Great Depression Cooking - The Poorman's Meal

welcome to my kitchen I'm Claire a 91 years old today we are making meals from the Depression [Music] [Applause] I'm gonna make the poor man's meal which we ate during the Depression it has potatoes and hotdogs because they were cheaper so we got the hot dogs let's begin by peeling the potatoes so they had a quit high school because couldn't afford socks couldn't afford anything to wear but we survived we were all faster my father used to buy a sack of potatoes and we ate potatoes every day but things would pasta potatoes fried but there is with eggs the way my father would buy a second potatoes sack of everything flour potatoes were a dollar a sec that was a lot of money a dollar this is the last one I think I'm gonna peel I think today the kids like to smell my grandson's like it his friends like if they come here for a poor man's meal if we had a bad potatoes we take the best part out and still need it next step is to keep the potatoes after you peel them your Cuban take out all the bad parts you know I had to quit high school because I didn't have sockets to wear that's a fact now I'm footing the onion in the potatoes well it all depends on how many potatoes you have and I think this in this case once I get it enough now I'll put a little oil in the pan just judge by yourself how much oil and sit runs out of oil and you put a little water but in this case we don't yet so I'm gonna put this on the stove now and fry it on the gas I got all the neighborhood kids they come in and they say can we have the poor man meal they all like this and we made that bad name poor man's meal we should have called it the depression meal getting the hotdogs ready cutting them up so we could fry them with the potatoes it all depends how many potatoes you got I think by four is enough for this not potatoes here hotdogs are half cooked him they're tasty and they were cheap so and that was cheap sticking mark comes overnight I make me the poor man of the meal then he brings his friend Tom I usually cook for them Mark's friends they're boys they like my poor man's meal too [Applause] the pressures was very bad with a long one - I had a little garden of my own and lady came my one of my neighbors with a shopping bag and she was going in my yard my garden and I said where are you going she's I'm going to pick a few things this is what why don't you ask me I'll give it to you you know but I don't want you to go there and just take what you want I said that's a lot of work for me she was she came to fill her shopping bag but my clothes my garden I don't think you are so touchy I just I am stuck yeah like work hard to have that garden she just made herself at home [Applause] I'm gonna put just a couple of tablespoons of sauce in here I'm going to put the hot dogs with the potatoes take the potatoes if there cooks then you know they're done hot dogs will get all crooked well those kind of bends I put the water in so then potatoes will soften up and make a nice sauce for them let it cook for a few minutes and they're almost ready everybody ready click at the table any [Music] they're not talking [Music] you

Channel: Great Depression Cooking

Views: 5,013,326

Rating: 4.9423766 out of 5

Keywords: Great, Depression, Cooking, cute, stuff, Clara, Cannucciari, inexpensive, meals, Chris, Old, Lady, Recipe, Food, delicious, dish, 93, nonagenarian, viral, video

Id: 3OPQqH3YlHA

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 06 2007

Reddit Comments

[u/ToEatTheirOwn]

I have met Clara before. She lived up in Skaneateles NY. A beautiful little town in Central New York. Her son got her famous by making a website, filming her cooking videos and making a book. She was interviewed on Steven Colbert years ago, where her son worked. She is the sweetest old lady ever. My grandmother was good friends with her and they would go to church together.

[u/SilentDis]

I understand she's passed on, but I would like to thank whomever has kept these videos up. They are extremely important for a couple reasons.

When I was a young pre-teen, I became fascinated with World War II. Not only the military aspects, but just life 'back home', or life 'on the line'. I managed to get a little from my grandparents, but honestly it was like pulling teeth from a starving lion. You had to be extremely careful and exceptionally gentle.

I can't blame them; it wasn't 'fun', it wasn't 'good'. These are not memories any sane person wants to recall. It's pain, sadness, death, despair, and heartache. Who in their right minds, as they age and already have to deal with a body slowly disintegrating, wants to remember the worst parts of their lives?

My paternal grandfather was an aviation mechanic. Apparently, the boys would land near-ish the front line. He'd patch them, refuel, re-arm, and get them back into the skies as fast as he could. I got a bit about how crazy some of the bullet holes were, big as a man's fist right through the fuel tank and how the hell did they land and... of course some never came back and the story ends.

My maternal grandfather worked for Bell Labs/AT&T. Extremely precise timing and electrical signalling. He did his part, in his own way, as an engineer. Crazy projects he was unsure he could talk about, even 40 years later that he was basically press-ganged into. He thinks some of it went into atomic testing, but he could never be sure. So, the story ends.

Paternal grandmother was a telephone operator. On the switchboard from 7 to 7, or longer, every day. No one else to do the work in her area. Always worrying about her beau she was engaged to, overseas... and the story ends, because the whole series of 'what ifs' become way too painful.

Maternal grandmother came 'from money'. Not really, according to grandpa, but they acted it. Everyone was poor during the depression, I don't want to talk about it. So the story ends.

I tried. I really, really did. Right up till my paternal grandfather's Alzheimer's took his mind, and right up till my maternal grandfather's body gave out. They were just 'then', those times were 'done'.

This is part of our shared heritige. Our country went through some crazy, crazy times with most people being dirt poor. Something I personally don't want to have happen to me, nor to anyone else. I need to know about life during that time; because if I don't, it will happen a second time.

I don't like the cycle of suffering. I want to get off. I want to know.

[u/EntombedSummerWitChu]

TIL I've been making a depression meal for years.

[u/yourstupid2]

patatis

[u/mckinley72]

passes joint

"Yo, Mark, call your Grandma up and tell her to make that poor man shit. That'd be so bomb right now..."

[u/BlindThievery]

"From the Great Depression." I thought I was going to watch an old lady crying while she made a singles meals...

[u/turd_deli]

The part about her neighbor stealing form her garden made me mad.

[u/backstept]

she says 'Let's turn on the gas.'

It's an electric stove :D

[u/rcane]

This is what we call Pyttipanna in Sweden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyttipanna