Depression Era Cooking

[Pixiedust34]

We found this video link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OPQqH3YlHA

on another site and we've enjoyed watching Clara cook and talk a little about the Depression. She looks like such an interesting person! And she looks great for a lady in her 90s!

My dd wants to make the "poor man's dinner" this week and we're going to give it a try. Clara has a few other You Tube clips with different recipes.

 

[Dismom+two]

God Bless her heart!! She does seem like a very sweet lady that would be nice to sit and listen to. It makes me miss my Nana who has been gone for 20+ years!
I think that Poor mans dinner looks good actually!! I just may try it myself!

 

[happygirl]

What a sweet lady. I make the same thing minus the hot sauce

 

[Pigeon]

My MIL was a child of the Depression, and her cooking is (and always has been) genuinely frightening (as well as just plain awful). She throws out nothing, and will serve you turkey in January, when the original meal was Tday, and no, she didn't freeze anything. She thermal cycles vegetables until they are unrecognizable by overcooking them in the first place and then reheating them every night until they collapse in a heap of mold.

It terrifies me when she tries to feed my kids. I always make them eat before we go visit her.

 

[Mellie2162]

My MIL was a child of the Depression, and her cooking is (and always has been) genuinely frightening (as well as just plain awful). She throws out nothing, and will serve you turkey in January, when the original meal was Tday, and no, she didn't freeze anything. She thermal cycles vegetables until they are unrecognizable by overcooking them in the first place and then reheating them every night until they collapse in a heap of mold.

It terrifies me when she tries to feed my kids. I always make them eat before we go visit her.

My FIL was the same way. When he died and I had to clean out his fridge it took me forever to get the nerve to start digging. Once I did I wore gloves and a mask and gagged the whole time.

 

[luvmy3]

My MIL was a child of the Depression, and her cooking is (and always has been) genuinely frightening (as well as just plain awful). She throws out nothing, and will serve you turkey in January, when the original meal was Tday, and no, she didn't freeze anything. She thermal cycles vegetables until they are unrecognizable by overcooking them in the first place and then reheating them every night until they collapse in a heap of mold.

It terrifies me when she tries to feed my kids. I always make them eat before we go visit her.

I know what you mean. My grandmother isn't quite that bad, but sometimes I dread going to her house to eat because you never know what your going to get.

 

[NotUrsula]

DH' grandmother died at age 96 about 10 years ago. She *insisted* on cooking big Sunday dinners for the extended family, and she had a scary kitchen, too. Trouble is, if you set foot in it to help her she would literally chase you out with a skillet. I finally refused to eat there anymore when I found her confusing quicklime for baking soda. (No clue why she had quicklime in her kitchen in the first place.) She was both blind and deaf, and still she wouldn't stop cooking -- really a dangerous person in the end.

Anyway, she did the foil-saving thing, and wrapped everything *loosely* in foil when she put it away. No clue how to do a proper air-tight foil wrap in that house. I have to get on DH about this sometimes, he has an inherited tendency to open canned foods, use half the can and then put a loose foil "cap" on the top of the can and put it in the fridge like that. The steel in the can oxidizes against the foil, and the result is rather nasty.

DH's mom was very young during the Great Depression, but her family was just generally very poor, and urban. They apparently ate dried beans at least twice a day. (For some reason, it apparently never occurred to anyone in her family to try to catch a fish, though they lived 3 blocks from the Mississippi River. ) My parents were about 10 years older, but they were not yet in the US during the Great Depression. The economy was bad in Europe, too, but out in the country the food shortages were not so bad as in the US, because there was no Dust Bowl there. England didn't get really awful food shortages until the War. We ate potatoes 3 meals per day; my Mom peeled 5 lbs. every single morning.

My father's personal definition of success was being able to put some kind of meat or fish on the table at least 2X per day -- and woe betide anyone who refused to eat it. The idea of voluntarily refusing to eat meat was completely outside his comprehension.

 

[Boston Tea Party]

OK Miss Clara is just the best thing ever!!

I miss my grandmother.

 

[Mmacvean]

I'd be interested in interviewing anyone from around Los Angeles who has memories of his/her family cooking and meals from the Depression.
Thank you.