I thought this thread was going to be about food to eat while depressed. I was really looking forward to some great comfort food ideas, but now I guess I’ll have to comfort myself with some cheap store-brand ice cream…
This reminds me of a restaurant I visited once in Changchun, China. It specialized in food eaten during the Cultural Revolution. The silkworms were a little yucky, but I liked the scorpions. Buttery.
My wife’s favorite inexpensive meal is rice porridge — it’s healthy, non-fattening, delicious and easy to digest as well as frugal.
Additions to the rice porridge are coriander (including root), onion plants, black pepper, garlic, a tiny bit of meat, and quite a bit of ginger. The ginger helps clear my sinuses.
We grow many of the ingredients, but need to buy a little pork at the market. (Sometimes our dogs will gift us one of the neighbor’s chickens but we discourage that!)
All right, rice porridge! I’ll have to try that if I can find any rice.
Today is not just the day of St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians, it is also the 85th anniversary of the Great Dust Storm. The song I’m posting went a long way in convincing me that my sad songs would never compete in the Sad Song Olympics and that I would be better off focusing on something else, heh.
*
On the 14th day of April, of 1935
There struck the worst of dust storms, that ever filled the sky*
Possum stew.
The story is that this was so popular with Southerners, that during the depression when they went out west to get CCC and other work, they brought possums with them in cages. Some of which escaped and that is why they are now found in that region when they weren’t before. (Possums, not Southerners.)
I have been making a lot of soups. It’s a good way to use up stuff in the cabinets and the freezer, like half a bag of red lentils and that one pork chop in the freezer. The grocery store is just about out of real cheese so tonight I’ll be stooping to mac’n’cheese made with American Cheese. A lot of dishes shift from the original form, the Cajun food I intended to make over the weekend shifted to Creole style, then Cuban because of the ingredients I had. All just as good, a nice excuse to go even more free form than I usually do.
It was even served in the White House. Pic here is in Atlanta, though. Anybody know what it tastes like?
Find the old Euell Gibbons books (I have the series, including Stalking The Wild Asparagus and Stalking The Healthful Herbs) and go rustle up meals made from wild forage.
I’ve been thinking of picking a mess o’ wild violet greens, which “infest” our lawn. I’ve cooked them up before, and they’re not unlike spinach. Supposedly you can also make violet syrup out of the blossoms.
If coffee becomes scarce, we can always make our own from roasted chicory roots and suchlike. Blurggh.
Euell once described silencing doubters by preparing a meal from stuff he found in Central Park, though I would probably be squeamish about wild food harvested in a big city.
I’ve been harvesting dandelions for our tortoise (the flowers are a delicacy) and pick wild violets while I’m at it. The violet flowers are tiny!
Oh, those beans, bacon, and gravy,
They almost drive me crazy
I eat them till I see them in my dreams…
When our day’s work is done
We file in one by one
And thank the lord for one more mess of beans.
Actual Depression food. AKA “soup beans,” “hobo beans,” and “hillbilly beans.” Cheap as hell, and delicious.
Wash and soak a pound of pinto beans overnight. Bring them to a boil in their soaking water. Add a chunk of salt pork, smoked pork neckbone, bone-in bacon, supermarket bacon if you have to, But SOME kind of smoked pork, along with a chopped onion and garlic clove or two. Simmer uncovered for at least two hours, stirring once in a while, toward the end smash some of the soft beans against the side of the pot to thicken the liquid into “gravy.” Season with salt and pepper and serve in bowls along with raw green onions (or slices of raw yellow onion), and fresh hot cornbread with good butter.
Ever lick a river? 
Oh, yeah…near the end of cooking take out the pork and separate meat from the bone and/or fat; throw the meat back into the pot.
Kosher or vegetarian hoboes can leave out the meat. Just add a couple glugs of olive oil — to replace the richness — near the end of cooking time.
Not Depression-era food, but cheap, tasty and nutritious:
Garbanzos, lentils and white (navy or similar) beans. I alternate the three, and usually eat them every other day. It’s imporant to use beans that aren’t too old, so find a reliable brand. Doesn’t have to be a premium brand.
Pork ribs. I use whole individual ribs. Just add salt (and pepper if you like) and fry them in a suitably sized skillet (big enough to fit without overcrowding) and enough oil to coat the bottom. Turn a few times until well browned and a little crispy on the edges. They’re extraordinarily good straight out of the pan, but I scrape the meat off the bones and use it for my own version of tacos and gyros (corn and flour flatbread, respectively). Four ribs about 10 inches long yield meat for three servings. You can use other meats, too (fish, etc.)
Meatballs. You can make them with beef and/or pork, but also chicken, fish and probably other things.
Gyōzas are another great way to stretch scraps into a good meal. I buy the wrappers and fill them with shredded cabbage, carrot, onion, ginger and usually ground pork, but any protein will work.
I do good old fashioned Bean with Bacon using Navy Beans (white beans, Great Northern, etc.), and bacon. Dice up anything else ya got and toss it in.
My mother grew up during the Depression, and she was very big on split pea soup. She used to use the water from boiled corned beef and cabbage, with small bits of the corned beef thrown in. It was fantastic.
We were still poor in the 1950s-1960s, and we ate a lot of that Government Cheese and rice. She used to fry rice and onions with melted cheese, which was one of my favorite lunches. I still make it for breakfast sometimes, but add bacon, green peppers, and tomatoes.
Great Depression Cooking With Clara Channel
Authentic Depression-era recipes, the internet’s eternal grandma being redicovered buy COVID-19s self-isolated. Come for the cooking, stay for the sweetness and sanity.
When I was growing up (poor, but Mom was really good at being poor), one common meal in our house was creamed eggs on toast: Sliced hardboiled eggs arranged over a couple of slices of toast, with a white sauce poured over all of it.
And dandelion salad has ALWAYS been an Easter tradition in my family. For us-- We’re not sharing with any turtles.
I’ve heard that. Wish I’d remembered it on St. Paddy’s Day.
From memory of what my grandmother liked to cook: Black-eyed peas and baby potatoes. Fried chicken. The later she raised herself and sold the extra eggs. Store bought would be unthinkable.
That corned beef cabbage broth sounds like a great idea. And an excuse to pull cabbage into the discussion. I can’t say I’ve ever made a chart of products at the grocery store arranged by price per calories, or per nutrients. A good Boy Scout would do something like that. But just eyeballing the grocery store, cabbage strikes me as just about the cheapest thing available. I’ve long boiled it with kielbasa + potatoes, onion, carrot, celery, garlic by order of firmness of veggie. Now would be a good time to try something new with cabbage.
I don’t know about eating varmints. Rabbits, squirrels, possums, eh, my attitude towards those is kind of like the old Hebrews’ attitudes toward shellfish or cloven hoofed livestock. I don’t mean I have an actual religious objection, I just believe that I don’t eat varmints. Hopefully my proactive frugality helps me avoid the future where I am so desperate I change positions on this. There’s raccoons, foxes and coyotes around here- those are also varmints. Prairie dogs too. Maybe it is time to learn to hunt deer, elk, turkey, boar, or rustle up a good fishing spot. Does anyone still hunt goose these days? Maybe a duck if I can find some…
ETA: Could be wrong about possums being varmints.