Wisdom from The Action Wisdom In Action

Addendum to Exploratins of Depression/WW1/WW2 Cooking and Baking

I forgot to mention the almost comical menu plans: How to Feed a Family of 5 on $15 a Week, $3.00 Daily Menus for Seven, and where to buy bread for pennies a loaf.

Families used to make up their annual grocery budgets, showing bread/wheat, eggs, and other common staples at extremely paltry prices compared to today. On top of that, they had an unstable farm income to work with, making grocery "forecasting" that much more difficult.

Can you imagine making up a shopping list a year in advance? Most of us can't even determine our needs a WEEK in advance!

It's no wonder many women became entrepreneurs on the farm--unstable income, unpredictable weather, unpredictable markets, diseases, and fluctuating taste would be enough to drive anyone to go into town and seek a stable job. Farming was hard enough as SUBSISTENCE (growing what you need for yourself), but to make a profit year after year? The uncertainty of it all is what drove the farmers left today to "go big or go home" and to government subsidies for NOT growing anything.

Just once I'd like to see a dozen eggs on sale for pennies somewhere.

Still, these books give all kinds of clues for feeding the family for little money, and include recipes. You may not be able to feed a family of 7 for $15/week any more, but the ingredients used are relatively cheap nonetheless--provided you don't have food allergies.

I recommend you watch the sugar and salt in the recipes--they were created before we knew anything about cholesterol and before obesity and the risk of diabetes was so prevalent. These people may have needed the energy out on the farm, but we don't need it here today--couch potatoes don't need fuel.

Posted by Cute at 9:39 PM

Labels: economy, food preparation and use, food purchases, health, social issues