Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker
If you lived any time during the Great Depression, you may recall the shortage and the high cost of food.
I have heard and read about Victory Gardens and the various methods and substitutions which people used in order to enjoy and cook sone of their favorite foods.
If you ever gone to anyone’s house for dinner and a big, sloppy “secret family recipe” dish is flopped down in front of you, chances are high that the messy goodness could have originated from the Depression era.
Families were taught to creatively stretch out their food budgets and toast, potatoes and flour seemed to be the popular most inexpensive ingredients.
Some foods were actually invented during the Great Depression, such as Spam, Ritz crackers, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Kraft macaroni and cheese. (I did not know that Mac and cheese was that old.
Learning to “make due” with what they had sometimes took some creativity to feed a family.
Now here is a few foods that was served in the depression. Do you remember eating them?
There was milk toast, chipped beef on toast, cucumber and mustard sandwiches, mayonaise or ketsup sandwiches, turtle, gopher, hot rice and milk, potato soup with a water base, and lard sandwiches.
Some of these I have ate such as the chipped dried beef and hot milk toast. (With sugar and cinnamon)
I ran across a recipe the other day which sounds pretty good and I may have to try and bake one.
If you’ve never had or heard of Depression-Era Cake, or “Crazy Cake” as it’s also known, then you’re in for a real treat. This recipe goes as far back as the Great Depression.
It might seem crazy, hence the name, “Crazy Cake,” but this chocolate cake they say is just as good, if not better than one stuffed to the brim with butter, milk and eggs.
The fact that the cake itself is vegan should have everyone with an intolerance for eggs or dairy products jumping for joy.
Well here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
11/4 cups sugar
11/4 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T coffee, optional
11/2 tsp vanilla extract
11/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
Frosting:
21/2-3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, pinch of salt, teaspoon of coffee (optional), stir and pour batter into a lightly greased pan and bake in a 375 degree oven.
Another item that was served during the depression were onions and peanut butter.
Onions and peanut butter I hear was plentiful, so, whole onions were hallowed out and stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs and peanut butter. Of course I tried it and we did not like it.
I don’t know if I could have ate it during the Depression
If you have ever tried one of these recipes let me know how it turned out.
If you do I’ll give you a Penny for your Thoughts!
