Hi, I tried quite a few like potato pancakes and depression cake. I had mock apple pie growing up. Depression recipes have always interested me and I tried some before the pandemic. But they were especially useful during it. I tried several others from the “Great Depression Cooking” with Clara videos and a depression cookbook my friend loaned me. I made cookies, scrambled eggs made to stretch by adding crumbled saltines etc. I still use some. If anyone is curious about the recipes, I suggest they try a few.
So is wacky cake which is basically the same thing as depression cake. My brother in law made one of those many many years ago and it was way after the depression.
My dad lived in Washington D.C. during the depression. Grandfather owned his produce market. There was plenty of fruit and vegetables in my family’s home. Grandmother was a fantastic cook.
I’m 75 and grew up eating these foods. Hot dogs were expensive so my step mother made stewed tomatoes and macaroni. It was like eating spoonfuls of snot.
We still have to do this today, living with disabilities and no salary the past thirty years. Much of what is shown here, though, is sheer luxury and really inaccessible. Americans are just spoiled.
My mother grew up poor in rural Tennessee and would make boiled cabbage and potatoes with a side of cornbread made in a cast iron skillet for us in the 1970's! I miss that food and her! Love you mom!
Still one of my favorite meals! I was born in the 80s and this was a staple meal along with SOS. My kin are also from where your mom grew up. Did y'all also eat a mess of butter beans (sometimes with pork or ham depending on how tight things were) with corn bread as a meal? My husband is from the Midwest and cannot wrap his head around the fact that a bowl of beans or cabbage with corn bread or corn pone is considered a meal lol.
Had all these foods growing up. My mom grew up during the depression and never gave up her depression era frugality. 🤣. Didn’t have carrot sandwiches but had bean sandwiches. Still put beans in my soup. And milk toast? We called it French toast. My fav was creamed chip beef. What a fun video.
When the new potatoes were late in the season, Granny would slice them thin and fry them with onions. Cornbread made with home churned butter milk, a chicken from the coop fried in tallow....food was so good!
@@donnalynnmcclary8027 Did you know the Argentinan housewife sees tinned corned beef as fit only for dog food. They have an abundance of beef farms there , steaks virtually grow on trees !.
Mom was all about navy bean, spaghetti and chicken and rice. My older brother hated them equating it with being poor, I still love them, especially the chicken and rice.
We had creamed dried beef on toast when I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s. The small glass that the dried beef came in was recycled as a juice glass. My favorite breakfast in college before heading to clinical for my nursing degree was creamed dried beef on toast. It kept you warm in the snowy cold winters of Niagara Falls, NY where I went to school.
I also grew up in the 60s and 70s. I was able to get chipped beef in gravy on toast and I loved it. I really don't understand why so many people vilify it. It was warm, delicious and filling.
Not all of these have disappeared. Potato pancakes are still very much a thing. So is cabbage and noodle stir fry. Egg drop soup is popular at Chinese restaurants under its more common name, egg flower soup. Potato soup, bean soup, and corned beef hash are less common, but they're still around. Most American diners with soup on the menu will have potato soup and bean soup on the menu rotation.
I still eat more than half of these dishes on a somewhat regular basis: egg drop soup, hash (I like roast beef best), apple Betty, beans & greens, potato pancakes (I like apple sauce & sour cream on mine), chipped beef on toast, got thru college on "tube steaks & rubber bands" (hot dogs & elbow noodles, see Hoover stew), grits (ground hominy) every Saturday, squirl stew (I use rabbit) every Fall. A real depression recipe is Sauerkraut Cookies: meant to emulate chocolate coconut macaroons, they were egg less cookies with powdered cocoa & the "coconut" was well drained (patted dry) finely chopped sauerkraut (only worked on a texture level).
Egg drop soup is definitely still popular in asian cultures! I mean it’s such a comforting meal. Usually people would add corn or crab keat to it bc why not. Also isn’t milk toast just… french toast?
@@burpaleeseLooks like French Toast to me. Had it every Saturday morning while growing up. If you add flour to tge egg & milk batter, you get French Toast that you can eat with butter and syrup, like pancakes. My Yugoslavian grandmother made them that way.
My dad used to throw all his leftovers in a pot and call it "swamp" lol he grew up in the great depression and we didn't waste anything. He created some amazing new dishes that way ❤
Hello, My father was born in California and is 96 years old now. He had 6 siblings and my Grandmother fed her family of 9 very cleverly during the depression. My father had creamed chipped beef regularly. During the pandemic I enjoyed trying depression recipes when my usual food items were not always available. I felt I was learning a lot from their example. I admire the ingenuity of people who made the most of what they had during difficult times!
I definitely agree! As a retired senior. I'm getting $50 of free mostly canned goods because of my Aetna Medicare Advantage (which I never requested but definitely get a kick out of and am grateful for). I'm enjoying adding these things to my pantry and experimenting with canned salmon, ham, corned beef, spam, tuna, mackerel, and some different canned fruits. We sure did have chipped beef on toast when I was a kid; my dad always joked about it and enjoyed. I've seen chipped beef, corned beef, ham, chicken and turkey packets that are cheap, and it's not hard to do a simple gravy or make a cold salad dish with the canned meats/fish. I make a simple pie or shortcake with the canned fruits. Always gives me very pleasant memories of my grandmothers. One died fairly young, the other lived to be 96 and loved canned ham. I loved hanging out in their homes when I was a kid; they lived nearby us. I hardly ever eat out anymore, fast food or restaurants), even though I can afford to. The last few times, I thought what I bought was just lousy for the elevated prices (McDonald's and Bob Evans food).
I remember back in 1970s. I had a pink pair of shoes I dearly loved. But,of course over time,they got holes in the top. I went to my mother sewing box,threaded a needle like I saw her do and sewed up the holes. I was very proud of my work,but the soles on the inside had holes too. I went back to elementary school and told a friend about what I did. She was impressed and she told her grandmother about it. Well, the grandmother obviously lived through the great depression and she told me her Grandma wanted to see the shoes. At the end of the day, her Grandmother picked her up from school and I showed her the shoes she had a huge smile on her face when she saw my shoes. I told her that the inside soles were getting holes. She promptly instructed me that when I get home, to get some cardboard, trace my feet, cut them out and the put them in my shoes. I did that and the shoes were fixed. Another memory of this girl whose name I have long since forgotten, her father came to pick her up,of course he admired my shoes. I mentioned we were taking a trip to San Francisco. He said,oh yeah? Why are you going there and I told him the same answer my father gave me when I asked..... My Dad says he wants to go to San Francisco to see the hippies.....he laughed his head off..
I was thinking this the whole time watching. You definitely see the meat substitutes that cost more and the limited availability of seasonings but lots of protein and vitamins. Def trying some of them when I get opportunity.
My dad's recipe for haluski for anyone who wants it: 1 16oz bag wide egg noodles 1 cup salted sweet cream butter 1 large cabbage (roughly chopped) 2 large onions (diced) black pepper to taste Cook noodles according to package directions. Stir fry all together until golden brown and cabbage is cooked through. Serve with sour cream and unsweet applesauce. This version we typically use as a side dish. And we add kielbasa and bacon if it is for a meal and use a little of the fat from the meat to help fry the mix. I introduced my husbands family to it and now my husband asks for it at least once or twice a month and more often if we find meat on sale. Its very much still a very common household dinner for a lot of people. We often made it for large family gatherings along with a crockpot with a large pork roast, sauerkraut, sweet onions, green apple, kielbasa, hot dogs, brown sugar and served with mashed potatoes.
Apple Brown Betty, or as it is known in my family, Apple crisp, is still a much fought for treat at my family events. It's simple and yummy and much easier to make than a pie.
Cornmeal mush= polenta my grandma apparently would put the leftovers in empty cans put in the refrigerator and slice and fry the next morning, these slices were treated as pancakes.
My mom talked about her mom having just corn mush to eat. Also just lettuce with hot grease poured on it. This depression era will be like none other before it and not like it in the future. HELP US LORD JESUS!!@@FixinToFish
I was born in 62..soon to be 62 in September..my father was a hunter and fisherman...we didn't let anything go to waste...ate squirrels, ground hog ,deer, rabbit, even turtle soup...we regularly had sardines in a tin and salmon in a can...had lots of catfish and trout...Thank-you dad for keeping us all fed and alive ..miss you...and mom a great cook with ❤️ love.
I'll be 62 in November. Being raised on a farm, we had lots of food, with most of it grown by us. We had cattle, chickens, pigs, and with a 180 of bush and fields, and river, we had wild game including fish, moose, rabbit, and partridge. Our table was always full. I remember being the last kid to have jeans in school, but everthing I got was good quality. My dad & mom are now 84 & 83. They both get a thrill when us kids cook historic family favorites. In our family then and now, the cast iron seldom cools for more than a day.
Way to undermine the severity of the Great Depression. Get over yourself. The current economic climate is not even remotely equivalent to the Great Depression, despite the ineptness of Biden/Harris administration.
My Granms made it at least twice a month. Both my Grandparents laugh at me because, I either used my Grandpa's own honey when he kept a beehive, then later as an adult, I switched to syrup. They kept telling me that's not pancakes. My Grandparents lived to be in their 90s. I'm can remember her making a white icing similar to the chocolate icing. I loved and miss it because store bought icing used to make me sick growing up. And she made a Chow Chow, that took my middle sister and over 20 yrs as adults to eat up. She canned alot. They canned her own garden tomato juice she used with her macaroni. She could count on me to finish up. She made a German potato salad that I don't see anyone making anymore. It wasn't hot. She used Russet potatoes, boiled with their skins on, then while hot, after she drained the water off, she rinse them slightly with cold water, just abit and trimmed the skins off. I help her several times and my hands were always unhappy to pick them up. Shed chopp up green peppers, slice theradishes, dice either 1 or 2 small pickles in it. I do recall her taking a teaspoon of the pickle juice as well into it. My middle sister says she used a little ketchup with her mayo, to make the mustard taste but I disagree I remember using a salad mustard you bought in the stores, I can't find anymore like a either a table or teaspoon with her mayo, mixing it well then mixing it into the potato salad. Most here in Tenn., like their boiled eggs chopped or sliced in their potato salads but Grams would make Deviled Eggs and put them on top of her potato salad. I can still make the devil eggs but can't seem to get her mustard dressing down. I miss her Chow Chow, can't find it. I believe she used onions, shedded cabbage, green beans, corn not sure if the spices they'd been mild my Grandpa couldn't eat spicy food. The cabbage was pickled. Both her and my Mom would take ceramic jars, in those they would shred so many cabbage heads, stuffed as much they could then be a white vinegar ratio with water, then they put cheesecloth over the top and tie it on tight enough to hold it on and then let them sit, since we didn't have inside pets, they only had to watch curious children wanting to help check to see if when the cabbage had pickled enough. I think that was the secret now to her Chow Chow taste. Growing up, I was the tomgurl, I refused to help in the kitchen, I rather be up in their 50ft white pine trees crown, reading a good book . My Grandparents figured I'd fall eventually so he cut the limbs above his 5'6" height but I figured out I could climb a few others and cross over farther up the trees limbs to get to the older trees. I did learn how to garden though then. They allowed me to have my own flower and herb gardens. I was always into wood management. I created mini ponds and with us advice and he gave me a hack saw, encouraged me to prune his apple trees, telling my Grand might as well let her do some work, can't keep her out of the trees. Later in my 30s I started to want to cook her recipes. By then she was in her late 70s. So I lost some opportunities to learn some of the recipes then she told me she'd made some variations up, and never wrote them all down, so I don't have another favorites- her popcorn balls she make every Halloween. Older neighborhood kids would love them enough to go home make another costume just to back for seconds but she knew the boys well enough later I dated one, and she tell on him when we get together. So, alot the others I heard of tried a couple myself. Now that groceries prices again so high, I think alot of us are going to be or already learning incentive ways our grandp, and great grandparents did. Not every grandparent had large families. But they knew how to stretch their dollars and do things even while I was growing up, that I find so helpful today, with pets. They taught us how to be reliant. And to keep practicing cooking, she'd say and so when you get in your 60s your food taste like mine. I finding that to be untrue like hers. But, I'm not afraid to experiment and eat/and try to cook foods from other cultures and regions of our country. Thanks other commenters recipes as well RU-vid.
@dieselsvanlifeadventures5800 - I started getting copies of all these recipes in 2006. Pinterest is another good place to find them. However, I have hand written copies too :)
Did Bubble'n'Squeak ever make it big in USA ? Did in UK. Basically consists of yesterday's mashed potato fried up in lard till crispy , with yesterday's cabbage,onions, or anything else which came to hand, salt & pepper . Something of an acquired taste, but once you get used to it can be quite moreish. Derives its name from the sound it makes cooking in the pan.
My mouth is watering, and I feel like a child watching my mom cook again. She could use ingredients to make stuff I never heard of. She’d make potato pancakes with leftover mashed potatoes and make them real thin so they got crunchy. Served with ketchup it was like loaded fries without the mess!
My mom also made potato pancakes out of leftover mashed potatoes! I don’t know how she ever made enough for a family of 6. Us younger kids would eat them as fast as she could make them. More often than not - they’d still be so hot we’d burn our mouths. 😊 My younger brother & I still make them for our fams. I do think the shredded potatoes would be a good fresh base. I like them prepared like that at restaurants.
@@robertsteele474My grandmother always called French toast "milk bread". After googling the difference, it depends of the recipe, with some using just toast and sweetened milk, and others are just like French toast.
THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH. You just provided me with the recipes that I love but have missed since my mom and granny died. Given the rising cost of everything, these foods may just save my budget.
That brown betty is also known as apple cobbler. And the potato pancakes are still a huge hit among the Hebrews as it is called "Latka" and would be eaten on Passover (Pesach) during the week of unleavened bread, Feast of Booths (Sukkot) which lasted a week, and Hannukah. And my favorite was and still is the chipped beef on toast, aka SOS. Can do it with chicken or left over turkey.
Cornmeal mush and grits ate 2 different foods, Cornmeal is used to make cornbread, mush, or the Italians call it Polenta. Grits have a different taste and texture. And you would not make cornbread with it.
@@Crochet-Quilting I agree with you. My mother grew up during the Great Depression, and she told me that her birth family ate a lot of mush at that time. She said she always hated it and refused to eat any more of it after she grew up. But she absolutely loved grits, and we ate it almost everyday when I was growing up and afterwards. In fact, I still eat it.
I just made a pot of goulash. Macaroni noddles, ground beef, canned mushrooms, spaghetti sauce and diced tomatoes and green chilies. Great with garlic toast.
My father absolutely had to have creamed chipped beef on toast once in awhile. He ate it in the army! I haven't seen those glass jars in years!! I have to look for it!!
My mother was born at the beginning of the Great Depression. When my Dad was starting his own business, Mom used to make spaghetti with slice hot dogs. She used canned beet juice with a little vinger to make pickeled eggs. She also made tomato bread using canned tomatoes and stale bread. It sounds bad, but it tasted really good and the bread didn't have to be tossed out.
There's actually an Italian dish that's basiccaly tomatoes and stale bread; I can't remember the name of it, but it was featured in "Cook's" magazine sometime within the last year or two.
I am 73, grew up on tomatoes and bread and tomatoes and macaroni. Still eat corned beef hash regularly, creamed chipped beef on toast and potato soup are regularly on the menue also.
I love bean soup and egg drop soup. I make my bean soup with ham scraps. The chipped beef on toast is also known as shit on a shingle. It’s pretty much any meat in a white gravy on toast
Once before my time, there was a teen center in the small town on the river. It had a juke box and two lanes to bowl on. Very popular gathering place where my "Grannie" worked to keep the kids in line and feed them if she had something for them. Once a few kids came back to the kitchen area and told her they were so hungry yet she didn't have anything much to feed them all. She looked around and found a sack of potatoes and a couple of loaves of bread and some mayo. So she made mashed potato sandwiches for them and they were a huge hit! Kids would often ask her to make them after that! She loved to tell me that story. She was my best friend's Grannie and I was kinda accepted as family. Summers when the grandkids weren't able to be there I'd still go see her. She taught me so much about her history and how to cook as well! She made the best cornbread ever with lard. So crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside...made it in her electric skillet. Wish I had one! and her recipe...
Absolutely love this story! Gramas made a lot of history cooking for people. I can still smell my Gramas apple pie baking in the oven and I still love chip beef on toast.
@@lorenrobertson8039 Interesting probably the most popular UK dish in UK before the arrival of the burger and the pizza was a chip butty. Basically chips (French Fries) in a bread roll. Basically a potato sandwich. Still popular today too from UK's Fish & Chip shops.
I was born in Germany to parents who were both born at the start of WWII and most of these recipes were still in use in the 40s and 50s in Germany due to rationing. - Hoover Stew: I remember my Mum making this, however she would make it the day before and we would eat it as a cold pasta salad the next day. - Egg-Drop Soup: Mum always added with noodles/pasta to help fill it out, and sometimes she would add shredded chicken. - Potato Pancakes: Still big in Germany at markets or just home made. We sometimes had them with sugar sprinkled on top or salt. - Milk Toast: The recipe in this video looks more like French Toast. For us, milk toast was literally toast cut into cubes to act like cereal, then a thick milk concoction similar to runny custard was poured over the top. This was made with melting butter in a pot, adding a little flour as a thickening agent, then milk and sugar. Let it slowly come to a boil and thicken and pour over the milk toast. - Chipped beef: Again, we actually had this cold the next day on bread, similar to a chicken salad sandwich. - Corned Beef hash has various names in other countries. In Australia it's called "Bubble and Squeak" I think due to the sound some of the veggies like peas etc make in the pan when refried the next day. My Mum said in her part of Germany it was called Hoppel-Poppel. Essentially just a combination of leftover meat and veggies refried in lard or butter. One not mentioned here: A delicacy post-war and likely also during the depression was lard/dripping on toast. Meat was in short supply so all the leftover 'fat juices' were retained and spread on bread or toast then sprinkled with salt. Even during my childhood in the 80s, Mum still served this for lunch on occasion.
My dad is 95. I already know how to grow a garden. He already told me about these. The bread lines the potatoes and potato sack dresses. Which my mom wore. He was the second oldest out of 12 kids
My mom said the sacks were print fabric and her mom would make them dresses too. She was the oldest of 5 kid but her mother had 11 brothers and sisters.
Hello again, I will have to ask my Father about Hoover stew. I do know my grandfather worked on the Hoover Dam during the depression. He was willing to do most anything to support his family during the depression and appreciated having a job. My father said he would come home every few months to spend time with his family.
I’m 52 and make many of the items in this video. Corn beef hash, bean soup, potato soup, polenta, johnny cakes, potato pancakes… etc. My dad would make dandelion salad or other edible weeds that grew wild on our farm.
@@Subgunman The video showed Polenta. Corn Meal Mush did not use any cheese. It prepared and served more like Oatmeal or Cream of Wheat or Cream of Rice.
@@1leadvocalgrits and corn meal are different. I’m a southerner and have never had polenta but I like grits with a poached egg. Similar but different texture.
Cornmeal mush was around long before the depression, of course. Leftover mush was often shaped into cakes and fried. And latkes (potato pancakes)? Staple of all my Jewish friends’ diet. I grew up in the 1960s, so my parents were children of the Depression. My father liked fried weenies, fried bologna, fried Spam and fried canned corned beef hash. But Mother gradually got away from those Depression-era foods. We didn’t waste food in our house, but we ate well.
My Mommy is 101, and she said that she had it good, even during the Depression. With today’s economy, I believe her. Those old ingredients that used to be cheap are actually UNAFFORDABLE today.
In Indiana my mother made some of these foods during the 50s and 60s when I was growing up: chipped beef on toast which we called dried beef gravy; cornmeal mush was served with butter, not syrup; hominy was a regular side dish; potato pancakes, too. Monday (wash day) was beans and cornbread, usually with chunks of ham. One of my favorites was potato soup. Mother used only potatoes, butter, milk, salt and pepper. I'm 76 and I still make all of the above. But I add onions, garlic and heavy cream, with a little flour and sometimes cheese to the potato soup. My mother-in-law added creamed corn, bell pepper and cheese to her chipped beef.
My mom made the mock apple pie,cbut used saltines. And yes it tasted exactly like an apple pie. Never had a salad. But my mom did deep fried dandelion flower. And they were good. So... What you are calling milk toast we called French toast. Our milk toast was toast. And a milk, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon, mixture that was poured over the toast until saturated to your satisfaction. What you show in your video as milk toast, we always had as French toast, and I don't know anyone in the state of Missouri that would call your milk toast anything but French toast. Corned beef hash was a favorite at home, when mom could afford to get everything to make it. One meal we had on a semi regular basis was macaroni and tomatoes. Mom boiled the macaroni until done and then melted lots of butter in to it and added canned diced tomatoes and a can of tomato soup or sauce/paste. Seasoned only how mothers know how to properly season a good meal. And we all feasted on a low cost delicious meal until we were all full and happy. This video makes me appreciate just how smart my mother was to "know/have learned" all these great meals from her mother. We didn't have much money, but mom always had a meal on the table for us brats. And we loved her for it whether we knew it then or not. Wow the memories keep coming. Apple brown Betty's. Only had these a few times, but remember always liking them. I never cared for potato pancakes. However if they had been done up more like a hash brown patty id probably have eaten everything.
@@katherineeckrich2039Yes it does. My Dad referred to it as SOS and I got busted for letting classmates on base know exactly what it meant. Never occurred to me they already knew 😂😂
The secret ingredients Is the quality of the product that our grandparents used to cook! 👍 And it states made in USA 🇺🇸👍 I bet those sausages were made from a good mixture of meat 😊
Dandelion salad used the small early leaves as they are less bitter. Potato pancakes you can still order at restaurants. Milk toast was/is made for ppl who were ill. Depression cake is considered vegan cake now. I had potato soup today. Apple BB aka apple crumble. There were more stranger dishes than what you listed.
Mom made baked beans for Sunday dinner every week and then we’d take baked bean sandwiches with ketchup for lunch through the week. Cornmeal mush was our breakfast during the week. We always have dried beef in the cupboard. When I make it, I rinse it before I cut it up because it’s pretty salty and then add it in the white gravy. I add a splash of Worcestershire sauce in mine and put it on biscuits.
Brunswick Stew is still a hot item in North Carolina. So, here, when we say "barbeque ", we're referring to shredded pork and a vinegar based sauce. It's all I've ever known and I adore it! If you hit up a bbq joint here, you'll absolutely be able to get Brunswick stew. It's made with that shredded pork, though, NOT squirrel. Although, my husband grew up in a big family with little money and his dad did sometimes make it with squirrel
After the depression a lot of people continued to cook these foods because they had gotten used to eating them. They gradually improved the recipes when better food became affordable such as by adding meats and cheese. They taught the recipes to their kids and grands who still cook them today. We loved hot dog soup where you sliced the dogs paper thin and you combined them with sliced potatoes, onion, a little tomato sauce and seasoned with a pinch of oregano. So good! My grandmother called Hoover stew American Chop Suey and she added a little ground beef. She would make a medium white sauce and combine it with canned salmon and spooned it over toast. Canned salmon used to be really cheap.
I don't know where this guy grew up but we had most of these things -- or very similar -- growing up in the 70s. And everyone in the world still eats potato pancakes and bean soups.
Wait - When was I suppose to stop eating potato pancakes, grits, cabbage and pasta, and beans and dabdelion greens? I didnt get tme memo, I have had all 5 in the last 7 days
@@tomr3422 All citizens of the US should have stopped eating these foods at midnight, December 31, 1939. You will be contacted shortly by the Food & Drug Administration and may receive a fine or, if the transgression is deemed serious, a prison sentence. In the meantime, you are asked to immediately desist from consuming these foods.
Helloooo potato pancake was a staple in our home paired with canned salmon or mackerel patties. Pinto beans and fried potatoes with sliced tomato on the side or if mom felt like it cornbread. I'm only 67.
When I was a kid in elementary school in the early '50's, the school hot lunch would sometimes be "hamburger gravy", which was what your blibble sounds like. It was probably the best lunch they served. All the kids loved it. I used to make it for my own children in the '70's.
I make 'depression cake' all the time. I've done chocolate, banana, lemon, snickeredoodle, vanilla and gingerbread. It's a versatile base for any flavour combination.
I make it a lot, too. Chocolate is my favorite and it is the BEST chocolate cake! But the recipe I use has vinegar, baking powder, and oil in it (no butter, eggs or milk). And you mix it in the baking pan, so no dishes!
My father grew up in Washington state during the depression. He had plenty of vegetables and fish.vThe only questionable thing was rhubarb juice without sugar. Rhubarb grew plentiful. My mother was in the middle of the dust bowl. Very few things grew because the top soil was gone. They often went hungry. Dandelion and squirrel soup was a common meal. If they were really lucky, they would get bread and milk. When the bread became to hard to eat, they would mix it with a little milk and honey. I'm amazed she lived through the depression.
@@danielled1720 'Of Mice & Men' by John Steinbeck has been on the English school syllabus in UK from as long as I can remember. That was my introduction to the 1930s American dust bowl. It's very difficult to teach now to kids who have no comprehension of this state of poverty, but with the current cost of living crisis it may becoming back in fashion !
Mom made Hoover Stew macaroni and tomato without the hotdog rounds and paired with ground meat patties. These recipes extended into the 40s because of the rationing of WW2, Dad didn't allow chipped beef on toast ie s**t on a shingle because of the war
My mom made it with ground beef instead of hot dogs. It wasn’t called Hoover, she called it something like Suburb Stew or something. But I remember the macaroni noodles in the broth.
I still love chipped beef on toast and today Stouffers makes a good frozen one. We ate Pinto Beans with a ham hock or piece of ham bone. Top with raw chopped onion and a shake of Vinegar Pepper Sauce. Corn bread on the side. I still cook like my Mother did in the 40s and 50s and it came in handy during Covid. Look up your Grandma’s recipes and cook some old fashioned comfort food.
The Stouffer’s frozen chipped beef is the inky one I can find unless I’m visiting back I. York, PA! Chipped beef/dried beef (fresh) is very expensive. I won’t touch the stuff that comes in a small jar - way too salty among other reasons! I have a couple packages of Stouffer’s in my freezer right now!!!
Most of the demonstrations in this video use ingredients that would never have been used in the depression. They look like modern versions of the ones being described.
Lets see in the past month I've made a version of hoover stew, dandelion salad, potato pancakes, egg drop soup, bean soup, and potato soup. I must live in the great depression or be poor but enjoying good tasting food
I absolutely loved the video. I do find it hilarious that all these dishes were affordable for the poor during the depression, but if you were to try to buy these ingredients for these dishes in TODAYS America with current prices you would go broke!! So your video is fantastic proof as to how bad off our country is these days.
Potato pancakes are still made, it was one of my favorite suppers, but I didn't like grating potatoes, because, no matter how carefully you grated them, you still nicked your knuckles. Milk toast is toasted, buttered bread broken into heated milk, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, or if you were feeling poorly, salt & pepper, with a poached egg
Okay I thought I was the only one to grate and sheard anything with out turning what was to have been a purely vegetarian meal... okay I'm joking but I've grated too many a knuckle
@@mimic1176Exactly...and halushki is a staple of Lenten cooking among Ukrainian- and Polish-Americans to this day. And it is NOT made with cellophane noodles!
@@margretenglesson5834 My 100% Polish husband was sitting next to me watching. His comment: "What on earth kind of noodles are they using?!" He's never even had cellophane noodles! LOL I knew what they were but I'm part Hungarian and have never had halushki made with them. That was a new look for us!
My mom and dad both grew up on the Great Depression. I remember that my dad loved chipped beef on toast, corn beef hash and potato soup. My mother would sometime make those dishes for us in the 60's and the 70's.
We used to babysit for a girl in the early 80s. Her grandma shared her potato candy recipe with us then. I wish I had it now because it set me on a path of wanting to cook. It was incredible to know how creative people were back then just to survive but to also give something for their families to smile about with little money. ❤
I noticed that they way they present making a number of these recipes is much more complex than how they actually were made. As a grandchild of depression era grandparents and being born in 1970, I was still raised on many of these. One of my husband's and our children's favorite to this day is cabbage and noodles. Of course, we eat ours with bacon. Egg drop soup is another simple favorite.
We never called it Hoover stew. We called it Goulash. Mock apple pie actually dates to the mid-1800s. During the wintertime when apples were scarce and dried apple stores were used up, inventive home cooks would instead use soda crackers or stale bread. John T. Edge in his book Apple Pie (2004) also says that though the recipe does appear in southern cookbooks of the era such as What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking (1881) or the Confederate Receipt Book (1863) it is not a “Southern dish born of Civil War deprivation” as many would believe. He cited an 1852 California pioneer talking about making mock apple pie for their family.
Maize flour or corn flour is a flour ground from dried maize (corn).It is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies. Coarsely ground corn flour (meal) is known as cornmeal. Grits are made of ground maize( corn) that has been whitened by being soaked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater in a process known nixtamalization.
I'm 55 and had many of these items growing up, and still regularly prepare potato pancakes with or without onion (a few days ago) and bean soup. I haven't had corned beef hash or chipped beef in a year or so. Seasonally I prepare cabbage, too. Being a culinary coach and gardener, I eat most the foods that have been shown to be healthy, such as the beans, and make my own sauerkraut. Both are great for the microbiome.
Wait - When was I suppose to stop eating potato pancakes, grits, cabbage and pasta, and beans and dabdelion greens? I didnt get tme memo, I have had all 5 in the last 7 days. I guess we are old now I too am 55.
Egg drop soup is in just about every Chinese American restaurant... The mock apple pie recipe was on the Ritz boxes well into the 1980's, I remember asking my mom about that and she looked at me like I had lost my ever loving mind and informed me we had apples no need to waste the box of crackers, child me thought sounded fun and fancy...adult me still has not ever made it or had it. My mom would sometimes make lazy dinner, not that I ever ate it, of boiling macaroni in milk then adding in a can of halved stewed tomatoes...basically it turned your milk and macaroni pink with the tomato juice...I hate tomatoes...by boiling the macaroni in milk the starch from the macaroni thickens the milk, the tomato juice from the stewed tomatoes makes it soup like.
Some of these foods I have eaten and liked others I didn't like I really enjoyed potato pancakes with butter or cheese on them Thanks for the Memories. 🥔🥔🥔🥔
Honestly, I don't see how these are all Depression foods. I still eat some of them and I am not American. It just goes to show that many people never really endured hardship.
Sort of an ignorant conclusion to draw. It moreso comes down to cultural differences & the fact that most of these have vegetable ingredients that were home grown and therefore “dirt cheap”. No one wants a boiled carrot sandwich. I grew up eating some silly things due to poverty like beans and toast, hotdog and sauerkraut. Not unappetizing or abnormal on a broader spectrum, just not a cultural norm here.
Very interesting that these were recipes from depression era...many of them seem to be expensive for that era. And curios some of them are cooked nowadays too...greetings from austria🇦🇹
I think that back in those days people were more rural and they had gardens with fresh vegetables, raised chickens, hence the eggs, and some might even have a cow.
Sorry don't understand your comment. the USA has the best economy under Joe Biden it has had for decades. Other countries including mine are envious at how well the Americans are doing. The fact that you think things are bad means you are living in a GOP bubble
My mom made Depression Cake we called it Crazy Cake. I still make it today and people still remark that it is the best chocolate cake they've ever had. I think it is because of the vinegar it was called crazy.
