depression cooking

[pretty faythe]

Found this while surfing the net trying to find depression inspired cooking tips.
There's a bunch to watch, and she shares little tails from growing up during the depression, enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking#play/uploads/9/yREFkmrrYiw

 

[Shangas]

I found that a few months ago. Clara's an amazing cook and her tales are wonderful to listen to.

And the recipes are so damn easy! Anyone could do it!

 

[glamour-girl]

what a sweet lady and she's got some funny stories too... i'm going to make that egg-drop soupe for dinner tonight, wish me luck...

 

[Lorena B]

I think is quite ironic that some of this old depression recipes have come up in popularity in this actual times of economic mayhem.
Well, i guess, something positive has to come out of it

 

[Shangas]

According to her channel, Clara is currently filming season 2 of her YouTube series. She really is an absolute wonder.

I can't wait to try making some of this stuff...

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Even after the depression Food was rationed during the war of 1939-45, in The United Kingdom, requiring some rather Inventive recipe ideas. "Anyone for powdered egg?""

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/0-9/1940house/ref/food/rat.htm

 

[Shangas]

Apple Crumble was invented in the Second World War, by English housewives who did not have enough ingredients (due to rationing), for a conventional apple pie. Oats, flour, cinnamon, apples (which were free, if you knew where to find them) and butter made one of the simplest baked desserts ever.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I noticed she used olive oil-- was that readily available in America during the Depression?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I noticed she used olive oil-- was that readily available in America during the Depression?

Heinz sold it in a tall, skinny bottle. It wasn't Extra Virgin Super Fancy Imported, it was sold as just plain "Heinz Olive Oil."

 

[Bruce Wayne]

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Thanks, Lizzie.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Excellent!

 

[Stanley Doble]

Olive oil has always been available in the US. If not in every grocery store, certainly in ethnic neighborhoods. By the 19th century every city had its French, Italian or German shops and delicatessens.

 

[CaramelSmoothie]

Olive oil has always been available in the US. If not in every grocery store, certainly in ethnic neighborhoods. By the 19th century every city had its French, Italian or German shops and delicatessens.

And thank goodness for that. I use olive oil in my cooking and I also bathe with it.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Mark Twain wrote a piece in the 1870s about sharpies who were doctoring up cottonseed oil and selling it as olive oil. Also about oleomargarine being substituted for butter. Both olive oil and butter were common items in grocery stores and were both in danger of being adulterated.

Have seen a reference to olive oil in 16th century England only they called it "salat oyl". I should think olive oil was available in America from colonial days on, by way of Spain, France or Italy.

 

[Stanley Doble]

As a funny side light. Some years ago I read an interview with a woman who worked in settlement houses in the eastern US. These were charitable organizations aimed at helping new immigrants fit into American society in the late 19th and early 20th century. She said they did a lot of good work and helped a lot of people but their one failure was, they could not get people to change their eating habits. No matter how hard they tried they could not convince the European peasant that white flour, lard, and potatoes had the same food value as macaroni, tomato sauce, olive oil, fresh vegetables and fruit and were cheaper.

Of course today the do gooders are trying to get us to drop white flour, lard, and French fried potatoes for pasta, olive oil, tomato sauce, and fresh fruit and vegetables before our hearts explode.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A heavy, fatty, high-carbohydrate diet was fine for people who actually worked for a living and burned off the calories -- it's when we transitioned into a society of whey-faced pixel-shuffling keyboard-punchers that it became dangerous.

The great battle of my grandmother's generation was the question of lard versus Crisco -- hydrogenated vegetable oil -- for baking and frying. Crisco won, largely due to the Boys From Marketing pushing the "It's Digestible!" slogan, but lard is actually making a comeback now. As long as you don't slather it all over everything you eat, it's probably better for you than processed shortenings.

 

[Feraud]

Mark Twain wrote a piece in the 1870s about sharpies who were doctoring up cottonseed oil and selling it as olive oil. Also about oleomargarine being substituted for butter. Both olive oil and butter were common items in grocery stores and were both in danger of being adulterated.

The more things change..

 

[cpdv]

Having eaten my grandparents depression cooking I have to say anyone who has a palate should stay away from it. The one thing I like is the poached hake with some butter and salt and pepper on it. Hake used to be the stuff fishermen gave away for practically nothing in Maine...in the 30s that is.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Having eaten my grandparents depression cooking I have to say anyone who has a palate should stay away from it. The one thing I like is the poached hake with some butter and salt and pepper on it. Hake used to be the stuff fishermen gave away for practically nothing in Maine...in the 30s that is.

"Numb as a hake" is still a popular expression here, having as much to do with the blandness of the flavor as with the stupidity of the fish.

We didn't bother with hake -- but we ate an awful lot of fried mackerel, which has always been the cheapest of trash fish in any town with a public pier. If you lived on the shore, you could also feed your family for very little if you owned a pail and a hoe.