Weird Foods People Ate to Get Through the Great Depression

In 1929, a massive stock market crash marked the beginning of a global economic

depression

that lasted nearly a decade and would prove to be the longest and most widespread in recent history. Increased refrigeration, changes in the food supply chain, and the increased need for affordable meals caused a drastic change in the American diet. Putting food on the table was difficult. And sometimes using what was available led to some pretty strange recipes. Today we will look at the strange

foods

people

eat to get through the Great Depression. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let us know in the comments below what other historic era

foods

you'd like to know about.

Well, get your plate in for some good Depression-era stew. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was not going to let the Depression bring down her fellow Americans. As an early proponent of the home economics movement, she planned inexpensive, nutritious meals for Cornell's Home Economics department. Although FDR had a bit of a sweet tooth, both the first lady and the president practiced healthier eating habits during the Great Depression. According to their book, A Square Meal-- A Culinary History of the Great Depression, food historian Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe noted that the Roosevelts ate this way to send a message to Americans about how to eat in difficult times.

Instead of foie gras or appetizers, FDR had to eat simple meals, at least when guests or the press were around. Denture-friendly dishes, such as deviled eggs and ketchup with mashed potatoes or tomato bean casserole, were typical White House dishes. Sounds like something you'd find in the frozen dinner aisle. It is not necessary to apply flavors or spices. Dessert arrived in the form of a prune whip, a delicious dish made with everyone's favorite dried fruit: prunes. Prunes and other dried fruits were common substitutes for fresh fruit during the Depression. So plum pudding was an easy substitute for freshly baked pies or other desserts.

It's also easy to do. All you need is a little sugar, egg whites and a bunch of prunes. Whisk it all together and you'll have a truly normal dessert in no time. Everyone loves peanut butter and everyone loves onions, right? Both items were available during the Depression. And someone decided to mix the two. This resulted in a very surreal Great Depression cookbook concoction: baked onion stuffed with peanut butter, okay. Promoted by the Bureau of Home Economics, the recipe for peanut butter and stuffed onions was published in several newspapers and magazines of the time. The Bureau's professional home economists actively encouraged American housewives to serve this economical product to their families.

Food historians Andrew Coe and Jane Ziegelman decided to try making the dish themselves more recently. Coe said it was not a popular addition to the table. Ziegelman put it more succinctly, pointing out that peanut butter has nothing to do with a baked onion. The Home Economics Office actually took the phrase literally: there was no explanation for taste when they came up with that one. Ritz Crackers are not crackers. But they are

great

for a light snack or handy to use in a sauce. Um, good cookie. But they have an unlikely alternative use: a substitute for apple pie filling.

Ritz mock apple pie is pretty much what it sounds like: a pie made with Ritz crackers as a filling. The traditional ingredients of an apple pie combined with lemon juice and the unique texture of Ritz crackers created a flavor meant to simulate a real apple pie. Considered today a Depression-era favorite, this pastry imposter has its roots in the 1880s, when apple shortages demanded substitutes for pie fillings. Soda crackers were a cheap alternative to America's favorite fruit. And mock apple pies were popular during tough times. At some point, Nabisco began putting the recipe on the back of Ritz Cracker boxes, where it would remain until the 1980s.

After 1,500 requests for the recipe in a single year, the company restored it to its packaging in 1991. It remains one of the Ritz's most requested recipes today. If an apple pie without apple sounds delicious to you, you can try making it yourself. Simply substitute 36 lightly crushed Ritz crackers for the apples in your favorite recipe. And you'll be baking a mock cake just in time for dessert. Eleanor Roosevelt did everything she could to promote the home economy during the Depression. That didn't mean she didn't send out some really strange dishes during that time. Take the case of a disgusting casserole made with spaghetti, boiled carrots and white sauce.

Unlike traditional pasta cooking methods, this recipe called for cooking the spaghetti for a full 25 minutes. Once the pasta turned into a sad noodle mush, you were supposed to mix it with similarly boiled carrots. A smooth white sauce made with milk, flour, salt and butter finished off this off-white al dente dish. Roosevelt called it a vehicle of nutrition and nutrients. But you'd probably rather eat an old flapper hat. Vinegar-based desserts were popular in the 19th century, but made a comeback during the Depression. More commonly known as desperation cakes, these treats mix basic ingredients like eggs, butter, and sugar with some type of substitution.

In this case, apple cider vinegar replaces fresh apples. It's the fantastic tart taste of apple pie without any of the annoying fruit. Cooks can beat eggs and sugar into a delicious meringue to stylishly complete the tangy dessert. Apparently it tastes like custard with salt and vinegar. And it leaves your palate tingling. Hmm. If you fancy a vinegar cobbler, don't despair. In 2015, award-winning chef Chris Shepherd began serving the dish in his Houston restaurants, helping the vinegar cobbler make a comeback in recent years. In a recipe straight out of the "Haywire Mac" songbook, Mulligan's stew was basically hobo food, not to be confused with the short-lived 1977 NBC comedy of the same name.

Our two families became one after a tragic plane crash in Hawaii. --Mulligan's stew was a community food made from whatever food they could gather and prepare. In his book Riding on Rails: Teens on the Move during the Great Depression, Errol Lincoln Uys describes the dish as a mix of almost everything. People predominantly cooked Mulligan stew with stolen onions, corn, potatoes, foraged vegetables and occasionally pieces of meat. Enterprising hobo chefs can add a handful of white beans or anything else that can add some flavor to the dish. But the real secret ingredient was just a little Bull Durham tobacco and everyone's favorite flavor enhancer: fluff.

Hmm. That's a meal I couldn't ask for more. Dining at the White House during the Great Depression wasn't exactly luxurious. Take the case of Milkorno. On a supposedly dark and stormy night in 1933, several mad scientists at Cornell University invented a porridge known as Milkorno. Its alive! Scientists intended this mixture of skim milk powder, corn flour and salt to help families stretch their food budgets. Milkorno came with this somewhat dubious promise of allowing meals for a family of five for five dollars a week. And, of course, Eleanor Roosevelt delivered in the White House. But Milkorno was not the only food supplement based on milk, corn flour and salt.

There was also Milkwheato and Milkoato, both bought in bulk by the government. The government even purchased 25 million pounds of dystopian powder to use in various hunger relief efforts. And although they all turn into porridge after boiling, the Bureau of Home Economics inexplicably suggested that Milkorno corner was a good substitute for noodles in chop suey. Well, at least there's a lot of toxicity in those things. Despite some of the strange things

people

had to eat during the Depression, in the midst of it all arose a modern culinary staple: the one and only Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinner.

According to the Smithsonian, Thomas Jefferson served macaroni and cheese at an 1802 state dinner after falling in love with the dish while he was visiting France. It wasn't a completely new concept at the time. But the idea of ​​packaging it and selling it as an inexpensive meal was. In 1937, a dishonest salesman at the St. Lewis-based Tenderoni Macaroni Company began selling his noodles with packets of Kraft shredded cheese attached. Kraft soon hired the enterprising salesman to promote the food to cash-strapped Americans. The dinner was a

great

success and sold for 19 cents for four servings. Its speed was a selling point, with one of the first print ads featuring a happy, bewildered husband asking: how the heck did you make this spicy macaroni and cheese so quickly?

Wow, we just got home. Kraft Dinner, as it is known in the Great White North, became a staple of modern college cuisine and today holds a special place in our hearts. Food historians generally agree that breads were very popular during the Great Depression. Lunch breads were made from a central ingredient and cheaper ingredients that would lengthen everything. A Depression-era menu might contain delicacies like liver bread, fava beans, and peanut bread. Authentic meatloaf was a luxury, but was still relatively affordable if filled with other ingredients such as crackers or bread. And just like today, ketchup and canned soup offered more flavor for a small additional cost.

Food historian Ziegelman and Coe baked some soy into bean bread. Keeping it tastes a little like falafel, but it should be served with lots of very spicy sauce. Some historians believe the federal government made a mistake by overlooking the contribution and creativity of immigrants to famine relief efforts during the Great Depression. Italian immigrants were sometimes known for preparing delicious, highly nutritious, and inexpensive foods for their families. However, the government chose to overlook his methods as a source of inspiration for famine relief. A delicious, vitamin-packed ingredient that Italian immigrant women sourced in New York City came in the form of dandelion leaves.

Straight from the front yard to the table, dandelion greens were added to salads, sautéed, or cooked with olive oil to create an essentially free meal. If you needed a cheap source of protein during the 1930s, gelatin was probably your go-to ingredient. Many Depression-era cookbooks featured gelatin as a base for such innovative recipes as corned beef salad and other frozen salads. Um, bright, crunchy vegetables in fresh, glistening gelatin. There's a salad for you. Congealed Salads may sound like the name of a band from the '90s. But they were authentic dishes that people eat during difficult times.

The corned beef salad was particularly repulsive, with its unholy mixture of corned beef, gelatin, canned peas, vinegar, and lemon juice. Some reports from people brave enough to try it today describe it as wrong in every possible way, from color to smell, texture, taste and mouthfeel. They may look, smell, and probably taste like canned cat food. But you simply can't deny the versatility of gelatin in the kitchen. Have you made a jello salad lately? Well, do it this week. Hey. There's always room for a jello salad. Do you have milk? The people who struggled to survive during the Great Depression certainly did.

Milk also aroused the interest of nutritionists, who gave it enormous importance as a kind of superfood. Cow's milk was a wonderful food at that time. Full of vitamins, fats, sugar and protein, it met nutritional needs and practical purposes during the period. Milk was also used in tons of recipes of the time, from flavorless white sauces and cornstarch puddings, to fortified foods like Milkorno. Of course, the sheer amount of milk given to school children was quite impressive. As the government advised, almost a liter a day. School lunches almost always included a good glass of milk to accompany the day's meal.

Chipped or frizzled beef has been a breakfast option in some parts of the United States since the 19th century, eventually appearing in a 1910 military cookbook called Manual for Military Cooks. Since then, roasted meat with pieces of cream has been a popular food.army basic with a colorful name, in a Shingle or SOS. The old frontier favorite enjoyed a resurgence during the Depression. According to culinary historians Siegelman and Coe, the version from this era was a combination of canned meat, natural gelatin, canned peas, vinegar, and lemon juice, and it was wrong in every possible way. That doesn't mean some people aren't nostalgic for SOS today.

SOS was often served during World War II. And even the TV show Mash used it as a running joke. You forgot his tile, doctor! Nothing represents America better than hot dogs. Everyone's favorite processed meat product was a surprisingly versatile ingredient in times of scarcity. Although many Depression-era recipes incorporating hot dogs had grim names, such as Poor Man's Stew or Hoover Stew, they gave rise to surprisingly good recipes, rounds of sliced ​​hot dogs, with cooked macaroni, cans of stewed tomatoes, and canned corn or peas of the time. at the time. Modern cooks are working hard to bring back Hoover stew these days, occasionally substituting more sophisticated ingredients for the canned vegetables of yesteryear.

Enjoy. So what do you think? Which Great Depression food is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Strange History.