My Grandma told me that around the times of the Depression

[Horse with no Name]

food security was something that was almost unheard of. They had 8 kids so I can imagine feeding a family of 10 would be hard.

They ate lots of beans, lots of cornbread, and my Grandma told me that on Saturdays they would splurge and each kid would get a coke and a bologna sandwich. That was a TREAT. They had a garden and a few chickens.

She also told me she used to bake bread and make a white gravy and many times, this is what they had for dinner, especially in the winter. Gravy and bread. It was filling. Not a whole hell of a lot of nutrition, but in hard times, filling tummies is sometimes just as important as making it to the next day.

Tonight, I made dinner and had white gravy. I crumbled up some bread in a bowl and told my granddaughter about her Great-Great-Grandparents and the Depression. I gave her some of the bread and gravy.
And I told her if she ever grows up and is hungry, this is how they made it through hard times.

In my wildest dreams, I NEVER thought I would have to share this with my children or grandchildren as anything other than anything but anecdotal stories handed down to me. However, I felt the need to share it as a survival tool.:(

[Donnachaidh]

1. Nana told me they used to buy 10 cents worth of chopped meat

And my grandfather quit smoking to save the 10 cents per pack they cost at the time. I'm actually glad they shared the stories.

[Horse with no Name]

7. I am too.

Seems that maybe they knew that we would need them.:(

[femrap]

87. My grandfather wouldn't even

discuss The Depression. So I knew it was bad.

[roguevalley]

178. my grandparents had farms and they ate well but there was no money

they both sides lived on 300$ a year. Rockefeller didn't though. Just sayin'

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Strangely, I find myself stocking up on rice, dried beans, lentils.

And Top Ramen.

Just in case.

[Horse with no Name]

8. I have about 10 bags of beans and a big bag of rice

in the cupboard. I also have flour, sugar and powdered milk stocked up.

These are things that I use anyway...so I won't have a y2k stockpile situation to mess with, but I am feeling very insecure about things these days.

[Snoutport]

50. I have been too...I'm willing to admit it

I bought a bunch of canned milk and a weeks worth of canned food...and bought big bags of pasta. Thinks I don't usually buy. I just want to be able to feed my family, you know?

[girl gone mad]

68. Today's "white gravy" = ramen noodles.

[oldbanjo]

121. Things look bad to me

I've been vacuum sealing flour, grits, corn meal, sugar, rice every thing that I think may be hard to get. Also stocking up on fishing equip and hunting equip and plenty of ammo.

[CoffeeCat]

172. Can I ask...

...why you are doing this? Is it because of the radiation from Fukushima, or other reasons?

I stockpile too, and I'm interested.

[Snoutport]

222. I just visited my mom and peeked in her pantry. She was raised in an

orphanage and was dirt poor. Her pantry was stuffed....I'd bet she could easily live for 4 or 5 months on the food she has saved.

So, I'm not as bad as she is but soon after the accident in Japan I did fill a cupboard with canned food and bought quite a bit of canned milk.

I put it all in the cupboard and when I stood back and looked at it it made me feel safer. I know I can feed my family AND have milk in my coffee while whatever has happened, happens. (Portland here...and we're overdue for a quake...if you look at the ring of fire you see EVERYONE has had a quake of 5. + but the west coast of north america. I just want to be ready.

[quakerboy]

250. A quake

Plus we've got Hood overlooking us, and one of these years it may just get active as well.

[Snoutport]

254. I live at the base of Mt. Tabor so I'm closer than most to a volcano!

[quakerboy]

265. Man

You are just around the corner from me then.

[Snoutport]

270. Well, howdy quakerboy

We may be the only DUers that live next to a volcano...or at least this close to one.

[reggie the dog]

207. damn right

if you live in the woods hunting and fishing are part of the solution, can you grow any food where you are? or grow any highly valuable plants that people like to smoke?

[Lyric]

201. Just remember that all of those things require access to plenty of potable water.

So long as you can guarantee yourself *that*, you're set.

:hi:

[Codeine]

232. Lentils are amazing.

The staple food for a surprising percentage of the world's population.

[MichiganVote]

3. I ate depression food as a kid. Milk toast for dinner. Never had store bought cereal.

Eggs were for Sunday.

I ate that shit b/c that is what my parents ate during the depression.

[LostinNY]

85. Milk Toast

My mother used to laugh at me because I loved milk toast. I didn't know why that was funny. Then she told me it was because if I had grown up having to eat it instead of wanting to eat it, it would have been a different story. She was glad we were to the point where it was funny and not what she had to feed us.

My Dad was obese later in his life. My mom never pushed him to lose weight because she would tell us how hard he had it during the depression, and he had promised himself he would provide good food for his family. To him, good meant delicious not always healthy. He got a good job and we grew up eating quite well, it may sound weird but his being able to provide us with foods like steak, soda, snacks, etc was a way to show us he loved us. We knew it wasn't healthy and we did eat lots of fruits and vegetables and salads, but my dad took a pride in being able to feed us because it was so tough for him during the depression.

[CoffeeCat]

173. That's a lovely story...

...I'm sure your father felt helpless and depressed during the Depression--because he did without. He never
wanted his children to feel as he did, and buying you those foods was his way of protecting you and helping
you to feel provided for.

I think that is a wonderful, sweet story. Your dad sounds like an amazing man with a very big heart.

[tblue37]

185. My mother was also obese as an adult, because she so often went

hungry as a child during the Depression. She never could stop herself from eating everything. She would bake two different cakes for someone’s birthday, stuff like that.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. I had to look up White Gravy.. is this it?

EASY WHITE GRAVY
4 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. flour
Salt
Pepper
2 1/2 c. milk

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Blend in flour, salt and pepper; cook until smooth and bubbly. Stir in milk. Heat to boiling on medium heat, stirring constantly. Stir and boil 1 minute. Makes enough gravy for 1 can biscuits.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1726,147184-243207,00.html



Looks easy to make if thats it..

[Horse with no Name]

6. That is it.

You can also use pan drippings/bacon grease, etc instead of butter if that is all you have. The gravy won't be as pretty white, but it still tastes good.

[Tess49]

35. I think it tastes better if made with drippings. My grandmother kept a

can of drippings (usually bacon) on the stove which she used to flavor things with as well as make the gravy. I loved it. If she fried something like chicken or pork chops she used those drippings for the gravy. I'm making me hungry.

[Tresalisa]

63. I remember my mom carefully saving the drippings

from cooking and storing it in a metal container under the sink. My goodness, but the house smelled great when you woke up to a breakfast with eggs and bacon or sausage fried in the drippings, and toast for breakfast! And we used to love it when she'd give us a cup of coffee, mostly fresh cream skimmed from the top of the milk bottle, to dip our toast in! Like another poster said, this topic is making me HUNGRY!
:hi:

[Javaman]

120. Heck, my wife and I still save the drippings. :) nt

[JuniperLea]

98. My grandma did that too!

And her mother did as well. Grandma had a small metal container on the stove... the tea canister from an old set... and all the bacon grease went in there. I saw one of those old time canisters in a consignment shop over the weekend, and I could almost smell the bacon!

[eleny]

107. My mother used to use bacon grease to fry onions

They could have been a meal in themselves.

In fact, when we'd fry scallions we'd first fry some bacon, break up the strips into small pieces and then add the onions to the pan green tops and all. S&P to taste with a hunk of rye bread on the side. It was a lunch.

*swoon*

[JuniperLea]

114. DROOL!

Sounds so good!

[Obamanaut]

268. Fresh squash fried in a little bit of bacon grease with a couple strips

of bacon chopped up, and some onions added in.

During the growing season I can live on fresh squash.

[trud]

152. containers of grease

That was discussed on cooking awhile back. Our parents seemed to all do that. Why we didn't die of botulism, I don't know, probably because what it was used in was heated to a fairly high temp.

Saving margarine/butter wrappers to grease cookie sheets and other baking pans with.

[The Green Manalishi]

127. The basic principle:

Do not waste a single calorie, erg of heat or molecule of flavor.

[LiberalEsto]

186. My mom fried bread in the bacon fat

I don't know what it was like in Estonia during the Depression years, but my immigrant parents lived in a refugee camp after WW2. They survived on potatoes and whatever they could steal from the Germans' gardens, like cabbages. Once a month they were given a ration of horse meat.

Anyway it was unthinkable in our house to waste a scrap of fat. Mom fried slices of heavy black pumpernickel bread in the bacon fat. She saved the cooled drippings from roasted pork to make what we kids called lard sandwiches. My parents also liked having leftover cold potatoes with butter and salt for breakfast. Now my arteries cringe at the thought of all that cholesterol.

[BonnieJW]

198. You have to be careful of drippings.

They can go rancid very quickly.

[cliffordu]

261. I save ALL my drippings from bacon, chicken, beef, pork, whatever.....

IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER!!!

ya gots to have the drippin's to make soup, mashed potatoes, bacon drippings for eggs, omelettes, and on and on and on.....

You cannot cook properly without the drippins!!!!

oh, yeah, and if Bob the Cardiologist is reading this:

F*CK YOU!!!!!!

[Little Star]

113. My family used fatback instead of expensive bacon for making their

gravy. To this day, I still crave biscuits and gravy. Not healthy at all but it sure tastes good and fills the belly.

It is one of those things that I now consider a treat.

[Jackpine Radical]

157. That's the kind I remember.

And maybe lard instead of bacon drippings for a special occasion.

[Amelie]

258. We ate white gravy with everything

But now, we get all fancy and call it bechamel. I'm sure my grandmother spins in her grave every time I serve my kids biscuits and bechamel. LOL!

[eShirl]

9. a.k.a. white sauce, a.k.a. bechamel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9chamel_sauce

[northoftheborder]

24. That's it, but it's better if the butter or fat is stirred into.....

....pan drippings of whatever meat you just cooked (if you have meat). That gives it delicious browned bits of meat crust.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

31. aka Cream Sauce

The base for any cream soup and all kinds of delicious sauces

[M155Y_A1CH]

60. That's it...

But I use an extra bit of fat and 1/2 cup less liquid to make it thicker with no lumps.

The big secret is to add all your liquid at once while stirring briskly.
Cook it until the flour taste is gone. Add more liquid if it gets too thick before the flour is cooked.

[xmas74]

62. Any kind of melted fat will do.

Of course, we couldn't always afford the milk to add to it. It's not as good without milk, though powdered will work.

[LiberalEsto]

189. Now I use olive oil with the flour and 1% milk

for a lower-cholesterol version of white sauce.

I mix in reduced-fat cheddar cheese, a dash of paprika and celery salt, and pour it over cooked elbow macaroni. To top it, I use panko crumbs and a bit more olive oil from a spray can. Bake 30 min. at 350 degrees, serve with stewed tomatos.

[xmas74]

257. Sounds good.

Nearly anything should work, though some will be creamier than others. Usually, it's just a matter of trial and error until you perfect your recipe.

[wordpix]

66. looks like white sauce to me---add some grated cheddar and cream cheese &

simmer to smooth---put on top of pasta for a "better than Depression" but still economical dinner. Add a side of steamed broccoli or cauliflower and green salad for a 30 min. meal with lots of nutrition.

[tnlefty]

72. Unless, during those time, one lived on a farm...

then it was sausage or bacon drippings in the pan, with flour and milk, which is how we still make it at my house.

[Skidmore]

118. My mom used to crumble bulk sausage in a skillet and

brown it while rendering the fat in it at the same time. She would add the flour to the sausage to make the roux and then the milk. We used to eat sausage gravy on pancakes or biscuits or johnny cake. Sometimes she would make the same type of gravy with hamburger or chipped beef and we would eat that over potatoes or toast. Add cheese and toss in macaroni. Lots of starch and a way to stretch a little meat for 8 growing children. It held body and soul together. Basic peasant food. Lordy, we ate so like this so much of the time with supplements of vegetables from the garden. We also ate plenty of navy beans and ham, with or without cornbread.

[oldbanjo]

124. If you have chicken or beef

bouillon cubes add three and use water instead of milk. That's how I always make grave when I have no drippings. Put it on toast.

[cognoscere]

139. Technically, it's white sauce. More technically, it's called Bechamel.

The easy way to remember it is 1,2,3. For thin sauce, 1 tbsp. flour and butter to 1 cup milk; for medium sauce, 2 tbsps. flour and butter to 1 cup milk; for thick sauce, 3 tbsps. flour and butter to 1 cup milk.

[JuniperLea]

169. And if you brown the butter and flour

it becomes a roux... and you add milk or stock after you get good color.

[Beacool]

145. In other words, bechamel sauce.

I like it and it's used in many dishes.

:)

[RaleighNCDUer]

164. And it is wonderfully adaptable -

add in a quarter pound of ground beef, for hamburger gravy over toast or mashed potatoes;
add in a can of tuna, and serve it over toast or rice;
or add some (geeze, it's been 40 years) what do you call it - little jar of very thin shreds of beef? - for the classic 'shit on a shingle';
or, just as it says, as is over biscuits.

[LiberalEsto]

191. Creamed chipped beef nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

195. That's it! I remember it coming in a little glass jar. Armour brand.

Mom would put half a jar in a batch, for M & D & 4 kids.

We didn't get a lot of meat back then - and that was the 50s. But M & D were products of the Depression.

[Snoutport]

223. we had that once a week. my dad insisted. his favorite meal from his army days

OMG...I hated that weird meat!

[Tesha]

225. It still does (come in the glass jar). There's a jar in our cupboard. (NT)

[Aerows]

176. that's it

You can also make it with water instead of milk.

[Libby2]

181. If you were really poor, you diluted the milk

with 1/2 water. We did.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

228. It is so funny that you aren't sure what white gravy is...

Growing up in Oklahoma, it's a staple. I forget there are people who have no idea what it is and have never had biscuits and gravy or Chicken Fried Steak.
Duckie

[AsahinaKimi]

231. Well thats because growing up

in an Asian family on the West Coast it was rice or noodles.. every day. Thank goodness for Sushi and sashimi or I would have starved to death, lol!! Actually we had a lot of Udon and soba noodles in our house hold. I also loved Chinese food, so we had plenty of that as well. My mom also rocked on cooking Korean foods... I still love Korean bbq Chicken. (and love all the Korean side dishes like banchan and Kimchi.)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

241. I understand that.

People up north have no idea, though, of the wonderfulness of biscuits and gravy in the morning.
What do Asians eat for breakfast? I've always wondered this.
Duckie

[AsahinaKimi]

243. Well traditionally

Japanese have Rice, with Natto, runny egg, mustard, mixed vinegar and soy sause. Natto is fermented soy beans. It smells like old gym socks, but tastes wonderful! I love it, especially over eggs and rice!

[YellowRubberDuckie]

244. Pardon my ignorance.

But anything fermented sounds horrible. You can eat my share too. :evilgrin: My husband is rather into steamed rice with cinnamon and sugar. That was what I was picturing. I couldn't have been further off.
Duckie

[AsahinaKimi]

247. Natto may look bad, and smell bad...but

Its really quite good. Especially over rice and with an egg.


I usually nuke mine in the microwave, because it comes frozen from the Asian markets here. The trick is to only cook it enough to melt, and let the hot rice heat it the rest of the way. That way your room doesn't smell of Natto. When I go to the store, I buy the six package set. They come in a square Styrofoam container, with a packet of soy sauce mixed with vinegar, and a little packet of mustard. They can be put into the freezer and stored there a while, and used as needed.


By the way, Miso Soup may also be included in breakfast. Its wonderful!

[Yo_Mama]

5. My greats lived a whole winter

on peanut butter and baked beans. It was all they had.

Let's hear everyone's GD stories!

[cameozalaznick]

10. My grandmother told me about going...

To the "picture show" to see "The Grapes of Wrath." But first they had to take a truck full of cotton to the local gin. The truck broke down on the way. Twice. They finally got the cotton to the gin, but they never made it to the movie. I told her, "You didn't need to see the movie. You were living it."

[JuniperLea]

102. I have family photos...

that look like stills from that movie.

[spooky3]

11. My late grandmother sewed my mother dresses from flour sacks.

My parents have been terrified all their lives about debt. The Depression experience permanently changed them. Unfortunately, they are in the religious right today, maybe partly because of that misguided fear.

[M155Y_A1CH]

64. I still use the feed sack dish towels...

my mother cut and hemmed as a girl.
Feed(livestock)sacks came in beautiful patterns and colors for reuse by the farmer's wife.

[spooky3]

90. Actually, although there is nothing good about poverty and fear, I like the idea of reusing cloth.

It's a shame we throw so much packaging away today, though fortunately a lot can be recycled.

[Erose999]

154. My dad told me he wore clothes made from "feed sacks" and I asked "wouldn't that be itchy?" I

thought he was talking about burlap or something. But he told me that they used regular shirt cloth for the sacks in those days.

[reggie the dog]

209. they are likely hemp sacks, that is why they lasted so long

but being from kentucky i imagine you already knew that.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

197. Actually, some of the flour/feedsack materials

were quite pretty. Use Google image on "feedsack dress" and you find a number of clever designs.

[spooky3]

215. thanks - here's an example of an article about them

http://www.quiltersmuse.com/collectible_feedsack_cloth_and_q.htm

[MadMaddie]

12. I think that U.S history has been so distorted by the Republicans

that when there is talk about the Great Depression Americans do not understand. Americans don't understand the Dust Bowl, the RobberBarrons, the abject poverty of poor whites and the animal treatment of blacks during that time.

I think that Americans are so used to getting what they want when they want. The overabundance of food and the ease of getting that food.

Americans have collective amnesia...

[Horse with no Name]

37. I think you are correct here.

Because if people thought about much harder it is to fill the refrigerator today as opposed to last year or as opposed to the year before, etc., or how much harder to fill the tank, or how much harder it is to go to the Doctor (even for those with insurance), or how much harder it is to be in a job that gives you enough security to sleep well at night, or ALL of the little hints that our lifestyles are at risk...then people would really be asking questions and would be taking to the streets.

[MadMaddie]

43. The issue is Americans has simply stood by and let it happen

and that is why we are faced with the biggest crisis America has seen since the Depression.

[reformist2]

142. They've been scared away from liberalism. We need to bring them back.

[1monster]

101. Dan Rather wrote a book called I REMEMBER of growing up during the

Depression. Although, from his descriptions, he had it better than a lot, it was hard work to keep a job and food on the table and no life of luxury.

He described how it was not unusual for a knock would come at the back door of the house and a family would be standing behind the father who would ask to "see the man of the house." The visitor would delicately ask if the family had enough food to share. If the household had enough to share, they would. If not, the hungry family would be directed to another house where there might be food to share.

One way people survived the Depression was helping one another when ever they could.

[trud]

153. dust bowl, welcome to now.

An article in the Times this morning about rapidly increasing erosion in the MidWest, due to extreme storms (thank you, Climate Change), overplanting because of high prices for biofuels, etc.

[RaleighNCDUer]

170. Yep - all those windbreaks that were planted in the 30s & 40s to hold the soil

after the dustbowl years were razed by the corporate farms to make for easier planting starting in the 70s. Just do a little digging in Nebraska, go down a couple feet, you find sand. Without the prairie grass to hold the soil, it turns to desert. Just a matter of time. Particularly with the depletion of the Oglala aquifer.

[Curmudgeoness]

13. My mother was born in 1921. Her father died the year she was born

and my grandmother was a single parent of two when the Depression hit. My mother remembers they lived in an old factory house that was abandoned when the factory closed down. They were squatters. There were up to 10 people living in that house, with several generations. Poaching wildlife was the only meat they ever had. It was a great day when an uncle came home with a raccoon or opossum. They used to walk the railroad tracks looking for coal that fell out of railcars. And if there wasn't coal falling out, the men would jump the car and throw coal out.

I will never forget the stories. And I will always be grateful that I have never had it that bad, even though I did have tough times.

You did a really great thing for your kids, to teach them how to survive on little. I lived for months on eggs, white bread, milk, and popcorn. Cheap for a meal and filled me up.

[1monster]

104. I had times when I lived from paycheck to paycheck on a loaf of bread and a jar of

peanut and jelly swirl. I lived in one room that had a bathroom and a walk-in closet so I wasn't spending a tremendous lot on rent, but it took up about half of my income.

My own son tells me all the time that we have NOTHING in the house to eat even when the refrigerator and cupboards are full.

And I feel like I've failed my son by providing him with plenty to eat. He doesn't have a clue of understanding that sometimes one must do whatever it takes to make it through the day or the week. How is it possible to spoil a child by makding sure he has enough to eat, is warm at night, and has a roof over his head?

[Javaman]

122. Back in my just poor days, (after the homeless period)...

I finally was able to get a one room apt. I made sure that I found a bathroom located on one end of the apartment and the efficiency kitchen on the other.

Why?

So I would be able to walk across the room as a break from the monotony of not being able to afford to do anything else.

The wants, needs and joys are so much more simple when truly poor.

Those were very humbling times for me, yet also greatly educational.

[SheilaT]

226. You haven't failed him in any way.

It is absolutely not your fault that he's grown up with a degree of abundance. A lot of how he views things depends at least in part by what he's surrounded with.

As others have already mentioned, during the Depression so many people were desperately poor, that almost everyone understood. My own parents, born 1913 and 1916, were fortunate enough that their own fathers had jobs and maintained vegetable gardens that supplied at least some of the food. My mother did talk a little about men coming to the door of the house and asking for work and a meal.

Nowadays, even relatively poor people in this country tend to have a whole lot more than so many had 80 years ago. Plus, if you watch TV you are inundated with messages of prosperity and exhortations to buy buy buy.

Depending on how old your son is, you might consider requiring that he work at least part time. or make sure he must do some kind of chores around the house. Perhaps doing some volunteer work in a homeless shelter or food kitchen could open his eyes to how much he has. I do that last about once a month, and it reminds me that I am NOT better than the homeless I'm helping to feed, just different, and perhaps more fortunate.

[Curmudgeoness]

229. I know all about that nothing to eat in the house comment.

I used to do the same thing to my mom, and yes, we always had food in the house too. Maybe you should take a stab at doing what the OP did, to show your son how to survive on little, as well as showing him that he is very lucky to have so much to eat in the house. You never know when any of us will have to find our way in hard times, and he will be better off in knowing something that could help.

But aren't most of us so spoiled these days? I know that I am. I have food, a house, clothes without holes, shoes, heat, running water, lights, everything I need. And even a few wants.

Well, that makes me feel better to realize how lucky I am.

[L. Coyote]

162. My paternal Grandmother died in 1911.

In Europe. My family has lots of war stories, like hiding Jews and living on sugar beets during Nazi occupation, to add to the depression stories between the wars.

[rurallib]

14. I am but one generation removed from the great depression.

Even in the good times of the 1950s my parents never threw out any good aluminun foil or bags or cans that could be used for something else. I still have twinges of guilt when I throw our a dirty ziplock bag or aluminum foil.
My parents were both orphans that lived with aunts and uncles that let them know that they were an extra mouth to feed.

[Mojorabbit]

18. I wash out my zip locks and reuse them

because I get that feeling of guilt too. My mother was huge about not wasting anything.

[EC]

22. I got tired of washing them

so I now recycle them, by using them again for wet-garbage, like potato peels and such. Then my garbage doesn't stink.

[aquart]

133. That's brilliant. I'm saving this entire page to my hard drive.

[rurallib]

25. I quit washing them only about 5 years ago.

[wordpix]

69. me, too! Been doing it since 1970's

[Snoutport]

224. i do too...but only if it wasn't something gross.

i have to draw the line somewhere. BUT! they have new biodegradable ziplocks!! I got some at the store last time. of course they cost more but i feel much better about them!

[spedtr90]

49. Great book - Children of the Dust Bowl

by Jerry Stanley
Amazing photos and the story of Leo Hart who helped Okie children get an education.
The children faced terrible prejudice as well as poverty.

My mom saved plastic bags from bread(and everything else)and told us about eating lard sandwiches. Her parents lost the farm, and it broke her dad's heart to sell his work horses. I find myself thinking about their lives so often now, and considering what I could do without and in what order I would give things up to survive.

I am most afraid of the future today's children may be facing.

[Lugnut]

81. I am as well.

My dad was born in 1911 and my mother in 1922. They really knew poverty and it colored everything they did. My dad bought only one brand new car in his lifetime. There was always an undercurrent of financial fear in our home.

[Atypical Liberal]

147. was looking for this

My mother always saved aluminum foil, too. She also saved wrapping paper.

It's a thing to see. It is the mentality of someone who expects the common things to be gone. Not like a "just in case" mentality, but a certainty.

[90-percent]

15. sdocial fabric of the depression

the impression I have of that era is that Americans stuck together. The sense of community and generosity and shared sacrifice created a social fabric more in line with the natural socially interdependent communities that served humanity well for perhaps 30,000 years.

They were not isolated and independent like we are now. Everybody knew everybody and the communities were stable.

It is so much more EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF and I GOT MINE AND SCREW YOU in modern America as we cope with "The Great Recession".

We would all be a lot happier in our lives if we could recreate a real sense of community and involvement with our neighbors. It's up to WE THE PEOPLE. Our leaders have proven for decades they sure as hell ain't gonna do it! All we got is each other, people!

-90% Jimmy

[Horse with no Name]

16. Do you think that this is the precise reason WHY they have spent so much time dividing us?

I do.

They want us to be so divided on ideological divisions that we WON'T come together.

And yes, my Grandmother told me stories of people "passing through town" going somewhere else and being able to offer a meal while they were passing through.

The sense of everyone being in this together was prevalent. Nowadays..it's really not.
THAT is what is going to hurt us.

[M155Y_A1CH]

71. I've been thinking about that a lot lately

and I've come to the conclusion that this is the root cause of racism as well.

The rich want to give us "boogie men" to fear and despise
so we won't look in the true direction. (their way)

[bobbolink]

95. Then its our fault if we buy into that, isn't it?

"If they all jump off a cliff, will you jump, too?"

[Peace Patriot]

28. Great comment, 90-percent! My Mom, born in 1910, taught us many lessons about

the Great Depression and one of them was this. When a hobo comes to the back door and asks for food, you feed him. Period. No questions asked. We were fairly poor when I was young and lived in several homes next to railroad tracks (no doubt because those homes were cheaper). So we had what my Mom called "hobos" dropping off the trains, even in the 1950s. Her attitude toward these poor travelers--even though she was mostly alone during the day, except for her kids--was that they are BROTHERS. She had no fear. She fed whoever knocked on her door and asked. And she made a point to tell us that THIS IS WHAT YOU DO. You ALWAYS feed the "hobos."

God bless her soul! She didn't forget. And she passed it on.

[Horse with no Name]

30. I chased down a man on a Thanksgiving a few years back

One of my kids was outside and a guy walked up and asked if there was a soup kitchen or shelter in town. There isn't, and I have no idea where the closest one is.

I saw her talking to him and then he started walking East. I asked her what happened and she told me what he asked for.

We hurriedly put together a plate of Thanksgiving food, then put a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, some fruit and a jug of tea and chased him down the road and gave it to him.

As long as I live, I will forget the gratitude in his eyes and in his heart.

The Bible even says this is what we are supposed to do--yet so many that profess the Bible is God's word wouldn't lift a finger to help someone outside of their class.

[loudsue]

91. No. A wingnut would pull out his semi-automatic and shoot the dude.

They'd do the same to me if they wanted my food.

[1monster]

110. There are so many beggers on the streets any more and some of them are

in the same place every day... I've seen people in wheelchairs with signs, get up out of the chair and roll it into a car that comes to pick them up. It tends to sour one.

But, everytime I see someone with a sign, I cringe. That could be me or mine one day.

Yesterday, my husband wanted to stop for lunch at McDonalds. While we were there, it rained. When we came out, I saw a man of indeterminate age (due to distance) sitting, hunched over a sign ("disabled anything helps") on the curb with a big ole yeller dog (yellow lab). I reached in my bag and found eight dollars. I put back the five and told my husband, "Give this to the that guy over there." My husband said something about the dog... And I said, "maybe I should give him the eight dollars."

My husband pulled out of the McDonalds and held the money out of the car.

The man got up with obvious difficulty and limped from the hip the few feet to the car. And I wished that I had more cash in my bag that I could give to him. There but for the grace of God, Fate, Nemisis, Karma, or just plain ill-fortune go I. Or anyone of us.

[renate]

126. she sounds really wonderful

What a kind and generous soul! :loveya:

[glinda]

274. Similar to how I grew up although we lived in a family owned business yet she

always fed the people by the tracks or employed them. I learned a lot.

[MadMaddie]

44. Ronald Reagan pushed that menatility on Americans

and Americans snapped it up. We are living through the results of those decisions.

<snip>
It is so much more EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF and I GOT MINE AND SCREW YOU in modern America as we cope with "The Great Recession".
<snip>

[Mulhane]

51. Think Agribiz will sell cheap here?

No way. They, heavily subsidized by us, will ship out grain to the highest bidder, including feedlots for meat that none but the elite can afford. We have become dependent on a few big grain producers like ConAgra and ADM. Even if our vastly more populated and urbanized country somehow found the means to tend community gardens and share its produce, without access to grain we are much worse off than in the last Depression.

[wordpix]

70. get this---even my repug bro said he is disgusted with corporate welfare & GE's zero tax payments

Maybe the message is getting out?

[bobbolink]

93. I was wondering if anyone would bring this up. What I remember most is stories of my grandmother

feeding people who came to the door.

And she didn't just hand them something... she had them sit down at the table and she gave them a meal!

What I get from all these stories in this thread is exactly what is wrong with this society now... RUGGED INDiVIDUALISM.

The Indians know that people cannot survive alone.

It is about damned time we realized that.

[Lifelong Protester]

138. I wish I could rec your post, bobbolink, because you are so right

to heck with this BS 'fairytale' of 'rugged individualism'. That died with the Marlboro Cowboy.

Yes, we all need to do what we ourselves can do, but... we need to look beyond our noses.

We will NOT survive if we don't learn to help each other out.

And my grandma told stories of helping out the 'hoboes' (I think anyone passing through was called a hobo, whether they were or not.)

[bobbolink]

166. Thanks......however, when I see these threads, and how seldom it even occurs to people, I know we

going down the toilet. There is NO WAY we are going to survive as a nation with this "ME" mindset.

In fact, de Tocqueville said that back in the 1880s.... that it would be Rugged Individualism that will kill this Grand Experiment.

Interesting you brought up the Marlboro Man. I used to be involved with Rendezvous, the reenactors of the Mountain Man era, and that is one of the first things they said when speaking to groups... They. Didn't. Survive. Alone!

Most of them came out with companies, and lived and hunted together. The ones who came alone either joined with others, or lived with Indians, or didn't survive.

Indigenous people know this truth, but we chose to ignore it. That is why we poor people get beat up... because we bring to consciousness what people know but want to deny... that we NEED each other.... just for survival, if nothing else.

Thank you for seeing this... I have given up hoping that we are going to grasp this in time.

:cry:

[Aerows]

182. I went through Katrina

and as horrible as it was, it really drove home the lesson that when there is a shortage of everything (no electricity, no water, no gas, and no roads to drive on if you could get gas), you have to learn to rely on each other in your community.

[bobbolink]

188. And, sadly, that is how this lesson is going to be learned, and look how many deaths it took for

that lesson to be driven home in NOLA alone. :cry:

And the obvious thing of that is.... it is always the poorest who die before people come together. Given that I am in that segment, it is a bit hard for me to shrug my shoulders and say, "Oh, well..."

I will never forget....or forgive.... Ed Schultz for mocking the poor people left in NOLA and blaming them because they didn't get out.

That is what we have come to .... a total lack of understanding of just what poverty does in a disaster.

There was a study a while back that showed that affluent people don't know how to read the emotions of others and poor people mostly do. Their conclusion was because poor people KNOW we can't make it without the help of others, so we know how to "read" them. Affluent people have the illusion that they don't need others.

I think it is more ocmplex than that, but I see that principle at work all the time. Just with cell phones... people don't help each other with car problems on the road as much anymore because everyone is expected to have cell phones and be able to call for help.

What we have come to ..... the illusions.

[RaleighNCDUer]

177. Nobody seems to remember that the 'rugged individualist cowboy'

worked for fifty cents a day for a cattle baron with a 40,000 acre spread.

At in his day, he was called a saddle tramp.

[bobbolink]

183. I just got this quotation yesterday from SOJO, and I think you will enjoy it, also:

"Whatever I had read as a child about the saints had thrilled me. I could see the nobility of giving one's life for the sick, the maimed, the leper. But there was another question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place? Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?" - Dorothy Day

That JUSTICE has to do with coming together and taking care of the issue as a Nation... rather than one-to-once charity. It is much more real, and it is time we do this!

However, it won't be done as long as "progressives" cling to this Rugged Individualism!

[izquierdista]

219. The Marlboro Cowboy died of lung cancer

He wasn't so rugged an individual when he was in hospice.

[Lifelong Protester]

255. Yep, I remember that. That's why I said what I did.

[cliffordu]

264. Finally. We agree. You are exactly right.

:patriot:

[Snoutport]

227. bravo jimmy

2nd post to you today.

you are very right--10 years ago i bought this house and i was surrounded by 80 year olds. Every house but one was 80+ And they all knew each other and checked on each other. I was the youngster and carried all the heavy groceries and i shoveled the ENTIRE block when it snowed. They've almost all passed in the past decade and the new neighbors are all strangers to each other. I have tried to make the street more...neighborly (baking cookies at the holidays for all the neighbors...all the tricks my original neighbors taught me) but it hasn't made much difference.

I miss the old days. :0)

[Sonoman]

17. Sounds like my family in the 50s.

I wonder how we survived.

God Bless my Mother.

Sonoman

[EC]

19. I still eat bread and milk gravy.

It's good with lots of black pepper and made with pork sausage or pork chop drippings. We ate a lot of spagetti. In my family we did have bologna most times, but soda defiantly was a Sunday thing. I still don't drink much soda.

[Horse with no Name]

20. I made mine tonight with pork chop drippings

Was pretty darn good!

[uppityperson]

21. Boil chicken giblets, chopped up in gravy on toast, yummy! We kids loved this, my dad

didn't so it was a special dinner we'd get when he was out of town.

[Sherman A1]

23. The stories I got were of my Grandfather who

would go out looking for work, taking a potato sandwich with him for his lunch. He eventually got a job with the CCC clearing land somewhere in the South until he go sick. His daughter (my Mother) stayed with her Maternal Grandparents on a farm in Central IL as her Mom had died of TB when she was young. She said that being young and on the farm things were not too bad or she didn't know because of her age.

She still has a very full pantry and will not let it run down.

[EC]

26. We would eat fried potato sandwiches,

I always thought it was a family quark. We love them, fried potato, raw onions (sliced thin)and bread...yum...

[M155Y_A1CH]

73. Where are the big government work projects???

They have been the saving grace for societies since the pyramids.

Why have we nearly abandoned this time proven method of both getting things done
as well as employing the destitute population???

[BobbyBoring]

125. There should be thousands of them

Our infrastructure is a shambles. This should be of concern to all. A wealthy person can be killed in a bridge collapse just as easily as a poor person.

There are levees all over the country that are ready to fail. Just working on stuff that needs to be done would provide work for many out of work construction people AND add to the tax revenue.

I get so sick of hearing Boner say Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. That's pure bull shit. Anyone that loses a large part of their income (tax breaks) has a problem.

[zalinda]

161. Obama has stated that it is not the role

of government to create jobs.

zalinda

[glinda]

275. Wow. Amazing story.

[Cleita]

27. Something my dad used to make that he also said

he survived on during tough times. He would put buttered toast in a soup bowl, sprinkle sugar on it and pour hot milk over it. I ate it with him a couple of times. It was filling.

[emsimon33]

84. That's what my dad did to pancakes

He picked that up as a child of the Depression

[Lifelong Protester]

210. Which reminds me (pancakes, that is). My mom went through

a really bad childhood in the depression. She took pancakes, rolled up with lard, and maybe sugar if they had it, to school for lunch. My sister and I hardly ever had pancakes as kids growing up as a result. I remember bugging and bugging my folks to take us to the "pancake house", a big deal in the 60s, for a meal. Dad took us, but Mom would not go. Those pancake lunch memories were too strong.

I did not eat peanut butter until I was 16 and had it at a friend's house. Mom would not have it in the house either as she ate it (it was a commodity given to the poor) as a child also, and it reminded her of tough times.

Mom and her sister were taken away from her parents in the 40s as her folks could not provide for them and slipped into alcoholism. In those days, the county put kids IN JAIL overnight until some relative could be found to take them in. IN JAIL. Mom was 14, her sister was 11.

That kind of childhood affected her profoundly and still affects me to this day (Mom and her sis have passed on). I have dried beans, rice, little stashes of cash (emphasis on little, but you never know) and change jars in my house. I am very emergency oriented. And I have had my antenna up lately and feel I had best stock up. I want to be able to offer that stranger something to eat when he or she comes by. I wish I didn't feel this way, but I think those times are coming back.

[trof]

111. Milk toast. Used to have it when I was a kid.

Usually when I was sick, but sometimes just as a treat.
I'm almost 70.
:-)

[dmr]

205. When I was very small, we'd break up bread in a bowl & sprinkle

sugar & add water (milk wasn't always in our house).

We made catchup sandwiches & chewed on raw potatoes.

To this day, I cannot eat most glazed donuts because they remind me of that bowl of sweetened bread.

We ate a lot of white gravy. My mom would take a small amount of hamburger & lots of onions to make the gravy sometimes. She called it gravy train. This is one of my favorite meals - actually I call it comfort food.

Mom canned tomatoes she grew, so we ate a lot of spaghetti with just those tomatoes, along with the onions. She also served it with mashed potatoes.

Potatoes were tummy filler-uppers.

In fact, potatoes was almost with every meal we ate. Even chicken soup. She'd make her own noodles, and when she dished it up, there would always be a dollop of mashed taters in the middle of our bowl. I make it this way even now. Always with that dollop of mashed taters.

My Uncle George told me when they ate during the depression, his dad always took a walk so he wouldn't have to explain why he didn't eat. My uncle had regrets because he resented his dad not sitting at the table with his family. His dad died young & he never knew until later why his dad did what he did. It pained him that his dad didn't want his children to worry about the food. That story saddens me, & funny how all these years I often think of it.

There's truth that some things are not always as they seem.

Shame on the Republicans who think it's a good idea to alter our safety nets.

:hi:

[demigoddess]

211. tomatoes and onions are easy to grow, supposedly also potatoes

tho I haven't grown potatoes to know first hand. But tomatoes and onions will make a lot of different meals.

[Cleita]

218. Potatoes are definitely a gift from the gods.

They not only nourished and still nourish the Andean indigenous population, but the Irish and a lot of Eastern Europe as well. Sometimes the potatoes were all that those people had to eat. I eat them almost every day myself.

[Carni]

253. UNFORTUNATELY

Now the price of butter and eggs (and hell bread and milk for that matter) is sort of prohibitive to some/a lot of people.

Ramen is still cheap, so is boxed pasta, but that's about the only thing that is cheap lately!

I think in many ways we are in MORE trouble food wise, than this country was during the depression (JMO)

[Cleita]

271. Back in those days we baked our own bread, which is

still pretty cheap to make if you have the time. Yes, the butter and milk and sugar for that matter are far more expensive.

[dflprincess]

29. Because during the Depression they didn't use "1984" terms like "food insecurity"

they called it was it was/is - hunger.

[Horse with no Name]

33. That was my wording obviously

because I don't recall her exact wording.

[closeupready]

103. So true.

nt

[eowyn_of_rohan]

32. Great thread

thank you

[femmocrat]

34. I heard Depression survival stories my entire life.

Both of my parents came from large families. Both of my grandfathers had big gardens, which helped a lot. The kids all worked in the gardens and picked berries. I think they had chickens, too. My one grandma still had chickens in the 1950s when I was a child.

My dad's mother told us that once a neighbor came with a peck(? not sure) of potatoes and wanted a quarter for it. She didn't have a quarter, so he took the potatoes with him. She had six sons and two daughters to feed. Can you imagine the desperation of those times?

I still put in a big garden. I always helped my grandfather with his garden and have had my own since my first house. I don't have any chickens though! :)

[bigmonkey]

108. Here in Chicago the city ordinances still allow keeping chickens.

I know two people who are members of community gardens here who keep chickens. These are people in their 20's and early 30's, in condos.

[zalinda]

163. A peck is 1/4 of a bushel

A bushel of potatoes would be about 60 pounds, so a peck would be about 15 pounds.

zalinda

[Lars39]

36. With my parents it was cornbread and gravy.

For some reason cocoa was very cheap then. Dad said he ate chocolate gravy and biscuits just about every morning. 70 years later he still didn't like chocolate. Both my parents remember going hungry a lot. :(
When talking with my husband's grandmother, she was talking about how poor her family had been. When talking about my dad's family, she got this horrified look on her face and said "oh, honey, they were Poor."
The forests got hunted out...no squirrels or deer...took decades for their numbers to come back up.

[Horse with no Name]

42. My Grandpa told me that his most memorable Christmas

he got a MARBLE for Christmas. Can you imagine nowadays if you gave a kid a marble for Christmas as the ONLY gift?

But...my Grandpa LOVED that marble. He cherished it.

[Lars39]

52. I still have my dad's favorite marble. :^)

What's sad are the kids nowadays who would be ecstatic over a pair of socks. :cry:This country's gone from rags to riches to rags in 3 generations.:(

[tnlefty]

74. I had a great aunt who took in my grandfather and my mother,

and she made chocolate gravy, and no matter the time of year she had pinto beans cooking everyday of her life, until she couldn't anymore.

My mother, who was younger than my dad, was taken in on a small farm along with my grandfather, and she doesn't remember how hard it was, but she never made chocolate gravy...my brothers and I were introduced to it when we went to visit my great aunt for 1 to 2 weeks in the summer when we were kids. when we mentioned it to her she didn't want to talk about it and she never made it when we were kids.

[Lars39]

79. Those times left so many scars.

[tnlefty]

251. Hoping that you are well, Lars39..

yes they did. :hug:

I don't want to go back there as I have a fear of pressure cookers. I watched one blow up when I was a kid and I don't want to use one to this day. I really don't want to try to bury food below the frost line now.

[Lars39]

260. I'm fine....Almost 7 yrs out from diagnosis.

Which is *very* good with my diagnosis. Thanks for the hug. :hug: You doing Ok?

I'm with ya about those pressure cookers....same scenario, and then tried one as an adult and it blew up, too. :scared: lol

[The Midway Rebel]

38. Corn Bread, Collard Greens w/ apple cider vinegar, Ham Hocks and really sweet tea

I could not stand it in the 1960's and I can barely stand it now. I suppose now my grandparents taught me a good lesson.

[oldbanjo]

132. I love cornbread and greens

add some Hillshire sausage and I'm in Hog Heaven. I'm 65 years old and that is one of my favorite meals.

[WillyT]

39. K & R !!!

:kick:

[FirstLight]

40. oh man, i got stories..

Mon was born 1937, and dad 1933... mom lived in the deep south.

I heard my whole life that "you clean your plate because you never know when/where your next meal is coming from." (dad's input)

Mom wore flour-sack dresses to school, her aunt would make special occasion dresses from scrap lace and fabric she saved for through the year. (easter, picture day and birthday were the only reasons to dress up)
my grandma was able to find enough food for anyone who happened by- traveling friends of family or whoever came through town and needed a hot meal. She'd always have an extra bag of beans or something to make enough for all.
My grandma would sell eggs on the corner from their ONE chicken...they could never kill the chicken to eat it, because the eggs were so much more valuable...

My mom slept in the living room on the couch and didn't have her own room till she was 17.
Grandpa worked for Southern pacific Railroad, so he'd bring stuff home for the family that he'd found in the railyard, they also had to move across the country in 39-40 to California because the railroad was a job and he needed it. My grandma stayed with him till her oldest was old enough to join the navy and take care of the family, then she got rid of him. (He was a violent drunk, who'd dissapear for days and come home and beat everyone up once or twice a week)...

Stories of survival...serve us well to remember for sure

[northoftheborder]

41. My parents came of age in the middle of the Depression. In the midwest,

it was also the time of the great drought. Then fresh off of that era, they endured the rationing of WWII. Those times truly created the thrifty character of the people who survived. My mother, grandparents,and my mother-in-law all saved everything, hated debt, paid cash or check, seldom charged anything; my mother did not even have an ATM card, used her charge card so seldom that it was canceled! I remember the rationing days, but I think by this time, everyone truly did not mind the rationing so much, because everyone was still better off than they had been 10 years before.

My generation has not been as thrifty, but I really think it is the next generation, the "boomers", which have no memory of not having everything they wanted, that these times are truly difficult for. They are going to need to hear those stories of the "olden" days, because we may well be back in those days in the near future. Corn bread crumbled in milk, for supper. That was my mother's favorite snack, long after the depression years. Here I am, having my night-time snack of strawberry sorbet and vanilla ice cream. Not that I'm spoiled or anything! We've had it good, for a long time, and I really thought that was the norm. But I'm getting increasingly pessimistic that my generations' "good old days" were only an anomaly.

[JustAmused]

48. Sounds familiar

My Grandfather was a Methodist minister with seven kids in the depression. Grandma never passed up the chance to feed someone else. Now that was a time of shared sacrifice, and we have the same villians setting us up for the fall again I am afraid.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

45. Sadly, because of an imploding economy and Peak Oil....

today's children will probably relive Depression like conditions....

Watch Michael Ruppert's film "Collapse".

[jkirch]

46. My Mother, born 1911..

...told me about people making stew from captured sparrows.

[JohnnyRingo]

146. Thank goodness I've never been that hungry

...yet.

[jkirch]

184. She also told me that...

... neighbors killed and ate the swans at the lake in the park.

[jwirr]

47. When my father was alive I used to make a casserole which was

mainly vegetables and rice with hamburger. He would chow down in delight and then every time he would look up at me and say "we were so stupid in the depression". When asked to explain he would tell me that his parents sold the milk, eggs, and garden vegetables to pay things like rent and the children went hungry. They lived on a farm they rented and some of that food should have been used to feed the family. He had also had to quit school in the 8th grade to help on the farm. His sisters went into richer homes as maids to help support themselves. They also quit school. Things were really rough for all of them.

[mistertrickster]

53. Courts in the 20's ruled that children of the age of 8 had a right

to enter into a contract to get chained to a loom for ten hours a day.

Congress passed bills to tax child labor, and even that was struck down by the SCOTUS.

No shit.

[msanthrope]

56. Hammer v. Dagenhart, 1918.

Oliver Wendell Holmes' dissent was a masterpiece, and that was the underlying view of Darby (early 40s) that overturned it.

SCOTUS under Justice Day was disgrace.

[mistertrickster]

57. Is it better now? The history of the court is the history of powerful special interests

protecting themselves with the force of law.

See Bush v Gore.

[The Wielding Truth]

272. It seems rare in history to see unselfish sharing Republicans.

Taxing child labor. Abuse comes to mind.

[applegrove]

54. My grandmother ran a farm. When she was 90 I used to say all the family

survival knowledge would die with her. Little did I know in a decade it would look a lot like more people would need that knowledge.

[distantearlywarning]

55. My grandfather was born in 1920.

Was orphaned at the age of 13, at the height of the Great Depression, in Oklahoma. He and his brother came home from school one day to find the sheriff in their yard. The sheriff told them their Mom had died and that nobody in town had the means to take them in. He gave them a little money and sent them off down the road.

My grandpa worked his way across the Midwest at one farm or another, no shoes, always hungry, never knowing where the next meal or bed would be found. Eventually ended up as farm help in Indiana, in a semi-abusive situation.

When he was 16, he lied about his age so he could join the military and finally get a stable life with "three hots and a cot", as they say. He thrived there and ended up a Major and retired with a full pension before he was 40, and then had a second career as a salesman. He died a very wealthy man, but never forgot how brutally hard and frightening his youth was.

[Brigid]

92. You should seriously write a book about your grandfather.

What an amazing story.

[JohnnyRingo]

150. Thank you for that story

I'm sure most American families share a similar history and I hope you take time to pass it along to your own grandchildren one day. ...If you can get the iPod out of their ears long enough. Hahahaha

Seriously, this kind of family lore is what strengthens us as a people and gives us hope our antecedents never have to relive it.

[trud]

155. distantearlywarning

What happened to his brother?

[Ilsa]

58. My parents were born in 1926. The Depression was vivid and difficult,

especially for my father. They told us the stories of living in east Texas during these very hard times. I've never forgotten them. I don't think my youngest can understand it. My husband's parents were born after TGD so they didn't have stories to tell either.

[xmas74]

59. I remember eating that a few times as a child.

This was in the eighties and there was no money coming in the house.

Unfortunately, I can see where I would eat this again someday. Bread and gravy-something my own child has never had but might have to eventually.

[Tresalisa]

61. As kids, my siblings and I used to love hearing our parents

talk about when they were "our age" and how both of their families lived through the Great Depression. When I was young we were pretty low income, and my mom's and dad's recounting of their lives helped us to understand and appreciate the human spirit, even at such a young age.

Thanks for this post and the memories it brings, my mom and dad having passed away years ago.

[tnlefty]

65. My Dad was a child of the Great Depression.

They lived on a small farm, and I heard the stories and they did well compared to so many that didn't fare as well. He hated cabbage as an adult because they had to bury it during the winter, and as he said, "you couldn't boil it enough to get the dirt out of it." They had chickens, pigs, and cows, and grew vegetables. I learned to plant food plants from him, the flower gardening I learned on my own, but if you could ask anyone in my immediate family they'd tell you that I get irate about wasting food.

I'm sure that I got that from my Dad and my grandmother, who had money hidden in all of her belongings...not in the bank...upon her death.

Biscuits, gravy and grits when times are hard. Eggs if you have chickens.

I hope that you and your family are okay.

[texanwitch]

67. My Father was 10 years old in 1933 when his Father died.

He had to support his baby sister and mother on his own.

They picked cotton, and lived with family until my father went into the CCC's.

He said he grew 6 inches in just a few months because he had enough food to eat finally.

He earned $30 a month, $25 went home to his Mother and sister.

MY Mother was lucky, they lived on a farm, never went hungry.

My Grandmother could sew, and my Grandfather had a small pension from WWI.

Now, my Mother was poor but my Father was really poor.

I now sit in a house build in 1930, many family member lived in the house.

Each room had one electric outlet, that was all you needed.

The neighborhood were I live was more country then city, so people could grow food.

People had chickens, cows, pigs and even rabbits.

The bayous had fish, and there were woods to go hunting in.

I grew up hearing a lot of depression stories.

[csziggy]

75. My mother's father was a farmer and they still didn't have enough to eat

Especially when it got so he could not make enough on the farm to pay the property taxes and they moved into town so he could try to find any work he could. They lived with relatives - not a time Mom likes to talk about. The only reason I know this at all is that the house they shared with family was used in the movie "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter." When it was shown on campus, Mom came to watch it and told me a little about that period of her life. She was so malnourished as a child, she has been anemic all her life. The house on the farm did not have electricity or running water until after World War II.

Mom was valedictorian of her high school class and got a scholarship to college but even then could not afford to go. She also got a scholarship to nursing school and managed that - it was a shorter course to graduation and the student nurses could work as aides and earn some money while going to the school. She joined the Navy Nurse Corp directly out of nursing school and worked all the way through the war. Until she was in the Navy she had never had a dress that had not been home made. Every scrap of cloth was reused, either as rags or for making quilts.

When we were kids in the late 50s and 60s things could still get tight for our family. One of my birthday celebrations was a movie paid for with soda bottle caps we had saved up all year. We each got two new pairs of shoes each year - on in August for school and one in the spring for Easter. Most of our clothes were made at home or bought from a Goodwill store. My second oldest sister remembers Mom cleaning our oldest sister's old shoes for the second oldest to wear to school the next year. I was "luckier" - I had larger feet than they did so I got new shoes and few hand me downs.

Many of the cooking secrets Mom used and taught us are now touted as "Depression cooking" - it was just the way we always cooked. One pound of beef is plenty for a stew to make two or even three dinners for a family of four - just put in lots and lots of vegetables. A quarter of a pound of ground beef is fine for a large pot of spaghetti sauce as long as you have enough spaghetti to fill you up. The left over sauce makes a good pizza the next day if you put enough cheap cheese on it and make the crust from scratch. (Or just use stale bread heels for a crust and catsup if there is no leftover sauce.) Lasagna has enough protein with just cheese, no meat needed. To this day, most Italian food made the way it is supposed to be made seems far too meaty to my tastes!

[pengillian101]

76. Great Depression Cooking with Clara videos

http://www.youtube.com/show?p=1lVxGiRwvU0&s=1

[Arugula Latte]

88. I was going to post that link, too.

She is adorable and has some good tips. She makes a lot of food with eggs, potatoes and onions.

[Marr]

77. That's how my family lived in the 80's in Southern California.

I got one can of soda each year-- on the 4th of July. I loved the 4th July. The rest of the time it was water, beans, potatoes, cornbread, etc. Some of my friends had dirt floors.

There's a lot of poverty in the country, and it's been around for a long time. I think it's been getting much worse in the last 15-20 years, with a lot more people sharing that experience. I can tell you one thing for certain-- it's going to have a lot of negative consequences. When you live like that, understanding that you are on your own, and the country is just fine with you starving to death... there's no social contract. It works both ways.

You do not want a country full of people who feel that way. I would think that wealthy people would've picked up on that point by now, but it appears they have not.

[closeupready]

112. No, they don't think it's going to happen here.

Even though it almost did in the Depression, and that's part of why Roosevelt embarked on his New Deal - to help ward off something more draconian.

[Hestia]

78. Bread & Gravy is better than crackers crumbled up in buttermilk - ugh

or cornbread when the family was rich in buttermilk. Nastiness personified.

[Lugnut]

80. My grands planted huge gardens.

Neighbors would share seeds so everybody had a good variety. My mother's mother canned or preserved everything she could. She made pickles, sauerkraut and root beer along with every veggie you can imagine. Everybody had chickens in their back yards. Some were lucky enough to have goats. Making bread was a weekly affair. My dad loved gravy bread. He used to tell us there were a lot of times when that's all they had to eat.

[Zoeisright]

82. Eating like that is why school lunches were initiated.

Some of the recruits for World War II were very malnourished, so the DEMOCRATS started the school lunch program. Which repukes want to cut.

[Kolesar]

236. Recruits from regions with poor soil were rejected because they had health problems

I the forested areas of Missouri, recruits were rejected at a rate of 400/1000. In prairie Missouri, recruits were rejected at a rate of 200/1000.

[haikugal]

269. Many

had no shoes and couldn't read or write as well. This was often true of Southern recruits.

[emsimon33]

83. White bread, soaked in milk & green onions=dinner

A treat was an orange in the Christmas stocking for my mom and for my dad each of the eight children got a small portion of canned pineapple at Christmas as their treat!

[noamnety]

86. The extreme couponers show

doesn't seem quite so extreme in this context.

[femrap]

89. this is a great thread.....

thank you for posting it. :hi:

[JuniperLea]

94. We must be cousins...

I've heard similar stories. And I've said many times here that it will be those of us who know how to make something from nothing will be the survivors. Flour sack underwear, adding a ruffle to a dress when you grow, wearing your shoes only at school and church to make them last, saving every last bit of the chicken for the stock pot, brushing your teeth with baking soda... thank you, Grandma... thank you for sharing and for making me listen.

I'm now craving bean boxty... aka hobo hamburgers... this was one of Grandma's favorite's. Make some pancakes, potato are best but regular will do. Fry up some onions in a skillet, add pork or ground beef if you have it, cook 'til done and add a can of pork and beans... or beans you've soaked and cooked yourself... heat through. Pile beans on pancakes... filling, cheap, and a favorite childhood meal in my family. I didn't know until years later that boxty was an Irish peasant dish! Fancy that!

[closeupready]

96. K&R

nt

[hedgehog]

97. My mother was in tears watching Cinderella Man when they

had the scene where they water down the milk to make it last. She remembered the neighbors doing that.

[Pooka Fey]

99. My parents both grew up in the Great Depression,

both born in 1922 in Louisiana. I feel so lucky that I am their daughter, and I have had the privilege to have been raised with their values of thrift, hard work, and generosity to those less fortunate. I have heard the same stories as many on this thread.

There wasn't enough money. My dad starting working on his granddaddy's farm picking cotton when he was 8 years old, he also worked in construction, and he started a second job working nights as a Big Band musician when he was 16 - all the money went to help out the family. He didn't keep any of it for himself, and on Christmas he didn't get any presents (money for presents got spent on his 3 sisters) - except for one fabulous year when he was about 11 when on Christmas Day he found that Santa Claus had hidden a saxophone for him behind the family couch. :-)

I also heard the stories from my paternal grandmother, that you feed the hobos who came to your back door - that was just what you did. You didn't expect a prize for it, it was normal Christian charity. My mom also shared her stories about rationing during WWII, she didn't talk as much about the Depression years. It was obvious that they were both extremely marked by their shared experience. I don't think my parents ever starved, but things were very, very tight. My parents taught me to use every scrap of food in the refrigerator, in our family, waste wasn't tolerated ---that's what stews are for, served over rice.

I was born late at the end of the Baby Boom. Most of my wingnut Baby Boomer older siblings have swallowed the Repug "bootstrap" meme completely. They never experienced want, and they grew up to be selfish, self-centered, "Christian" in name only, and won't part with one red cent even to help a family member in need. And my siblings are VERY well off financially - yacht owning, second home owning, and 6 figure earning. Funny, huh? Actually I find it grotesque. Obviously they aren't alone - seems like almost the whole culture has turned greedy and selfish.

I'm not sure I have "Depression" food memories, but I can talk all day about both my grandmothers, in the kitchen, making chicken and sausage gumbo, red beans and rice, cornbread, and pecan pie. Then there was Aunt Sue's pralines and brandy fruitcake at Christmas. Makes my mouth water just to think about it! When we visited family, we never left without a bag of sandwiches to take on the road.

Great thread, Horse with No Name!

(edited for spelling)

[madmom]

100. This white gravy that you speak of has become a staple in a lot of homes,heck

Bob Evans and a few other restaurants have made a niche market in selling this...sausage gravy and biscuits.

[Papagoose]

105. My dad was born during the depression

He didn't remember the actual hardships, but my grandparents brought him up as if the depression never ended. He was a seriously frugal man - famous for and proud of his "cheapness". Oddly enough, my dad was also the most generous person I've ever known, sharing what he had with as many people as possible and spoiled my brother and I.

[nc4bo]

106. Hubby's not depression era but was very, very, very poor.

I'm sure many of the things his family did to survive were passed down from his grandparents.

They'd go into farmer's fields after the sweet potato harvest and digging in the dirt for damaged crop for food, picking wild cresses, dandelions and other green things in the woods or off roadsides, blueberries and blackberries, sometimes they'd get wild game. His mom had to feed 10 kids so they'd make pastry (chickens were for eggs!) and use the fruit to make fruit and pastry stew for dinner. He said that was supper many times. Definitely white gravy or flavored white gravy w/biscuits or bread and lots of dry beans and soups/stews made with whatever.

He remembers his grandmothers old grape arbors and how he and his brothers and sisters would stand under them and feast along with the bees and fruit flies.

They did have a huge garden so they could can and make preserves and owned some chickens and pigs. They did benefit from government surplus; peanut butter, cheese, canned meat but 8 growing boys and 2 girls can consume alot of food.

They'd stretch fresh eggs by mixing with lots of leftover rice (made that for his breakfast this a.m.), rice with milk, bread and milk, sardines and crackers, scratch pancakes w/ karo syrup or jelly, etc. In fact, lots of stuff was watered down or something starchy added to make it stretch.

Cold cereals once in a while but mostly hot ones; oatmeal, grits - cheap stuff that could feed a big family.

They often stole from fields whatever they could; potatoes, apples, peaches, watermelon, strawberries, tomatoes but also got paid pennies to pick too. They'd eat alot of what they picked so they could have a meal.

God forbid if more of us find ourselves in these situations. Most of us don't have the benefit of owning a few acres so we can raise some crops or a few livestock. Families and neighbors stuck together more than they do now, it took efforts from everyone to get through bad times.

Scary that these types of discussions are becoming more and more necessary. :(

[Gormy Cuss]

116. Gleaning was a common way for the poor to supplement their diets at one time

There's a famous Millet painting on the subject in fact:



Back when most farming was done by smaller scale farmers gleaning was tolerated and even encouraged in some areas. The chowing down in the fields while picking was also common and generally tolerated as long as the workers were picking fast.

These days there's rarely anything left to glean on the massive scale farms that dominate our agriculture. I wonder if they prohibit eating while picking too.

[lonestarnot]

109. K & R!

[raccoon]

115. One of my uncles used to sing a silly song about bread and gravy.

It went something like, “Monday we have bread and gravy,
Tuesday we have gravy and bread…”

I can’t remember any more, until at the end of the week they had “gravy without any bread.”

Maybe that was a Depression-era song.

[Myrina]

117. Hell, that's how my SIBLINGS grew up ...

... 6 kids (before I came along), both parents working, in the mid/late 50's ... Saturday night was their 'special night' that they'd get a dixie cup of soda and a dixie cup of peanuts or popcorn each to watch Jack Benny or whatever was on tv ... and weeknight dinners, dad and the oldest brother were the only ones who'd get an extra pork chop (if there was enough) or more than 1 serving of casserole. Many of those nights, I was told by my oldest sisters, mom would have toast so that everyone else could eat a meal.

The girls had 1 barbie doll to share among 3 of them (each had an outfit for her), and their big Christmas gifts were 2 books and a new pair of pajamas each.

Most Americans nowadays don't know from gratitude and not having 'more more more'. Damn culture of consumption. :(

[a la izquierda]

119. Have any of you seen this YouTube channel?

It's Clara, a 90something woman, teaching "Depression cooking."
http://www.youtube.com/show?p=1lVxGiRwvU0&tracker=show_av

I made one of her soups once. It was awesome, though disturbing at the same time.

[Lucinda]

187. I've seen them all. Love her show.

:hi:

[fatbuckel]

123. You realize that Kosher foods are one of the first food safety programs?

[hayu_lol]

130. For those who stock up on rice...

after about 9 months or so, get rid of the 'stash'. Rice loses its vitamins as it ages...is the major cause of beri-beri throughout Asia.

[flyingfysh]

128. Accidental unrecommend, sorry about that

It's too easy to accidentally unrecommend or hide something while reading DU on a Droid.

[bongbong]

129. Depression Soup

My parents were born in the 1920s. They told me about Depression Soup.

Go in to a diner, order a glass of hot water (free) and add ketchup to it.

[COLGATE4]

131. My dad, his brothers and sisters and the whole family ate

nothing but potatos and sardines for weeks on end. Apparently these were the cheapest items that would 'fill you up'.

[OwnedByFerrets]

134. One of the biggest differences between then and now

is that most could grow their food then. Now, not so much. And I am being very generous.

[mike3121]

135. My father worked for Dodge during the Great Depression

They had sit-ins at the factories. Pinkerton guards would beat them. He was in the crowd and whitnessed the Ford Overpass massacure. He only worked 3 days a week and supported 2 famlies. They would walk along a railroad tracks collecting coal. He also played a gold plated banjo at a Purple Gange speakeasy. Colorful life.

[dmr]

266. My dad was beaten that day alongside Walter Reuter.

My dad, the most easy going man was grabbed by goons (his word) that snuck up on him & beat him to a pulp (his words); they then tossed him down those same stairs they threw Reuther down, beating him pretty badly as well. Reuther made sure dad's hospital bills were paid in full. Dad told me the goons came out of nowhere & started to attack. The police just stood there & watched.

This makes me incredibly sad.

[snooper2]

136. And now people fight about using food stamps for a cookie

or bike riders bitching about leaves in the street

or your delicate ears hearing the leaf blowers

or loud music from a car radio

or self checkout lanes being confusing and "hard"


I swear people in this country have become fucking Beiberfied. They should start showing kids in school how to skin and clean rabbits and change a tire.

[dbflah]

248. stamps for cookies.....

Hi snooper,
I bitch about self checkout lane because they put people out of work.
The worst seems having employees train customers to use the lanes, then the trainers get laid off.
df

[Arkansas Granny]

137. My parents grew up during the Depression. My dad didn't have it

so bad because my grandfather did not lost his job. Even so, he used to get really mad at people who reminisced about buying a loaf of bread for a nickel and so on. He would ask them if they remembered how hard that nickel was to come by.

My mom, on the other hand, had it a lot rougher. Her dad died in 1928 and my grandmother had to raise two children by herself. She doesn't remember actually going hungry, but she suspects that her mother missed a lot of meals so the kids could eat. It probably sounds strange to a lot of people today, but she worked her way through high school. My grandmother didn't want her to quit school, so she held part time jobs as a domestic worker to pay for books and other school related expenses.

[GeorgeGist]

140. The Audacity of Hope

rings hollow; doesn't it.

[Zax2me]

141. but but but kids today have it so much tougher....

Title of a thread here just the other day.
Your Grandmas story is a common one.

[MsPithy]

143. I had a teacher who was young in England during WWII.

Her mom made sandwiches with pink rose petals inside because they could pretend the rose petals were bologna.

That we are exchanging stories about how to survive in "hard times," when the country's wealthy are the richest they have ever been, is unacceptable.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

"Socialism" now or guillotines later.

[JohnnyRingo]

144. Grilled cheese and tomato soup.

That simple fare is what got me through several hard times, and I've handed the menu down to my adult children. While it gets boring fast, it contains all one needs to survive compared to the empty calories of Ramen noodles. Save the noodles for a late night snack so you don't have to sleep on an empty stomach.

A can of generic tomato soup is very inexpensive, as is a loaf of wholesale wheat bread. Kraft singles fit conveniently in an inside jacket pocket. I well know the odd aftertaste of "welfare cheese", and it would do when it was available.

I would never excuse stealing, but one of the factors conservatives never take into consideration when they cry out to cut spending on feeding the poor is that we will do anything to not starve to death.

[trud]

148. tomato soup with water

That's the way my Grandmother always made Campbell's tomato soup, even after they got through the depression. And no leaving anything on your plate.

[JohnnyRingo]

156. During tough times, there's never enough on your plate to throw any away

I still make tomato soup with water.

After eating tomato soup and grilled cheese for weeks on end, I went a long time hoping to never see those two items on a table at the same time. I've since been able to enjoy it once again with two differences. I don't have to eat it, and I pay for the cheese now. Using real butter is a symbol of my current affluence.

[RaleighNCDUer]

179. I remember when my dad got his overseas teaching job in 1960, after

working as a music teacher in Iowa for @3k/yr in the 50s, when we transitioned from tomato soup made with water to tomato soup made with milk & a little dollop of butter - it was like a taste of luxury.

[SheilaT]

233. I LOVE grilled cheese and tomato soup, although

I generally use a slightly better quality of cheese, and I'm spoiled enough to fix Campbell's tomato bisque with milk, not water. It's still not a very expensive meal, and one of my all-time favorites.

[trud]

149. teach them to grow their own food and preserve it n/t

[Erose999]

151. I'm told my grandma cooked a mean roast groundhog...

also roast possum (when times were really bad).

[L. Coyote]

158. "the fat cats were living high on the hog in their new mansions, hoarding their money"

Kind of like now!

[cyberswede]

159. For dessert

My mom's family would sometimes eat snow with molasses on it as a sweet treat when she was a kid in the 1930s. She still saves things that can be reused (aluminum foil, empty bread bags instead of Baggies, etc.)

When socks got too many holes to be savable by darning, she would cut off the tops and sew them into the ends of coat sleeves that had gotten too short.

My dad's mother died when he was 8, and he and his 3 brothers were sent to live in a children's home (where they ate gruel for breakfast). His dad kept his sister at home, and the boys would visit on Sundays. Sad. :(

[southernyankeebelle]

160. Go online and google depression cooking. You will see a whole bunch of

receipes that was cooked during the depression.

[jb5150]

165. My father was born in 1917:

He used to tell me stories about how some nights the only thing they ate was cabbage, and the kids (there were 4 of them) would fight over who got to drink the liquid left over in the pot. His mom had a saying:

Use it up,
wear it out,
make it do or do without

[FedUpWithIt All]

167. My grandmother was a young child during the depression

so there are not many stories about that time specifically but the family remained in pretty deep poverty so many of the depression era ways were still evident even during my mother's childhood. My grandfather hunted things like squirrel, they used outhouses in the late 50's and my mother's family moved dozens of times while my grandfather sought work.

My mother was a teen when i was born and we lived on a lot of the same types of foods my grandmother had served her family. Egg noodles with an egg cooked on and covered with soy sauce for flavor is still a comfort food for my siblings and myself. We ate a lot of cooked rice in canned or powdered milk with a sprinkle of sugar.

Through the years we lived a type of feast or famine existence and during a particularly patch my brothers and myself made do for several weeks by sharing an MRE a day and at a later time we pretty much lived off some apples picked off of a tree at the local elementary school and whatever we could buy with found change.

As an adult, i have always been a bit suspicious of the typical methods for meeting basic needs in our society. Much of it seemed very vulnerable to disruption. As a result I have really tried to gain a little independence where meeting basic needs is concerned and have been working on teaching my kids some lost skills. My twelve yr old daughter made a fire from flint and magnesium shavings the other day :). I figure that all knowledge is a type of wealth and that adding these new skills, ideas and methods can only improve them in the long run.

[JuniperLea]

168. Béchamel

We might call it white sauce, or white gravy, but the French call it béchamel;)

[silverweb]

171. There's a lot we can learn.

My parents grew up during the Depression, too. My mom was one of 4 children and was 10 years old when her dad died. Her mother got government commodities: butter, cheese, sugar, etc. My mom said a "treat" was a slice of bread spread with butter, mustard, and sprinkled with sugar, and sometimes that was a meal. Her two older brothers started working when they were pre-teens to help out. One caddied for rich golfers, while the other did odd jobs and later got into sales.

My dad was the second of 8 children. They had a relatively small yard, but kept rabbits and chickens, and they had a garden. My dad said that his mother spent weeks every year canning produce from their garden to get through the winter. She'd send one of the children outside to kill a couple of chickens or rabbits for Sunday dinner, which was the only time they ate meat other than holidays and special occasions. When he was 9, he started working on a milk truck very early every morning before school, and every cent he earned went to the family.

We can learn a lot from these depression-era stories. We've become used to plenty and convenience, and because of it have let ourselves lose skills and get into debt. The oligarchs like it that way, of course, because it makes us dependent on them. We can reverse that dependency and tell the oligarchs to go to hell.

Stripping our lifestyles down to basics, and learning to be less dependent on megastores and convenience items can help us save more, spend less, and re-learn self sufficiency.

I've been focusing on saving water lately and decided to try the Japanese-style shower: using a small bucket of water, soap, and sponge to wash thoroughly, then turning on the shower only for rinsing off. It works quite well, and saves huge amounts of water as well as energy (hot water heater).

Cooking and baking from scratch are also nearly lost skills. Baking bread is my latest "discovery," and is cheap, delicious, and a hugely fun/satisfying skill.

We also need to rediscover the concept of "community." There are plenty of ways we can learn to become more self sufficient and exchange skills/goods with others in our local circle, also sharing with the disadvantaged.

"Reduce, reuse, recycle" isn't just a good slogan for the environmentally conscious, it's a good motto for adjusting our lifestyles.

The oligarchs aim to be "the company store" that will never let us get out from under. Giving them a big middle finger is the most satisfying outcome of self sufficiency that I can think of.

[FedUpWithIt All]

212. Thank you for the post.

I agree with you.

[silverweb]

267. Thanks for the comment.

This whole thread has been enlightening and, as usual, DUers bring a multitude of perspectives and ideas to the subject.

[Aerows]

174. I live in the South

And biscuits and white gravy are pretty much a staple - but usually for breakfast or with dinner. That's exactly what that meal was for, too - it's cheap, filling, and fairly easy to make. We have biscuits and gravy at least once a week. Grits are also very common here, too, and they are also very cheap and filling.

We also have a garden and are growing potatoes. Potatoes can fill a lot of empty bellies, and we grow spinach, strawberries and I grow alfalfa sprouts in a jar.

In my opinion, it's never too early for kids to learn how to get by on less, and to learn to grow their own food if possible. All it would take is a bad gas shortage, and you can kiss goodbye the days of grocery stores having lots of different things in stock. Also, taking a lesson from Japan, all it would also take is a horrible nuclear disaster and you would have to be careful where you get foodstuffs from.

[alfredo]

196. Ate a lot of kale, collards, mustards, fish from the creek.

There was a commercial fishing pond next to the creek. Each year the floods allowed some game fish to escape into the creek. Good eatin' . Harrods Creek was a favorite spot, and so was an old quarry near Cherokee park. We had chickens and rabbits, Both tasted great. We had fruit trees and a large garden that supplemented our diet.

I used to pick wild greens and berries.

[joanbarnes]

175. My mother talks of a slice of bread and ketchup as a treat.

[happyslug]

180. My father told the story of his pet rabbit when he was about 8 to 10

He was about Eight to ten years of age and for Sunday Dinner they had meat, which was a rarity given the hard times. Later on, when he asked his older brother where was his pet rabbit, and his brother told him that was the meat they had for Sunday Dinner. You could hear the objection to that in my father's voice 40 years later, but at the same time it was tough times (His family would actually break up when he was 12, and this was when his family was still intact, thus had to be eight to ten. He understood why his father did it, when he was a teenager and on his own, he worked various farms in Western Maryland, including during butchering of cattle and pigs, thus meat was not a problem for him. The problem was that it was his pet that was killed and eaten not some animal raised for meat.

Later on my father had to quit school after Eighth grade, just to make a living (And his father had gone to collage and taught school, but by the 1920s had moved installing roofs on steel mills). My father did not drop out because he wanted to, he dropped out to make a living, for that was the only way he could feed himself. Times were tough, and most people fell back on relatives (My father relied on family members to find out who needed workers on the farms in his area, including his relatives).

[Lucinda]

190. Great thread - thanks for starting this.

I've heard a lot of family stories about making things stretch during the depression. I've also lived quite poor myself (right after my divorce while in college) and I think it's always a good idea to prepare our kids. You never know when a tough patch can happen.

[Jamastiene]

192. My aunt said they used water.

Actually, the recipe for brown gravy is about the same as you mention. The main difference is that we use water in place of milk. My aunt said that during the Depression, my grandmother went from using milk to using water and learned how to make it taste good anyhow. We had it the other day. It sounds like southern cooking on any given day to me. It's good to know simple recipes using very few ingredients to save money.

My grandmother was the McGuyver of cooking. She could take the simplest ingredients and make it taste so good. It'll make your mouth water if you've had cooking like that but do not any more. I wish I had paid more attention to her milk and tomatoes recipe. I've tried to cook it since then and it never comes out as good as hers was. I can still eat mine, though, with Zesta saltine crackers in it.

Nothing ever comes out as good as her cooking was. I do have some of her recipes though. I got smarter as I got older, but not soon enough to learn all of her recipes. I still kick myself for not listening closer. She did teach me a lot though, even if most of what I learned was through osmosis. Instead of being smart enough to listen closely to her and make an effort to learn it, I just picked some of it up through osmosis; seeing her cook it over and over again.

I wish I could make my salmon stew taste as good as hers. I know she added tomatoes, corn, lima beans, and baking soda. I just can't remember the rest and my salmon stew suffers because of it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

193. My father-in-law wore a pair of girl's shoes for awhile

because it was winter, and that was better than going barefoot.

[alfredo]

194. Instead of ribeye, it is fatback, Collard greens, and cornbread.

Soup, and more soup saves money.

Ham hocks, soup bones, give you flavor and some protein. If the marrow is exposed, you get even more nutrition. After cooking, put in fridge until cool. Skim off the fat. It's always better the second day.

Excellent cookbook:

http://www.amazon.com/More---Less-Cookbook-World-Community/dp/083619263X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1302725433&sr=8-3

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41EHSXzuSmL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg


Michael Pollan says, "Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables."

[Spike89]

199. My Dad had great stories, my maternal grandmother had scars

My Dad's family was large (13 kids) and dirt poor. My Dad used to say they couldn't afford shoes, so his Mom would paint his feet black once a month. He always said it as a joke, but my mother, who went to school with him said that the reality was that his family couldn't afford paint. My Dad would eat anything, but loved white bread fried in bacon drippings with heavy cream poured over it. Strangely, I only recall seeing him eat this standing up--as if prepared to take it on the run in case an older sibling wanted to take it away.
My grandmother always pushed food on us grandchildren. If we actually cleared the food she'd prepared, she'd get agitated. She always told us "when you clear the table (of food), it'll be a better day tomorrow". My Mom says that when she and her siblings where little, there was often too little food and that was what her mother would say to calm her still hungry children.

[Lyric]

200. So many of you seem to think that this is stuff from the "past".

It's not. These ways of surviving still exist. I can't even tell you how many times I've made a browned flour gravy from flour, shortening, water (or broth/bouillon/etc. if I have it), salt, and pepper and served it for dinner with bread slices, simple shortening biscuits, or toast.

I can't even remember how many times I've used that gravy to make a meal. Sometimes we don't have any bread (and not enough flour to make biscuits), so I make the gravy and add cans of beans, peas, corn, potatoes, whatever we have, let it get hot, and then we eat *that*. Sometimes I use a ramen flavor packet to season the gravy, and add the cooked ramen noodles to the stew. If we have meat (which is unlikely when things are that tight) we add it too.

Sometimes we have almost nothing left at all, so I make plain elbow macaroni and add some canned milk (or reconstituted dry milk), margarine, salt, and pepper, and that's dinner. Sometimes if I don't have milk or butter, I'll dump a can of stewed tomatoes into the cooked macaroni and let it get hot, or add a can of tuna to a cooked box of macaroni and cheese or cooked packs of ramen noodles.

These survival-cooking strategies aren't relics of the Depression era. People still live like this today. :(

[Kindigger]

239. Surprises me also

:think:

[physioex]

202. Strange....

Nobody mentions popcorn. You can buy the raw seeds fairly cheap and it can be stored for a long time. All you need is butter for a great snack.

[Glorfindel]

203. My father was born in 1907, my mother in 1911

They got married in 1930 and moved into a tenant house of my mother's father, who had 100 acres of farm, garden, and pasture. Food was never a problem, but nobody had any money. They paid county property taxes by working on the roads, heated and cooked with wood, and supplemented their diet with hunting and fishing. Strangely, they always remembered these "hard times" as a period of great happiness. Maybe being young and in love had something to do with it! :-)

[demigoddess]

204. In the 50s, when we were low on money

my dad borrowed a gun and shot rabbits or squirrels in the woods and my mother made stew from it. We ate for a while until the paycheck came.

[tsuki]

206. Congrats to you. My grandmother had passed, but my aunts

were 18 years older than Mother. They taught me all about Hoover's Depression.

[Tx4obama]

208. Great Depression Cooking with Clara - on YouTube

Here's a link to Clara's Great Depression Cooking

http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking

There are several videos there on the right side of the page (Season 1 and Season 2) of Clara cooking recipes that were used during the depression. And she tells stories about the depression too mixed in with the cooking.

Playlists
Season 1: http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking#g/c/D6A6F21C9D7665FC
Season 2: http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking#p/c/F6BF18EE722850A9

[MilesColtrane]

263. Thanks

Clara is cool.

[valerief]

213. Back then, the food was actual food, too, not foodstuffs. No GMO. nt

[WhiteTara]

214. my mother's family had buttermilk and cornbread

for most dinners. They too had a garden, some chickens.

[Norrin Radd]

216. I ate sauce made from tomato paste and water and the cheapest

pasta I could find, every day for a year at my poorest. Thankfully still had power for the stove, and water.

[xmas74]

262. A close friend just had her gas shut off.

She can't afford to support herself and her two children on $8.00 an hour with no child support. She decided that between the rent, the groceries, the gas, the electric,and the water that the gas she could live without. (No trash bill because she takes her bags every week to another friend's house and they put it out with their trash.)

She boils water in a microwave, has an electric kettle, and a coffee pot for bathwater. She puts her girls in together every night and then takes a bath after they are done. Her laundry is scrubbed out by hand every night and then hung over the porch rail to dry.

What's happened here? She can't even afford the gas for her stove and now has to find other ways to cook. It's just wrong.

[NEOhiodemocrat]

217. My father was born in 1909 and my mother in 1913

I definitely grew up with tales of the great depression. My father's dad was hurt in a work accident in 1930 and died four weeks latter from gangrene setting into his knee. He left 11 children, my father the oldest son down to a 2 year old. They got by, but barely. My father's bed was in the restroom (and with six sisters) he could hardly get a nights sleep ever. They gardened and canned, He and his oldest three sister worked and gave their pay to his mother. The younger children all attended parochial school and were not allowed to drop out. My mother was luckier in that she lived on a farm until 1929 when they lost it, my grandfather died soon afterward. Several of her older brothers farmed and provided food for their widowed mother and their sister. All the stories they told seemed to show a sharing spirit. Without the large extended families I don't know how they would have survived. My parents married in 1934, but until his mother died in the late 1950's he supported both his own family of seven, his mother, and took in my maternal grandmother after the wedding, who was ill and died in 1936. He worked hard and saved like mad, said he never wanted to be a burden on his children. He wanted to be able to pay his own way. He always wanted to give us everything, I don't think he realized how we would have been happy to sacrifice for him.

[ejbrush]

220. My grandparents told stories about the bad old days

While I would say that none of them ever went hungry, it's only because a lot of deer ended up in the stewpot way outside hunting season. They were also militant gardeners, prolific canners and would forage the woods for every berry and nut that grows in northern Wisconsin. George liked to point out that the Depression didn't hit his family very bad since they were pretty much on the bottom to start with.

[Avalux]

221. My grandparents grew their own vegetables, killed deer, squirrel, rabbits, birds to eat.

And a lot of family members lived together in one house. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, kids. What they did to survive is lost on us, however I too am thinking those stories are good to remember and repeat just in case.

[janet118]

230. My mom remembers being cold as a kid during the depression . . .

she became obsessed with all of us having "warm coats" every winter.

[Kindigger]

234. And you find this odd why?

I am the eldest of five, and we ate like that because my mom couldn't cook! I'm 50.

Meal 1. "Spanish Rice" = Campbell's Tomato Soup + Minute Rice + ground beef.
Meal 2. Beans & Cornbread (Jiffy mix)
Meal 3. Liver & Onions
Meal 4. Dried beef & white gravy on toast
Meal 5. Bisquick bisquits/canned Chicken a la King
Meal 6 (Saturday night) Pancakes
Meal 7 (Sunday morning) pot roast w/carrots & onions
Meal 8 (Sunday night) ICE CREAM

Weekend or midday meals when school wasn't feeding us: bologna sandwiches. Breakfast: cornflakes and milk.

Rinse, repeat, scramble the first five.

I save a lot of money on food. Never learned to cook. Vegetarian for 20+ years. Can't look at any of the above. The sight of a pancake will make me physically ill.

[slackmaster]

235. My stepfather hunted jackrabbits to feed himself, six siblings, and their mother before 1934

At which time he joined the Navy to get out of poverty.

[Pooka Fey]

237. I've read every story on this thread, and it makes me proud

to be an American. I feel almost silly saying that, I haven't felt proud about anything American since the 2000 s'Election. Thanks to everyone who has shared their stories, and thanks Horse with No Name for starting this awesome living American history thread. :applause:

[txlibdem]

238. All you young-uns talking about grandma and grampa

My parents went through the Great Depression, and now I'm going through the 2nd one (they just aren't calling it that today).

The difference now is that the crooks who caused the collapse in 1929 has the decency to jump out of windows, today they scream for their multi-million dollar bonuses and continue with their business-as-usual thievery.

[Kindigger]

240. Can I recommend a single post?

"The decency to jump out of windows."

[SheilaT]

242. Great Thread! I've learned a lot just reading through

it.

My parents grew up during the Depression (Dad was born 1913, Mom in 1916) although they were never as desperately poor as some have described here. But they did acquire habits that were passed on to us kids.

For years I kept a can of bacon drippings, just like my mom. I finally stopped doing it when I realized that there were better things out there to use for frying. And these days I don't very often fix bacon.

But I am very inclined to finish all of my food, and it bothers me a lot when I let something go bad in the refrigerator and have to throw it out. I sometimes find it hard to throw away things that have clearly outlived their usefulness.

Lucky for me I actually enjoy cooking, and since I live alone it can be possible to eat very frugally.

[xxqqqzme]

245. Bread was the filler.

My dad told me they (4 boys) had to eat bread w/ their meals. His mother made the bread every day and they would all get a thick slice. When we were growing up, my dad would put a slice of wonder type bread on all our plates. I would always put mine back. That air bread was not the same thing although I understand why he did it. My brother would scoop out all the white, roll it into a tight little ball and toss it to the dog when dad wasn't looking.

[Twostones]

246. For meat

When a robin landed close by and you could throw a rock then you had Robin breast with your gravy.

[deaniac21]

249. You can afford white gravy??? Wow!

[Honeycombe8]

252. The fare you describe as paultry and un-nutritious is just the opposite.

By being poor, they actually were eating very healthy. Whole grains, beans (protein and hi-fiber complex carbs), rice, gravy (some fat...probably too much), some dairy, country fresh organic eggs. Few preservatives, low sugar, hi fiber. The only thing is that it probably was too high sodium.

They no doubt had veggies and fresh fruits, since they had a yard and garden.

We are so used to our modern way of eating that this way of eating seems poor.

These days, that diet that you describe is how the better half lives. Oh, and tell your daughter that it's not healthy to eat much in the evenings/dinner.

[peacetalksforall]

256. There is something bothering me in this long, rewarding thread. Many

are saying they believe they will need the knowledge. Some say they work at living light.

Why? If there are many people who feel like this why can't we do something to prevent it?

If depression living is coming again, it's because of actions by those with the power?

Why let it happen?

What is wrong with our system?

Or is it an inevitable cycle?

I just know that I believe I am in sync with those who say we are going to face hard times and it seems we are just waiting? Is it because we would be ridiculed to even suggest it might happen - as a step to figuring out how to say no to those with the power?

To let it happen again is _______________________? Un-American?
We learned what _______________? That we can survive, our families did?

I really hope I am not spoiling the stories. I've read every one of them and I also thank the person who started this and everyone who shared.

I was born during that time, the oldest in the family, but I don't think we were ever totally without food - my Dad had a job making 25 cents an hour and my grandfather was a master at fixing things. He was old enough to have the tools from the pre-depression years. They were frugal starting out and very resourceful. And yes I remember the washing of bags - even the plastic ones and hanging them on a clothesline to dry and then turning them inside out to dry the other side. Saving everything. To this day, I only remember loving toast with honey and a little butter and a touch of cinammon. I have never ever ever liked white gravy.

Not only did people help each other - they were concerned for each other. Another universe compared to today.

There may be something we can do - figure out what laws and provisions would be needed and start fighting for them. Get it documented to seek agreement to move in an organized fashion and avoid chaos and desperation and wandering.

[deaniac21]

273. We can't do anything where I live. The dust storms are

preventing us fom evan leaving the house. My farm and still are both done for.

[MilesColtrane]

259. I never had it bad, like my grandparents did.

But, their frugality rubbed off on my parents.

From the earliest time I can remember until about nine years old, every Sunday night dinner (save holidays) consisted of peanut butter on toast.

Usually one other night a week dinner was fried bologna sandwiches on white bread with mayo and a glass of milk. Nom Nom!!