Foods that were once popular in the Great Depression are making a comeback in 2020, as bare
store shelves and panic buying have forced people to get creative in the kitchen. Here are some of
the Depression-era foods like meatloaf that are weirdly returning to many American dinner tables.
Dinner couldn't get simpler than old-fashioned baked beans. Beans are low-cost, filling,
and can be bought in bulk. Baked beans are also super easy to make on the stovetop.
Navy beans are a staple at barbecues, but are great year-round when you're looking for a
simple home-cooked meal. Celebrate Boston explains baked beans go back as far as the first Pilgrims,
cooked the night before the Sabbath to avoid cooking on the holy day.
The secret to truly flavorful 1930s Boston-style baked beans
is the addition of bacon, honey, and molasses. The beans aren't fussy,
so you can soak your own and start from scratch or use canned beans. You can even
put your own spin on the Depression-era food if you don't have the sweeteners,
or if you run out of bacon or fatback. You can add spices such as cayenne or a splash of beer.
Or? You can add hot dogs. In the 1930s, vegetable stands started offering the "Depression sandwich":
a hot frankfurter on a roll with fries and a rotating selection of vegetables on top.
This working-class hot dog also made its way onto dinner plates
at home as a cheap meat that many could afford at the local butcher.
Home cooks paired wieners and beans as a hearty meal that could flavor the
meat and fill up the whole family. Mixing in vegetables, seasonings,
and onions are also easy ways to stretch out the humble dogs into a more filling main dish.
Chocolate cake from the Depression era might have pared down ingredients,
but it doesn't skimp on flavor. Recipes were close to what many chefs have
recently embraced as vegan variations. Ann Arbor News explains that milk, eggs,
and butter were scarce or rationed in the Depression, so home cooks became inventive.
"This time around I know what I'm fightin' for."
"Oh yeah? What's that, Jimmy?"
"Milk."
The Today show spoke to culinary expert Tracy Wilk
about how many cakes that originated during the era, such as red velvet,
used oil instead of butter to stay cost-effective. In a typical recipe, butter keeps cake soft and
tender thanks to its fat content. This prevents the gluten in flour from making the dessert tough.
In this "wacky" variation on chocolate cake, vegetable oil is often recommended,
but any neutral oil will work as a butter substitute. The oil doesn't
need to be refrigerated and is dairy-free. This cake recipe also removes the eggs,
which normally serve as an agent to make the cake rise and take shape. Instead of eggs,
the wacky cake uses a combination of vinegar and baking soda to cause a volcano effect.
The idea to use Graham crackers for pie crust during the Great Depression was partially because
of Nabisco's marketing efforts. WBUR reports that Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham
educated the public about the importance of fiber and unprocessed grains in the 19th century.
Graham railed against the evils of bakers using white sugar and
whole wheat. He felt food should be homemade, not mass-produced.
In response, bakers in Boston started making cracker-shaped cookies they called "Graham
crackers." The minister surely would have hated these treats for their processed ingredients
and commercial producers. The same Boston bakers formed a coalition that would one day
become the National Biscuit Company, known today as Nabisco. To avoid a drop in sales
during the Great Depression, Nabisco created newspaper ads disguised as editorials they
called "Cracker Cookery," claiming science proved the health value of the crackers.
The ads showed the crackers could be used as a cheap and simple pie crust made without flour,
sugar, or a rolling pin. Depression-era bakers around the country updated key lime
pie and cheesecake recipes, among others, to be made with graham cracker crusts.
And many bakers still turn to those recipes today.
Baking bread during the 2020 quarantine has become a social media phenomenon. For those who could
find the ingredients, anyway. For many, finding yeast was a fool's errand as shelves were emptied
from panic buying. Delish reported online searches for "yeastless bread recipes" went up by a factor
of 44, and phrases like "no egg cake recipe" and "canned ham recipes" started trending worldwide.
A Depression-era "quick bread" recipe using peanut butter and no yeast originally appeared in the
Five Roses Cook Book from a Canadian flour company in 1932. That peanut butter bread resurfaced
during the pandemic on Reddit as some people found they had more time to play at home in the kitchen.
Quick breads lend themselves to dense, dessert-style recipes.
Today found the total cooking time can be cut in half thanks to baking powder.
Peanut butter bread likewise doesn't require kneading the bread or waiting for it to rise.
Peanut butter bread is a "make-do" recipe that feels as relevant today
as it did when food shortages and rationing became common in the 1930s.
Meatloaf is an affordable and hearty meal that seems to go in and out of style.
Its obvious main appeal is its ability to stretch out meat with as much filling
and flavor as possible. The savory loaf transforming a bit of ground beef into a
main dish is one of the reasons meatloaf became a popular Depression-era food.
The Oxford Companion to Food found meatloaf first mentioned in the U.S. in 1899. The
view of meatloaf as comfort food stems from its frequent appearance on dinner plates in the 1930s.
Warm and filling, meatloaf still provides a cheap and nourishing meal when wallets are thin.
The secret is using otherwise tough cuts of beef like chuck or rump that become tender
after grinding. Small amounts of beef or veal are stretched by adding fillers such as crackers,
quick-cooking oats, tapioca, and breakfast cereal. Throw on some ketchup to maximize
flavor without a hefty cost. For many who grew up eating this dish,
its return to dinner plates is a reminder of what comfort food really is.
"Hey mom! The meatloaf! We want it now! The meatloaf!"
That same plant that's threatening your pristine lawn? It's a nutritional food source. Mother Earth
News found harvesting wild dandelions has long been a springtime tradition. Dandelions. have
been vilified as a weed in the U.S.; an estimated 80 million pounds of pesticides are used each year
to eradicate dandelions and other plants that are perceived to be invasive. But the plant's
benefits are many, and some savvy home cooks are turning back to the land for inspiration.
Clara Cannucciari, the Depression-era chef who lived to be 98, learned how to make a dandelion
salad by harvesting the bitter greens when she lived through the massive economic downturn. The
key is to avoid any areas that might be treated with pesticides, clean the plants well, and
discard any brown leaves and flowers. An expert in Depression-era cooking, Cannucciari demonstrated
the simple and budget-friendly recipes that feel all the more relevant during the 2020 pandemic.
While the dandelion greens can be served fresh, Cup of Zest recommends sauteing and
wilting the greens in bacon fat. The hot greens are served with bacon and a hard-boiled egg to
make the dish a heartier meal. If you haven't used dandelion greens before, look for smaller leaves,
thinner stalks, and bunches that don't taste bitter when you take a bite.
No food went to waste during the widespread hardships of the Great Depression.
Cooks stretched meals with what little meat they could get, grew their own food, and foraged.
Avoiding waste has made a resurgence in recent years by using the whole animal,
a method called "nose to tail" for its use of even lesser-known cuts, bone marrow, and
organs like liver to make delicious yet unexpected foods. Eating the "whole plant" — root to leaves,
perhaps — is a newer approach speaking to the same desire to eliminate waste.
Depression-era potato pancakes are way ahead of the trend for their ability to transform
leftovers into a new meal. Frying up the leftover mashed potatoes or potato scraps in oil creates a
hearty pancake. Many chefs will recognize the potato pancake as a make-do version of latkes.
The Buffalo News explains how the potato pancake can be personalized based on your tastes
and available pantry items. Grate the potatoes fine or coarse or use mashed potatoes.
Then add bread crumbs or matzo meal to make this timeless dish all your own.
There's a reason rice pudding is as popular today as it was nearly a century ago. Rice pudding is a
"stick to your ribs"-style dessert that became popular out of necessity during the Depression.
This budget-friendly snack is easy to make but can feel like a luxury. It's not hard to see
why this comfort food gained popularity during the 2020 pandemic. You can make it with just
four ingredients, and the shelf-stable sticky rice makes it ideal for times of uncertainty.
Rices typically used for risotto and sushi contain more starch and make a creamy,
pudding-like consistency. You can heat rice with sugar and milk to make this sweet snack. This is
one dish that is tasty and offers many variations. In Ireland, rice pudding is served warm. It can
also be refrigerated and served cold, as is common in the States. You can also add vanilla, cinnamon,
and jam to the top to bring additional flavor that might have been hard to come by during the '30s.
This Depression-era food is ideal for anyone looking to save money or try a new recipe.
Chipped beef was a Depression-era staple thanks to its budget-friendly ingredients and surprisingly
addictive taste. Eat This, Not That found that chipped beef on toast originated as a staple in
the diets of members of the U.S. military during World War I, who nicknamed it "SOS." The "SOS"
initials could mean many things, including the PG version, "same old stuff." In the Depression,
most meat, except for hot dogs, cost too much or was unavailable to the general public. Chipped
beef was preserved in a can, like spam or tuna, making it cheaper and more widely available.
"I can't tell you how full I am with salted meat. I'd eat two more cans if I could."
Chipped beef on toast consists of white sauce or gravy with pieces of dried beef spread over
toasted bread. You can also try the chipped beef gravy over biscuits, potatoes, egg noodles, rice,
or in casseroles. The sauce can be made similar to how you make a béchamel or gravy with flour,
butter, and milk. Stir in the salty chipped beef and serve over your bread of choice.
Water pie is as simple as it gets. Cooks in the 1930s used water as a filler when they didn't
have much of the other staples of the kitchen. All you need to make this sweet, buttery dessert
is hot water, vanilla, sugar, butter, flour, and pie crust. Can't get easier than six ingredients.
Parade explains that while water is the main ingredient, this dessert is far from a soupy mess.
It's a genuinely good, sweet alternative to make if you're low on milk or yeast.
Chilling the pie is how this thin filling keeps its shape. Southern Plate explains
the deep-dish pie crust holds the magic together and makes a big difference if you
want to avoid a bubbled over disaster while baking. Amish365 found if you don't have
vanilla on hand, you can make a variation on the six-ingredient pie by substituting some cinnamon.
According to Living History Farm, the main foods rationed during the Great Depression were sugar,
coffee, meat, fish, butter, eggs, and cheese. The government rationed food items to prevent
hoarding, prepare for war efforts, and to try to stabilize the economy. Panic buying
became a harsh reality for people across the country during the pandemic, so cooks
turned to old-fashioned alternatives such as poor man's cake for a sweet dessert or a hearty snack.
Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, and raisins are the star of the show in this
pared-down dessert. Cream cheese frosting adds additional sweetness and a sour bite.
Instead of eggs, the cake calls for cheaper baking soda to get more of a fluff.
Plan on a dense and hearty texture if you make it. And spices such as ginger,
clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg make it perfect for the winter season.
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