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The great depression brought out both the resiliency and ingenuity of literally millions of people. With few options, people had to make do with what was on hand. Clothes were sewn with spare flour sacks and shoes repaired with cardboard.
Food, however, is where things got really interesting. Some foods were still plentiful and reasonably affordable, but others were scarce. How do you make a full meal when half your ingredients are missing?
You improvise and invent a whole host of crazy foods in the process. Here are some strange meals people ate during the Great Depression–meals we might all be eating again someday. (Most of the list items link to the recipe in case you want to try it.)
1. Corned Beef Salad – So corned beef salad doesn’t sound that bad…until you learn that it’s made with mayonnaise and Jello. Well, gelatin anyway. It’s a mixture of corned beef, eggs, mayonnaise, horseradish, and some vegetables, all held together in a loaf with plain gelatin. Yum…beef jello.
2. Dandelion Salad – These days, the foodie movement has just about everyone open to eating foods foraged from your yard, but back then dandelion salad was just weird. They did it because it was a way to get free food onto the table, and a bit of added vitamins in an otherwise bland depression diet.
3. Egg Drop Soup – Not anything like the egg drop soup you can order in modern Chinese restaurants, this soup started with fried potatoes and then added water. The mixture was brought to a boil, and then scrambled eggs were stirred in while the water was boiling. The whole thing was served over toast. I’m not sure why they didn’t just have eggs, potatoes, and toast, but perhaps the spirit of creativity took hold.
4. Frozen Fruit Salad – This particular dish was considered the ultimate treat for the holidays. There are many variations of this salad, but all have the same basic feel. Start with canned fruit and add whipped cream, eggs, flour, and any manner of other things (marshmallows, nuts, or whatever is available). Freeze the whole thing in trays and then serve.
5. Hoover Stew – Named after the president that took office right before the crash, Hoover Stew was the name for the cheap slop eaten by residents of shanty towns Recipes varied, but usually involved hot dogs, canned vegetables, and pasta or macaroni.
6. Ketchup, Mayonnaise or Onion Sandwiches – What do you do when you want a sandwich, but don’t have any meat or cheese to put in it? Put some ketchup between slices of bread and call it good. Mayonnaise sandwiches were also common, and honestly sound a lot better than the last option, plain onion sandwiches.
7. Kraft Mac and Cheese – Actually invented during the Great Depression, Kraft mac and cheese was advertised as an exercise in frugality. These days it’s commonplace, and it’s still a cheap way to put calories on the table, but back then a shelf-stable box with powdered cheese replaced a traditional homemade meal full of expensive ingredients like cheese and cream.
8. Loaves – These days, meatloaf is a simple and relatively cheap weeknight dinner. But how do you make it without ground beef? That’s how it became just “loaf” and it was made out of just about anything put into a loaf pan. Cheap foods like liver, peanuts, and raisins found their way into this catch-all food.
9. Milkorno – Invented by scientists at Cornell University in 1933 when they were looking for inexpensive ways to feed the masses, it’s a gruel made from dried powdered milk and cornmeal. Other variations like milkwheato (using wheat instead of corn) were also invented and were just as appetizing.
10. Mock Apple Pie – How do you make an apple pie without apples? It turns out there are a number of ways. One popular recipe involved stuffing a pie crust with Ritz and then covering them with cinnamon, butter, and sugar syrup. Other recipes substitute fruits or vegetables, like this mock apple pie made with zucchini.
11. Poor Man’s Meal – A mixture of hot dogs and potatoes, poor man’s meal was actually quite tasty. Potatoes were fried with onions until browned, and then chopped hot dogs were added. My grandmother made this for me as a child, and my mother had her own version, substituting kielbasa for the hot dogs, which made it much tastier.
12. Peanut Butter Stuffed Onions – Actually recommended by home economics teachers, peanut butter stuffed baked onions found its way onto tables. Can you imagine eating an onion stuffed with peanut butter?
13. Potato Pancakes – Potatoes were one of the most widely available foods, and they found their way into many dishes. Simple potato pancakes are some of the more appetizing ways they were eaten. They were made either by frying mashed potatoes or by binding grated potatoes together with flour and eggs.
14. Prune Pudding – Actually served at the White House as an act of solidarity with “the people who are suffering” in the streets, prune pudding is a simple mix of boiled prunes, sugar, and cornstarch. Sometimes seasoned, sometimes not, prune pudding had to fill in for dessert. It was generally served in small dishes, to prevent disastrous prune related consequences.
15. Red Velvet Cake – These days you can find red velvet cake recipes on fancy food blogs, but back then it was a cheap way to make an “almost” chocolate cake. Substituting vegetable oil for real butter, and using almost no cocoa, what the cake lacked in flavor it made up for in color.
16. Shit on a Shingle – This is also known as creamed chipped beef, but shit on a shingle about sums up the thoughts of those that had to eat it. In a nutshell, it’s dried beef that’s re-hydrated a bit in a sauce made with flour and butter, and then served on toast.
17. Spaghetti with Carrots and White Sauce – Eleanor Roosevelt herself recommended this dish for the frugal cook. It involved a casserole made out of intentionally overcooked mushy spaghetti and boiled carrots, covered in a pasty white sauce made from flour and butter.
18. Vinegar Pie – Though mock apple pie was one option, other pie recipes tried to get a “fruit pie” feel by substituting the tartness of fruit with vinegar. The dessert was made with a pie crust filled with butter, flour, sugar, and vinegar. Sounds horrible to me, but I guess it cant be that weird, even Martha Stewart has a recipe.
Know of any other strange meals people ate during the Great Depression? Tell us about it in the comment section below!
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#6 What wrong with this?
I’ve made Pickle Sandwiches. Cheese Sandwiches. BLT Sandwiches hold the B.
Stouffers tv dinners still sell creamed chipped (dried beef). Vinegar pie is an old Amish recipe still found in Amish cookbooks. Potato pancakes. Sheesh. I guess you haven’t had any contact with any Jews. Known as Latkes they are eaten every Hanakah all over the world. People in rural areas ate lots of game, including squrrel, opposum, javelina
#13. If you have any Jewish neighbors than you know what Latkes are. Potato pancakes.
I have had some of these on this list, one my grandmother used to make was a Butter and Milk soup with potatoes and green beans.
When i eat it now i find it hard not to just add meat, it a big staple on out homestead,
another meal that was made was fried okra, corn and tomato with left over cornbread in butter, sauté just for a few mins and your meal was ready to eat.
These were things my grandma made, then my mom and now me. Something to pass down.
I’m 70 now and I still like these foods. We had a big garden and my mom canned or pickled everything. She made the best sauerkraut.
Foods we ate and liked:
Creamed peas on toast,
spaghetti with butter, sugar and cinnamon (it’s good with any pasta)
Lime jello set with shredded carrots with miracle whip on top ( every holiday)
Potato pancakes with butter
Oatmeal, cream of wheat, more oatmeal. I liked it cold with lots of sugar.
And rice pudding.
Another mock apple pie was made with green tomatoes.
Corned beef hash… Basically spuds cut scallop-shaped, with sliced onions and cut up corned beef. The CB turns to a gravy, which could be seasoned with beef stock cubes. The edges of the scalloped potatoes, because they are thin will boil away, creating a gravy thickener.
Lol a large amount of popcorn. Pour about a half a glass of milk. put popcorn in milk ( you would be surprised how much popcorn you can put in your milk) eat like it’s cereal!
Potato pancakes and SOS are not strange meals! I still eat them!
I never heard of SOS other than being signal for help?….LOL.
Shit On a Shingle…
Exactly. Plus SOS and potato pancakes have been around longer than the great depression.
Hamburger Gravy is made by browning about 1/2 lb hamburger, then add about a table spoon of flour, and let that cook until it is really, really brown (under cooked is pasty) then add cut up potatoes and add water to top the potatoes, boil until the potatoes are soft. Stir and serve with sliced onion. I think that’s an old Kansas recipe from the depression.
What about good old pinto (brown) beans and corn bread? Called “poor man’s steak” because the combination is a more complete protein. I love that meal today with a slice of onion. Add some spinach and I’m in heaven. That is a pre, to post depression meal. Very filling and satisfying.
Stewed tomatoes and rice. Macaroni and tomatoes. Creamed tomatoes. Tomato sandwiches. Ketchup sandwiches. Sweet pickle sandwiches. Cucumber sandwiches. Onion sandwiches. Potatoes every which way, every meal. This is what I grew up on. We had a garden and we ate what we grew. I like this food.