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My Explorations of Depression/WW1/WW2 Cooking, Baking, and Home Life

After ravenously devouring Eating For Victory, A Prairie Kitchen, and Hearts & Homes (more books on order), in search of recipes of the "ration" spirit combined with gluten-free ingredients (or easily-converted ingredients), along with all the stories an sidebars tucked in between the recipes, I get a better sense of what it was like back in those times (on the farm and elsewhere).

In spite of well-known war rationing, I see recipes that pre-date that time (from the Roaring 20's) that call for up to 2 cups of sugar--either all white sugar, a combination of white and brown sugars, or half sugar and half molasses. Recipes dated during and after the Depression cut back to 1 cup even 1/2 cup of sugar, with a modest few going less than that.

We now know where our sweet tooth comes from!

As far as life in general goes in these books, it seems I was right about the farmers making out better than anyone else. Farmers who had a sense of efficiency about their operations did the best.

Wives who had a sense of meat and crop market ups and downs helped them best--when meat, milk, or certain crops weren't commanding a good price, they stepped in and filled the gap with homemade quilts, canned/tinned/baked items or produce for sale or barter, taking in sewing or laundry, making clothes from scratch, or exploiting any other talent they may have...in addition to making sure the household ran smoothly and efficiently, and rearing kids.

Even back then we were overproducing, but the government was stepping in and buying some excess for soldiers and creating a national stockpile for future disasters and foreign aid (what do you think we're sending to Haiti?).

It was this unevenness, or view that some had too much while some had nothing, that led to The New Deal. Like Scarlett O'Hara, leaders of this country vowed we would never again go hungry with the social policies that came with this new Deal.

There will always be uneveness, and some having "too much" while some "have nothing" as long as we continue to abdicate our futures and personal freedoms to others--government in particular.

If we all worked to secure our own efficiency and our own sources of "must haves", then we gain personal freedom, a more leverl playing field, and breathing room to make better choices for ourselves and our futures. Independence can be a wonderful thing.

These families had it (thanks to some hard-working men and women) back in a time of much fewer modern conveniences than we have (and dismiss) today, and we can have it tomorrow (you'd think, given the convenience and inherent efficiencies), but we have to turn our backs on the one obvious source of security and stability: government. The cost is just too dear to submit, and as we can see today, government itself is not too big to fail.

Perhaps we need to get back to simple, prairie life (minus the outhouses and wood stoves) and learn how to become more efficient and independent. Simple Depression life with less sugar, wheat, eggs, fat, and other items sounds like what we need now to combat obesity and food allergies (some might add ADHD and autism). Mother and father working together to make money is what we need right now, even when jobs are scarce.

There is a wonderful story in Heats & Homes about a man and wife who (after much deliberation about the startup cost) invested in a home canning machine, and proceeded to can their own excess corn, undercutting the local canned corn dealer by .05--a big deal back then. Needless to say, they made their investment money back in the first 6 orders, and produced at a profit after that (I don't know if they exist today--chances are that they quit, died off, or sold their operation).

My own romantic notion is that they became Libby's canned vegetables--so named after the farmer's wife. More than likely, they quit canning after the Depression ended.

These three books are full of stories about tough times, what people did to fight them, and the realization that everything will be okay on the other side.

A really nice tie-in is the amount of India flatbread recipes I've managed to find that don't call for wheat flour--they use ground beans instead. No sugar, no yeast, no fat (except maybe to coat the skillet), no dairy, no eggs, and no wheat--just ground beans into bean flours, sometimes rice flour mixed in, and some water, then left to ferment overnight. Perfect "rationing" recipes and perfect gluten-free recipes--as far as I can tell, beans weren't on the rationing list.

Let the commodity traders do their worst! While they're busy bidding up the price of wheat and corn, I'll be just fine...sittin' on that there sack of beans (tip of the hat to Jim Stafford and the WildWood Weed).

Beans are always cheap when bought in bulk, and store well. To Obama and inflation, I fart in your general direction! :)

Related article: The Amish--Their Past and Present May Hold Our Future

Posted by Cute at 10:43 PM

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