Great Depression meals

That got me to thinking about the foods my grandmother cooked for her family and mine during that economic collapse.

I was able to taste a lot of her cooking at family reunions in her small frame home in Southeast Missouri. She handed down some of those recipes and cooking tips to my mother, who passed them down to me.

Of course, there were fried potatoes with onions. Using real potatoes, mom would cube or slice them into fingerlike pieces then put them in an iron skillet with a dab of shortening. She would then dice an onion and add that to the raw potatoes, season with salt and pepper, cover with a lid, then slowly fry them on top the kitchen stove. Ever so often she would remove the lid and stir the potatoes to prevent sticking. I have seen her add a spoon of water to soften the potatoes while they cooked.

These potatoes were often served with fried baloney (bologna). The baloney didn't want to lie flat, therefore mom cut three or four long slits in each slice before she put it in the skillet to fry. That way it would lie flat and brown more evenly. Baloney was also used in sandwiches.

Weiners and kraut was an inexpensive dish. One package of weiners cut in bite sizes and boiled in kraut made a main dish.

We also ate a lot of fried fish which my dad caught in the Mississippi River or nearby lakes.

When mom made meatloaf, she used bread as a filler. She would pinch bread into small pieces and add this to the hamburger meat. That made it "go farther," she said.

In our house we ate a lot of Great Northern beans, sometimes called white beans or soup beans. My mom would first rinse and sort the dry beans, changing the water two or three times. She discarded any beans with flaws. Sometimes she would soak the beans overnight before she cooked them the next day. That was to speed up the cooking process. Most often, she didn't presoak the beans. For variety, she sometimes cooked big butterbeans, brown pinto beans or small navy beans.

Mom made do with leftovers.

Any leftover white beans were used in bean cakes. The cooked beans were mashed with a fork or potato masher. Then depending on how many beans there were, flour was sprinkled and added to the mashed beans (maybe a fourth of a cup), then an egg or two, salt and pepper. The ingredients were then mixed thoroughly, formed into several patties, then slowly fried in an iron skillet, with a small amount of shortening. Since the bean cakes soaked up the shortening, it was necessary to add a bit more during cooking to prevent scorching. The cakes were turned over two or three times while they cooked for even browning.

My mother used the same process to make potato cakes. All she did was substitute leftover mashed (creamed) potatoes for leftover cooked beans. Leftovers were served at a second meal or were incorporated into other dishes. Leftover carrots, peas, cabbage were added to homemade soups. We ate many one-pot meals, like vegetable soup or chili or spaghetti.

Sometimes for breakfast, mom would fix pancakes made from flour and water. She made syrup by boiling water and sugar, two parts sugar to one part water, in a pan on the stove. After it boiled for a few minutes some of the water evaporated. Then she would pour the sweet syrup over our cooked pancakes. She usually made about a cup or two of syrup which was enough for the whole family.

Store bought oleo came with a small package of coloring. Mom would knead the coloring into the white lard-looking oleo, making it resemble butter. That was the only "butter" available to us.

Many families had home gardens. Food from the garden was canned; fruit was preserved. We had green beans, beets and chow chow relish.

Dad had planted a small grape arbor in our backyard. We ate the sweet dark berries from the vine. Mom also made grape jelly which we spread on our from-scratch biscuits.

Then there was milk gravy. In a skillet, she would heat a couple of tablespoons of shortening, then add a dab of flour which she would stir until it was lightly browned. It was like a paste. Then she would slowly add about two cups of sweet milk. She would stir this mixture until it slightly thickened. This white gravy was delicious over breakfast biscuits or mashed potatoes.

At one time I remember that we had live chickens in coops and pens in our backyard. Now and then mom would kill one of the fryers and we'd have fried chicken for supper. She would pour scalding water over the headless chicken so the feathers could be removed more easily. I would help her pick the feathers off the chicken at our kitchen sink.

Mom often made dumplings, too. She made her own chicken stock from a hen or chicken parts such as the neck, wings or chicken skin. She would cover these parts with water and let them boil. She would remove the scum from the broth with a spoon, leaving nice clear broth for cooking dumplings or noodles.

Bacon grease was saved and used to season beans, cabbage and other vegetables.

Last week's snow reminded me of when dad would make snow ice cream for us. After a big snow, dad would scoop up a large pan of clean white snow. Then he would slowly add a can of evaporated milk, some sugar and a spoon of vanilla extract. He would stir the mixture gently until the snow melted into the milk and became the consistency of ice cream. Then he'd serve it to us in individual bowls. We had to eat real fast before it turned to liquid.

That was a real treat when the snow came.

Maybe those were hard times. I can't really say that I felt the effects of the Depression. I didn't have luxuries, but no one I knew had luxuries.

We were family and we managed through the lean times.

We made do or did without.

It was just a way of life.

.