Brother, can you spare a dime?

by David Grand
February 11, 2009

Written in 1931 (the year in which, coincidentally, I was brought forth on the earth), that song became the best-selling record during the depression-era. And it wasn't farfetched, either. For many of the jobless were reduced to standing on corners asking passer buyers for a handout.

And it wasn't unusual for those who'd held well-paying jobs to put on a suit and tie and mislead their wives into believing that they were going out at night for a job interview, when they were really hitting the streets panhandling or going door-to-door asking for money or food. (A common practice was to mark with chalk the doors of generous givers for the next comers.)

Now, the parallels being drawn between today and 1930's has many people reaching for history books, hoping the Great Depression offers lessons for coping with today's hard times.
But they won't find any worthwhile tips to follow in, for instance, grandma's recipe file. For as Leah Zeldes, a free-lance writer, said in a January 21, 2009 article in the Chicago Sun-Times,"that through changed tastes, new nutritional data and, most importantly, real differences in the cost of foodstuffs, Grandma's recipes won't cut it."

And "if you read, she says, cookbooks and glossy women's magazines of the 1930s, you'd never know a depression was going on, with publishers figuring that poor people weren't potential buyers."

However, she adds, "a collection of recipes contributed by those who grew up in the 1930s (published in 1996 by Reminisce books) features a wide variety of dishes made from weeds, a la poke salad, dandelions, milkweed and cattails."

The most common meals, were "stews and soups: coffee soup, pretzel soup, milk and noodle soup and the famous Depression soup--1/3 cup ketchup and 2/3 cup boiling water." Yummy for the tummy!

Velma Floyd, 91, remembers her dad butchering meat and her mother canning it; and since there was no way to regulate the temperature of the stove, cooking took considerable knowledge and patience."

Potatoes were the main stable, says a 93-year-old woman named Clara, the star of a series of You Tube videos about Depression cooking. "We ate potatoes every day: potatoes with pasta, potatoes fried and potatoes with eggs." And back then, "a dollar would've bought a 100 pound sack of spuds."

In the 1930s, according to Dinning During the Depression, "cooks could afford little meat, so they made do with meatless recipes like nut hash, and black-eyed pea sausage." And "chickens were a luxury food; but hot dogs were cheap, selling for 21 cents for two pounds and with free delivery." (And they're still cheap today, if you're not too fussy about their contents.)

Writing this column certainly didn't whet my appetite for a big supper. So, I'm gonna limit my food intake to just six pieces of chicken (instead of a bucketful as I routinely order), and with only a small, side order of mashed potatoes smothered with gravy, topped off by a medium-sized slice of lemon meringue pie.

And, oh yes, to show my respect for those who subsisted on a Spartan diet for the longest time, I'll make a cup of Depression soup. And if my dogs don't walk away from it, I might take a sip or two, while holding my breath and nose.