7 Cheap Recipes Straight From The Great Depression (2024)

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7 Cheap Recipes Straight From The Great Depression? ›

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, homemakers stretched their food budgets with soups, rice and pasta–but beans were the commodity no household went without: cheap, high protein, and no refrigeration required until cooked.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, homemakers stretched their food budgets with soups, rice and pasta–but beans were the commodity no household went without: cheap, high protein, and no refrigeration required until cooked.

Poor man's meal

Poor man's meal is a quintessential Great Depression-era food. Featuring onions, hot dogs, and potatoes, it provided exactly what people wanted during this time: A cheap, hearty meal. The dish is made by frying up cubed potatoes with slices of onion, and slices of hot dog.

Celery soup mixed with tuna fish and mashed potatoes. A salad of corned beef, gelatin and canned peas. Baked onion stuffed with peanut butter. Those are just some of the recipes Americans turned to during the Great Depression, when many families struggled to eat enough nutritious food.

Including ingredients like lobster, squab, oysters, tongue, crab, fruit punch, prunes, peaches, pineapple, honeydew melon and orange marmalade in the menu helped gentrify the meal and add that touch of elegant refinement that was so important.

Potatoes were also inexpensive and used extensively. Some meals even used both. One of these meals was called the Poor Man's Meal. It combined potatoes, onions, and hot dogs into one hearty, inexpensive dish, which was perfect for the hard times people had fallen on.

A gourmand, President Roosevelt had a taste for fancy Fifth Avenue foods like pâté de foie gras and Maryland terrapin soup. His menu that day was more humble: deviled eggs in tomato sauce, mashed potatoes and, for dessert, prune pudding.

Kibble + canned dog foods were introduced made out of dehydrated meat and grain mill scraps. Great Depression (30's - 40's): Canned pet food became 90% of the pet food market. WWII (1939-45): “Non-essential” pet food was not a priority during wartime and rationing.

What did hobos eat? ›

Hobo meals usual consist of meat and lots of veggies. Then they are wrapped up and cooked in the coals. The steam that gets locked in the foil cooks the food, and it stay moist and flavorful. This is my new twist on the traditional Hobo Meal – Sweet and Sour Meatball Hobo Meals.

A common depression cake is also known as "Boiled Raisin Cake", "Milkless, Eggless, Butterless Cake", or "Poor Man's Cake".

At this time popcorn was often a breakfast food, eaten from a bowl with milk just as we eat cereal today. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, popcorn's popularity as an everyday snack food started to grow. It was a fun and thrifty snack for families who could afford few luxuries.

During the Great Depression, soup kitchens were established to serve meals to those who could not afford them. For many, this was the only way to get a hot meal.

Nuts and seeds.

Walnuts offer high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, which support brain health. Other nuts and seeds such as pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, peanuts and almonds are also beneficial because they contain magnesium. This nutrient has been shown to boost levels of serotonin, the “feel-good” brain chemical.

Soup kitchens and bread lines were methods of feeding the neediest people in the country during the Great Depression. Run by charities, private companies, and the government, many soup kitchens and bread lines served thousands of people a day.

We had serious deflation in the Great Depression. The consumer price level fell by 25%; wholesale prices fell by 33%.

Meat was more of a scarcity and was not served at every Depression meal. When used, it was often combined with potatoes, onions, rice, macaroni, biscuits, and other extenders.

In the early 1930s prices dropped so low that many farmers went bankrupt and lost their farms. In some cases, the price of a bushel of corn fell to just eight or ten cents. Some farm families began burning corn rather than coal in their stoves because corn was cheaper.