their vast holdings of canned goods. Several truckloads of glass jars filled with unidentifiable stuff.

Both sets of grandpa's were independent hard headed cuss's. But they were experts on making do with whatever they had. I resented their 'ways' when i was young, but afterwards come to admire them for their ingenuity. With nothing but a hammer and a pair of fencing pliers, one could fix anything to do with a tractor of its implements... this is before duck tape. The other one could fix anything, by taking off the broke part, and engineering a replacement... even when going to town and getting a part might only cost less than a buck... both would tell me they use to couldn't rush off to town, and didn't always have a buck to spend.

The food thing is the most obvious thing people think about when it comes to the Great Depression... the 'bush engineering' aspect is rarely thought about. I know the things I've learned from both of them have gotten me out of some mighty tight scrapes before (those skills saved my life on more than one occasion). They were McGuyver'ing before it was cool.


----------



## Sanza (Sep 8, 2008)

Having been raised on a farm without power, gas, running water or phone, I know how to live the "old fashioned" way, and still prepare a lot of food the way my mother and grandmothers did - good old Ukrainian cooking! In the summer we ate fresh produce from the garden and young chickens, and in the winter ate root vegetables kept in the cellar under the kitchen with pork, venison or fish or canned meat. Lots of canned fruit and dried mushrooms. Oh yeah and the yucky powdered milk in winter. Thankfully I can still ask my 85 yr old mother for any advice I might need. 
A favorite summer meal was beet leaf rolls (with dough filling) and canned pork....mmm


----------



## RachelC (Oct 21, 2009)

My great grandmother raised her family during the depression and WW2. My great grandfather always had a job, so they were blessed in that way. He worked for Monarch Foods as a printer. He would get the bent and dent cans of food at 30 for 10C. Nonnie would open each one w/ a serial number and write down what was in the can. Then she would mark them and put them on the shelf and kept a list of the numbers. They lived in Chicago and had a double lot. They raised a garden on the extra lot and canned alot of food. Nonnie worked part time during the war for her friends husband in his grocery store and got paid in meat, butter, eggs, etc. She used to make things like dumplings and sauerkraut, fruit dumplings, Macaroni and tomato with a bit of bacon, kugeli, apple and potato pancakes, homemade chicken soup with garlic dumplings. She probably was more extravagent than most depression cooks because of her situation. The next door neighbors also had a milk cow and she got the milk for my grandmother because of her allergy to store milk. Her mother didn't use as much of her sugar and flour stamps, so she traded her coffee stamps for those. She sewed alot of the girl's and her clothes. Her mother was abeautiful seamstress and milliner, and made alot of the family clothes. They got along pretty well. I am so glad I sat down and listened to her stories and copied her recipes as I cooked with her before her mind went. She is dead now, but I am the only one in the family who knows some of these things. Hope this helps.


----------



## Laverne (May 25, 2008)

I've enjoyed everyones posts!
My Grandma and Grandpa lived in a tent in the Redwood Forest. My Grandpa was employed building roads. When my dad was born they were living in a tent but went to a local hospital for the birth and the hospital bill was $10.00 which thay never paid. Many years later my mom and dad went on a road trip and visited that hospital. I told my dad he should have paid the bill. Anyway my Grandma would talk about the depression and the happy times they had. It was very memorable to her. Catching salmon out of streams. Building a cabin later to replace the tent. A wood stove that was packed in the trunk of the car and used for heat and cooking. Raising the new baby, my dad. 
So as far as recreation I think my Grandparents had the attitude that during that time it was a camping trip. Their ancestors came west in covered wagons, now that's roughing it!


----------



## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

It dawned on me that if you lived thru the Great Depression, and could remember it, you would have to be 100 years old and not likely using the internet.


----------



## Guest (Jul 15, 2010)

suitcase_sally said:


> It dawned on me that if you lived thru the Great Depression, and could remember it, you would have to be 100 years old and not likely using the internet.


My mother lived through the GD and remembers it and she's 75.

There are a lot of people on the internet in their 70's and 80's.

And beyond. They showed this one lady on TV who had her 100th birthday and was using the internet.


----------



## Tracy Rimmer (May 9, 2002)

suitcase_sally said:


> It dawned on me that if you lived thru the Great Depression, and could remember it, you would have to be 100 years old and not likely using the internet.


My Dad was born in 1933. He remembers the Depression very well. According to him, it made an impression that no one was likely to forget.

Apparently, hunger has that effect on a child.


----------



## hardrock (Jun 8, 2010)

We (my wife and I) are avid history buff's,especially the Revolution,Civil war
and WW2. Both our dad's were at Okinawa during the invasion.

One was a radarman on a "baby flattop" and the other a naval "medic" attached to a Marine unit.

I would beg everyone to try to get any of the old stories and words of wisdom from these folks. They are almost all gone.


----------



## Aintlifegrand (Jun 3, 2005)

swampgirl said:


> I was born in 1944, but in South Louisiana it still felt like the depression. I remember the many stories my mother & grandmother told. The one I remember most is of a great uncle who was lazy & did not plant a garden. My grandparents saw him digging potatoes from their big garden during the night, but didn't say anything because they new his kids needed to eat. Most of the recipies they spoke of were stews. Like turnip, potatoe, and crab. The kids, my mom & siblings, would catch crabs off a warf on the Atchafalaya River and my grandmother would make a dark roux, add some onions, & some crabs. I often ate this stew as a child & it was delicious! They ate any game that they could get, such as rabbits, various birds, & an occassional deer, but their biggest source of protein was fish & crabs.



I am from North Louisiana but I have just recently been telling my son who is a prepper/survivalist like me.. that we need to look at how the South Louisianians/and Native American people lived and survived... they are true survivors and both know how to use the land and what is closest to them to feed their families.


----------



## Aintlifegrand (Jun 3, 2005)

Tracy Rimmer said:


> My personal belief is that if things get really bad, it's unlikely to be like it was then -- it's much more likely, IMHO, to have Orwellian leanings, probably with rations of Soylent Green-like foodstuffs. More processing, not less, and "streamlining" of the food industry, in the name of "efficiency", rather than food independence.
> 
> But I'm a bit of a pessimist that way.


I actually agree.. I think we are too different for it to be that way again.. it will be much worse tghis time IMO..yet it will be promoted as more efficient and "not as bad as it could be"...I fear people will not be allowed to do for themselves.. I fear that everyone will be watched closely and managed... and rather than a complete breakdown of government..we wll have a more geard up government that controls through fear. I am praying that I will be wrong...and we will be left with freedom and liberty if nothing else...if not it will mean our side lost.


----------



## Aintlifegrand (Jun 3, 2005)

My parents were born in 1935-38. My mom's parents lived in Michigan and Grandpa was a self employed carpenter...from the stories they had it kind of rough.. they lived on a farm in one room he built and added on to the house over the years. My grandparents were extremely frugal even whent hey didn't have to be...they never let that part go...they didn't trust banks or governments. Grandpa detested insurance of any kind. Grandma used to drive my Dad nuts when she visited cause she saved every left over she could and our freezer had all these little bits of this and that when she left..

Dad's folks were from Louisiana and it seems as if they did better but still not wealthy..Italian immigrant married a German immigrant when she was less 14. Grandpa worked for Coco Cola all his life. My Italian grandmother, Nannie, used to do ironing for extra money and they had a boarder once. The story goes like this...The man came in rented the room and that afternoon, he shot and killed himself and supposedly my Dad who was under 10 had to clean the floors after they took his body away...and they never rented out again. These grandparents never seemed frugal in my lifetime.. they spent and lived well after the fact it seemed with his good stable job and retirement...always treats in the house, good food, every new gadget on the market..always remodeling etc... my grandmother never wanted for anything that he didn't get for her.


----------



## jbowyer01 (Aug 4, 2008)

NCLee said:


> Turnip greens, turnips, collards, cabbage, fried okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, butter beans, green beans, purple hull crowder peas, yellow squash, corn on/off the cob -- come to think of it, maybe our meals weren't all that simple. Uhmmmm..... country ham, homemade sausage, fatback, ribside, pork chops, chicken, neckbones, pickled pigs feet, pickled eggs, fresh caught fish. No, not simple, at all. Just simply prepared so it didn't need a bunch of condiments to cover/hide/disguise the flavor.


Great now I'm hungry! We still eat this way. I'd rather have fresh veggies from our garden then a greasy burger from MickeyDs


----------



## secretcreek (Jan 24, 2010)

My 93 yr old Grandmother saves the tiny bits of leftovers. Washes out plastic baggies to reuse, saves every single plastic lid or coolwhip, or cottage cheese container. My father in law was a little boy in the depression era. He is extremely frugal- even goes thru the garbage to make sure there's nothing about to be thrown out that could be reused. He is a chemist, carpenter, rebuilds-restores Ford and John Deere tractors, farmer-gardener, very giving person- very faith oriented. Never had a credit card.


----------



## RockyGlen (Jan 19, 2007)

From talking to my grandparents:

they kept seives in the flour and cornmeal bins and would sift out the weevils. No throwing it away just because it had bugs.

When it came to meat, they had a "half rule." When you cooked a roast, you ate half of it. Then you took the other half and used half of it to make a casserole. The next "half" would go into gravy and get served over biscuits. The last "half" would go into soup. That's 4 meals from one roast, for 8 people. She said meat was a flavoring.

Nothing went to waste. If there was corn left over from dinner, it got mixed in with cornmeal for cornmeal mush. Leftover corn bread was eaten with milk. Leftover pancakes got soaked in water and used to thicken stew. She said their dog didn't get table scraps - he got chewed over bones.

She said there was no such thing as breakfast food, lunch food, and dinner food. Food was food - and sometimes that meant they had cabbage from breakfast.

Gravy can turn anything into a meal. All fat was saved, and with a dab of flour and some water was turned into gravy that was eaten over whatever else was available.

She laughed that they were ahead of their time when it came to health, because they would cut back salt and sugar in recipes as much as they could and still have it turn out.

she still saves every little dab of meat, potatoes, or vegetables leftover and throws them in a plastic container in the freezer. When the container is full she makes garbage soup.

as far as entertainment, they played a lot of cards and dominos. No gambling, just playing. They listened to the stories on the radio alot, and she says just about everybody played an instrument of some kind - even if it was just harmonica or spoons. Her dad played the fiddle and some uncles played the guitar. The women sang while they worked. In the evenings they would sit around and make music or tell stories - mostly family history or funny stories about things they had seen or heard. She still has some round robin embroidery samplers - one person would take a peice of fabric from an old skirt or something and embroider her name on it, then give it to someone else and that person would embroider on it and so on and so forth until it came back to the person whose name was on it. She said they mostly used thread they took out of other things.

Other ways to save money - sewing. She says they mended things you didn't think you can mend. (I have her sock darning eggs and know how to use them -not tha I ever will unless I HAVE to!). If a mans shirt got too torn to mend it was cut down into baby clothes or some other useful item. When the scraps were too small for anything else they went into a quilt.


----------



## Guest (Jul 16, 2010)

RockyGlen said:


> From talking to my grandparents:
> 
> they kept seives in the flour and cornmeal bins and would sift out the weevils. No throwing it away just because it had bugs.
> 
> ...


That's not much different from the way I do things.

Except I buy dogfood.

And leftover pancakes go in the freezer for another meal. Soaking them to thicken stew- ugh!


----------



## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

My parents were each young enough to still live at home with their parents when the depression started. 

Near the beginning of it, Dad found a job as a west Texas cowboy and went to live in the bunkhouse where he worked. That was one less mouth for the family to feed. He would still go home in the fall to help his father butcher hogs. They butchered several of them to last until the next fall. They also raised chickens for both eggs and meat, and a garden. I'm sure todays doctors would totally disapprove of the way they ate back then cause pork was the meat they ate daily. Most of them lived to be almost 100 years old so I don't think eating pork is as bad for a person as we are led to think. 

Mom's family was a lucky bunch. They didn't hurt a lot during the depression. Grandma was smart enough to have a double garden so she traded produce for things they couldn't grow on the farm. They had a milch cow, fruit trees, and the huge double garden that gave her food to trade for just about anything they wanted. They kept a hired couple to do much of the farm work and house work. The hired couple worked for their keep so grandma bartered for clothing and things for them in addition to the family. Mom said they were like members of the family and stayed close even after the depression ended. 

You can usually identify certain traits of people who lived thru the depression. They save EVERYTHING for the simple reason they MIGHT need it someday. They were the ultimate preppers. I learned to be a prepper from watching my parents.


----------



## Guest (Jul 16, 2010)

Spinner said:


> I'm sure todays doctors would totally disapprove of the way they ate back then cause pork was the meat they ate daily. Most of them lived to be almost 100 years old so I don't think eating pork is as bad for a person as we are led to think.


They worked it off.


----------



## shannsmom (Jul 28, 2009)

I am pretty much a long time lurker, but have loved this thread so much that I had to come out of hiding to say thanks to everyone for posting and bumping. The Great Depression is the time period I have always been the most fascinated with, but, sadly, was never close to my grandparents to ever get their stories or wisdom. We only saw them once every 3 years (we were overseas military), and by the time I was old enough to have any sense, they were all about buying the things they couldn't earlier in life. What I wouldn't give to talk to them now. I do have an older friend (around 80) who grew up in England during WWII, she is more active than anyone I know and has a much more well adjusted outlook on life (kinda 'enjoy what you have'). And has never used credit!
What strikes me as funny is all the things people have mentioned were done to get thru the Depression, are things I do NOW! And some things that I wish I could learn to do!
Thanks again to everyone!


----------



## QuiltingLady2 (Jan 3, 2007)

Same thing we did during the gas wars of the late 70's and early 80's. 

Summer - walk down to the creek to swim/wade, bring a picnic lunch on a Sunday afternoon. 
Have the neighbors over for a cookout or a potluck. Play a few gitars, piano. Taste some homemade wine.

Winter - Church potlucks, visiting preacher, HS concert, watch a BB game at the HS. Visit with family and friends.


----------



## FrodoLass (Jan 15, 2007)

ladycat said:


> Lunch was leftovers from breakfast, or leftover cornbread crumbled in milk (yuk).


One of our favorite meals when I was a kid was milk over saltines. Yum!


----------



## CrashTestRanch (Jul 14, 2010)

Ya'll will love this, if you haven't seen them already:

Great Depression Cooking with Clara


----------

