In 1929, a massive
stock market crash ushered in a nearly decade-long,
worldwide economic depression that would prove to be the
most prolonged and widespread in recent history. The rise of refrigeration,
changes in the food supply chain, and the increased
need for inexpensive meals led to a drastic change
in the American diet. Getting food on the
table was tough. And sometimes using
what was available led to some rather
strange recipes. Today, we're looking
at the weird foods people eat to get through
the Great Depression. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel and let us
know in the comments below what other historical era foods
you would like to hear about. OK, get your bowl for some
nice Depression-era stew. First Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt wasn't going to let the Depression
bring her fellow Americans down. As an early supporter of
the home economics movement, she planned inexpensive
and nutritious meals from Cornell's Home
Economics department. Although FDR was a
bit of a gourmand, both the first lady
and the president practiced leaner eating habits
during the Great Depression. According to their
book, A Square Meal-- A Culinary History of the Great
Depression, food historian Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe noted
the Roosevelts ate this way to send a message to
Americans about how to eat during troubling times. Instead of foie gras
or an amuse-bouches, FDR had to eat simple meals, at
least when guests or the press were around. Denture-friendly fare,
like deviled eggs, and tomato sauce
with mashed potatoes, or bean in tomato stew, were
typical White House fare. Sounds like something you'd
find at the frozen dinner aisle. Flavor and spices
need not apply. Dessert came in the form of
prune whip, a delightful dish based around everyone's
favorite dried fruit, the prune. Prunes and other dried fruit
were common substitutes for fresh fruit
during the Depression. So prune pudding was sort of
an easy substitute for freshly baked pies or other desserts. It's easy to make, too. All you need is some sugar, egg
whites, and a bunch of prunes. Whip it all together,
and you'll have a real, um, regular
dessert in no time. [MUSIC PLAYING] Everyone loves peanut butter and
everyone loves onions, right. Both items were
readily available during the Depression. And someone decided
to mix the two. This resulted in a
most surreal concoction from the Great
Depression cookbook, peanut butter stuffed
baked onion, OK. Promoted by the Bureau
of Home Economics, the recipe for peanut
butter and stuffed onions saw publication in several
newspapers and magazines of the period. The Bureau's professional
home economists actively encouraged American homemakers
to serve the inexpensive glop to their families. Food historians Andrew
Coe and Jane Ziegelman decided to try making the
dish themselves more recently. Coe said, it was not a popular
addition to the dinner table. Ziegelman put it
more succinctly, noting that peanut
butter has nothing to say to a baked onion. The Bureau of Home Economics
really took the phrase, there was no
accounting for taste literally when they
came up with that one. [MUSIC PLAYING] Ritz Crackers, they're
no townhouse cracker. But they are great for a light
snack or handy to use in a dip. Um, good cracker. But they have an unlikely
alternate use, a substitute for apple pie filling. Ritz mock apple
pie is pretty much what it sounds like, a pie
made with Ritz Crackers as its filling. The traditional ingredients
of an apple pie combined with lemon juice and the
unique texture of Ritz Crackers created a taste intended to
simulate a real apple pie. Considered a Depression-era
favorite today, this pastry imposter
has its roots in the 1880s, when
apple shortages called for pie-filling substitutes. Soda crackers were
a cheap alternative to America's favorite fruit. And mock apple pies were
popular during tough times. At some point, Nabisco
began putting the recipe on the back of
Ritz Cracker boxes, where it would remain
until the 1980s. After 1,500 requests for
the recipe in a single year, the company restored the recipe
to its packaging in 1991. It remains one of Ritz's
most requested recipes today. If an apple-free apple
pie sounds tasty, you could try
making one yourself. Just substitute 36 slightly
crushed Ritz Crackers for the apples in
your favorite recipe. And you'll be baking a mock
pie just in time for dessert. [MUSIC PLAYING] Eleanor Roosevelt did her
best to promote home economics throughout the Depression. That didn't mean
she didn't send out some genuinely bizarre
dishes during that time. Take the case of an
off-putting casserole made from spaghetti, boiled
carrots, and white sauce. Unlike traditional
pasta cooking methods, this recipe required
cooking the spaghetti for a full 25 minutes. Once the pasta turned
into a sad noodle mush, you were supposed to mix it
with similarly boiled-to-death carrots. A bland white sauce made from
milk, flour, salt, and butter topped off this
off-white al dente dish. Roosevelt called it a vehicle
for nutrition and nutrients. But you'd probably prefer to
eat an old flapper hat instead. Vinegar-based desserts were
popular in the 19th century, but made a comeback
during the Depression. Known more commonly
as desperation pies, these treats mix
staple ingredients like eggs, butter, and sugar
with some kind of substitution. In this case,
apple cider vinegar takes the place of fresh apples. It's the fantastic acidic
flavor of an apple cobbler without any pesky fruit. Cooks can whip the eggs and
sugar into a delicious meringue to top the acidic
dessert off in style. Apparently, it tastes like
salt and vinegar custard. And it leaves the roof
of your mouth tingling. Um. If you find yourself with a
hankering for vinegar cobbler, don't despair. In 2015, award-winning
Chef Chris Shepherd began serving the dish in
his Houston restaurants, helping vinegar cobbler make
a comeback in recent years. [MUSIC PLAYING] In a recipe straight from
the "Haywire Mac" songbook, Mulligan stew was
basically hobo food, not to be confused with
NBC short-lived 1977 comedy of the same name-- Our two families became one
after a tragic plane crash in Hawaii. --Mulligan stew was a
community food put together by whatever foods they could
scavenge and put together. In his book Riding the Rails-- Teenagers on the Move
During the Great Depression, Errol Lincoln Uys
describes the dish as a mix of just
about everything. People predominantly
cooked Mulligan stew with stolen onions, corn,
potatoes, foraged greens, and occasional meat bits. Enterprising hobo chefs might
add a handful of Navy beans or whatever else may add
some flavor to the dish. But the real secret
ingredient was just a bit of Bull Durham tobacco
and everyone's favorite flavor enhancer, lint. Um. That's a meal I may
not ask for seconds on. [MUSIC PLAYING] Dining at the White House
during the Great Depression wasn't exactly fancy. Take the case of Milkorno. On one presumably dark
and stormy night in 1933, several mad scientists
at Cornell University invented a gruel
known as Milkorno. It's alive! Scientists intended for
this blend of powdered skim milk, cornmeal,
and salt to help families stretch food budgets. Milkorno came with this
somewhat dubious promise of enabling meals for a
family of five for $5 a week. And, of course,
Eleanor Roosevelt served it at the White House. But Milkorno wasn't the
only milk, cornmeal, and salt-based food supplement. There was also Milkwheato
and Milkoato, both of which were purchased in bulk
by the government. The government even
bought 25 million pounds of dystopian dust to use in
various hunger relief efforts. And although all of them turn
into porridge after boiling, the Bureau of Home
Economics inexplicably suggested that Milkorno
corner made a good substitute for the noodles in chop suey. Well, at least there is much
toxicity in such things. [MUSIC PLAYING] Despite some of
the strange things people had to eat during the
Depression, one modern culinary staple arose in the midst of it
all, the one and the only Kraft Macaroni and Cheese dinner. According to the Smithsonian,
Thomas Jefferson famously served macaroni and cheese
at an 1802 state dinner after falling in love with the
dish while visiting France. It wasn't an entirely
new concept at the time. But the idea of boxing
it and selling it as an inexpensive meal was. In 1937, a rogue salesman for
the St. Lewis-based Tenderoni Macaroni Company began
selling his noodles with packets of Kraft
grated cheese attached. Kraft soon hired the
enterprising salesman to promote the meal to
cash-strapped Americans. The dinner caught
on in a big way, selling for 19 cents
per four servings. Its speed was a selling
point, with one early print ad featuring a happy,
bewildered husband asking, how the deuce did
you make this keen macaroni and cheese so fast? Why, we just got home. Kraft Dinner, as it's known
in the Great White North, went on to become a staple
of modern college cuisine and has a special place
in our hearts today. Food historians typically agree
that loaves were quite popular during the Great Depression. Food loaves were made
from a central ingredient and cheaper
ingredients that would stretch the entire thing out. A Depression-era menu might
contain such delicacies as a liver loaf, lima
bean, and peanut loaf. Authentic meatloaf was a luxury,
but still relatively affordable by padding it with
other ingredients like crackers or bread. And much like today,
ketchup and canned soup delivered more flavor at
a small additional cost. Food historian
Ziegelman and Coe baked some soy in lima bean loaf. Maintaining it tastes
a bit like falafel, but should be served with
lots of highly seasoned gravy. Some historians believe
the federal government made a mistake by overlooking
immigrants' contribution and creativity to
hunger relief efforts during the Great Depression. Italian immigrants
were sometimes known for making
delicious, highly nutritious, and inexpensive
foods for their families. Yet the government chose
to overlook their methods as a source of hunger
relief inspiration. One delicious and
vitamin-packed ingredient foraged by Italian immigrant
women in New York City came in the form of
dandelion greens. Straight from the front
yard to the dinner table, dandelion greens
were added to salads, sauteed or cooked with
olive oil to create an essentially free meal. [MUSIC PLAYING] If you needed a cheap source
of protein during the 1930s, gelatin was likely
your main ingredient. Many Depression-era cook
books featured gelatin as a base for such
cutting-edge recipes as corned beef luncheon salad
and other congealed salads. Um, bright, crisp vegetables
in cool, shimmering Jell-O. There's a salad for you. Congealed Salads may sound
like the name of a band from the '90s. But they were authentic dishes
people eat during tough times. Corned beef luncheon salad
was particularly repulsive, with its unholy mix of its
canned corned beef, gelatin, canned peas, vinegar,
and lemon juice. A few reports from
individuals courageous enough to try today describe
it as wrong in every way possible, just from the
color, to the smell, the texture, the
flavor, the mouth feel. They may look,
smell, and probably tastes like canned cat food. But one simply cannot
deny gelatin's versatility in cooking. Have you made a
Jell-o salad lately? Well do, this week. Hey. There is always room
for a Jell-o salad. [MUSIC PLAYING] Got milk? The people struggling to survive
through the Great Depression certainly did. Milk also peaked
nutritionists' interest, who placed tremendous importance
on it as a kind of superfood. Cow's milk was a bit of a
wonder food at the time. Packed with vitamins,
fats, sugar, and proteins, it served nutritional needs
and practical purposes during the period. Milk was also used in tons
of recipes from the time, from flavorless white sauces,
and corn starch pudding, to fortified foods
like Milkorno. Of course, the sheer amount of
milk given to school-age kids was quite impressive. As the government advised,
nearly a quart a day. School lunches almost always
featured a nice glass of milk to go along with the day's meal. [MUSIC PLAYING] Chipped or frizzled beef
has been a breakfast choice in some parts of the United
States since the 19th century, eventually finding its way into
a 1910 military cookbook called Manual for Military Cooks. Since then, the cream
chipped beef on toast has been an Army staple with
a colorful name, [BLEEP] on a Shingle, or SOS. The old frontier favorite
enjoyed a resurgence during the Depression. Per culinary historians,
Siegelman and Coe, this era's version
was a combination of canned corn beef, plain
gelatin, canned peas, vinegar, and lemon juice, and wrong
in every possible way. That doesn't mean some folks
aren't nostalgic for SOS today. SOS was often served during
the Second World War. And even the TV show Mash
used it as a recurring joke. You forgot your shingle, doctor! [YELL] Nothing says America
quite like hot dogs. Everyone's favorite
processed meat product was a surprisingly
versatile ingredient during times of scarcity. Although many
Depression-era recipes that incorporate hot
dogs had bleak names, like Poor Man's
Stew or Hoover Stew, they made for surprisingly good
recipes, sliced hot dog rounds, with cooked macaroni,
cans of stewed tomatoes, and canned corn or
peas from time to time. Modern cooks are hard at
work reclaiming Hoover Stew these days, occasionally
substituting fancier ingredients for
yesteryear's canned vegetables. Bon appetit. So what do you think? What Great Depression
food is your favorite? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
If you find this stuff interesting.. google water pie. Sounds equally horrible lol