Food lessons from the Great Depression

**benosayi** · 05-01-2011, 12:31 PM

I miss my grandmother too. She would can and pickle. She would say she never made a cake out of a box. She cooked from scratch everything. I have a canning pot I am going to start using. I would love to have a garden but my yard is shadded. I have been trying to not let thing go to waste. Banana go bad make banana bread, old bread in the freezer make stuffing, all leftovers from last week become this weeks lunches, so I haven't threw out food in a long time.

**pollypurebred39** · 05-01-2011, 12:51 PM

It's truly amazing the skills we have lost. So many of us here can, preserve foods (or are learning to) make their own clothing, raise livestock, grow gardens. But how many do not in this country? And how tied are we to consumables? When I read that we are 5-6 generations removed from being self sufficient, it made me realize that for most the lessons were not learned. I'd be in so much trouble if we truly hit a depression like the 30's.

My Grandmother made soap made from animal fat and homemade lye, grew enough food to feed her and her husband, 12 kids, and their livestock. They grew the trees that heated their home, for every tree they fell they planted two. They hunted, trapped, raised livestock, butchered, smoked, salted and canned meats. Sun dried and canned foods. Handmade furniture, sewn the families clothing, blankets, sheets, window coverings, and on and on. And here I sit and struggle to learn to preserve food, sew anything beyond super simple, and have minor success with container gardening.

I miss my Grandmother dearly, and wish I would have spent more time by her side, gaining wisdom. *sigh* But it was too much like work when I rather have played, shame on me.

**frugalfoster** · 05-01-2011, 05:52 PM

Originally Posted by pollypurebred39

I miss my Grandmother dearly, and wish I would have spent more time by her side, gaining wisdom. *sigh* But it was too much like work when I rather have played, shame on me.

Ahhhh..If only hindsight were foresight....we all have regrets....

**Daisygirl** · 05-01-2011, 06:29 PM

I love the articles and recipes.

If you think about it, it's all just a state of mind. Take what you have, add the least expensive ingredients possible to stretch the "good" stuff, and season well. I'm going to try to take a lesson and do this a little bit more in my house!

**Brat** · 05-01-2011, 07:17 PM

I guess that I am OLD..I still do a lot of those things..I plant a garden, pick asparagus, have fruit trees in the yard. I still cook most everything that I have around me..I love fryed danoline (sp) blooms..Many here still pick mushrooms. I still live in the country..I know how to skin a rabbit after I have killed it and still have the plans to build a rabbit box if I would have to..My furniture mostly is what my late DH built from lumber that we cut the trees and had sawed into lumber..I no longer have livestock but I still know how to milk a cow and make butter in a quart jar. I know that my kids and grand kids wouldn't know where to start in any of this. The dandoline is all eatable..The root can be dryed and made into flour even..green leaves make a good salad. There are still several around here that know how to do these things, none of the younger ones do..Even in rural america.

**daylily** · 05-01-2011, 07:36 PM

I stayed with my grandparents until I was around 12 years old except weekends because both my parents worked 2nd shift. We picked wild fruits all summer starting with strawberries then serviceberries, raspberries, blackberries, then blueberries. There were lots of sweet cherry trees that grew wild too. I learned to can from her. I still have her very old Kerr canning book that she followed religiously. She would pick wild greens too and we still eat some of them.

I am thankful that my kids knew all their grandparents and great-grandparents and were able to spend several years getting to know them. Both their grandmothers are still living.

**pollypurebred39** · 05-01-2011, 07:41 PM

My DH plants the garden, we have fruit trees, medicinal herbs that I make into medicine, and dandelion

I'm there, but beyond that nada. Skinning a rabbit would be beyond me, sewing, really sewing my own clothing, growing enough food to keep my family alive and the livestock, oh heck, even having livestock. I'm pretty low on skills you need to really take care of yourself. My grandparents built their house from trees they cut down themselves. Well, her family. I can't imagine it.

**grneyegrl** · 05-01-2011, 11:09 PM

all is not lost.. one only has to be willing to learn, as many of us on this site are..i dont know how to can but can learn how from some one who does..

many skills can be taught and it doesnt take that long..at least i hope so

**Spirit Deer** · 05-02-2011, 10:03 AM

If you can read, you can learn. Especially now with the powerful resources on the internet. If there's a topic you're interested in, somebody somewhere will most likely have posted information about how to do whatever you're interested in, and a search engine will help you find it in seconds. It's so much easier now to learn things than it used to be.

**freebs** · 05-02-2011, 10:23 AM

I grow our garden, dehydrate, can, freeze, dry clothes on the line, dont throw away foods, feed all my potato peels, onions skins, things like that to the chickens. We raise our own chickens, rabbits, goats and beef for food, and yes i do know how to skin a rabbit

**pollypurebred39** · 05-02-2011, 05:12 PM

Yes Spirit Deer, that's what I've been doing. It makes me realize how little I really do know, and urges me on to learn more. Feeling like I've been very lax in my responsibilities towards my family. Even in something as simple as my homemaking. I take my job as a homemaker very seriously and understand that my DH and boys depend on me to know how to do things. Something like hemming dress pants should not have been an issue, but it was. My DH discovered the night before my Father's funeral that I could not hem pants. He went to the funeral looking absolutely ridiculous, all uneven and high waters! It's funny now, not so funny the night I attempted to hem them. I was crying over how hard it was to keep the slippery material still so I could cut and sew, and certainly not the day they buried my Father and my DH was a pall bearer and the mess was clearly visible to all.

*sigh* Really wish I would have taken my life more seriously when I was younger.

**low-1** · 05-02-2011, 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by Spirit Deer

Picking wild blueberries is a huge deal in this area every year. People come from all over to hunt the elusive wild blueberries, and the locations of patches are zealously guarded.

We also have wild raspberries and wild strawberries all around our house.

Wild blueberries are everywhere up here, raspberries and strawberries too. Not to mention low-bush cranberries, juniper berries, labrador tea, the list of wild edibles is almost never ending. What is ending is people's knowledge of them. I could very easily go out into the bush with a knife and an axe and do just fine.

When I go out hiking with my little 6 year old girl, I just have to smile and think that I'm doing something right: Every time she sees a cranberry, she'll point them out to me. When one of her friends are with us, she'll pull up a little piece of reindeer moss and show her friend that it's very edible by eating some, then look over at me for approval, "Right Dad?"

**heartofmine** · 05-02-2011, 06:20 PM

I grew up dirt poor so this stuff was life. You did it because you had to if you wanted to eat. We harvested and gathered everything we could find. My mom knew everything there was to know about what was edible. Choke berries made the best jelly I've ever eaten in my life. Haven't had any in years. My mom is 69 and my dad 70 and they still put out a big garden plus they have grape and blackberries, pears and peaches and they get apples from friends. My mom makes jelly of all kinds and puts away everything she can get her hands on still yet. My dad always said she could make a meal out of weeds and she does. LOL She gathers all the wild salads she can find..poke, crescie, mustard and what she can't find she'll plant. I remember going out from spring to late fall gathering everything we could find. Going hunting with my dad for squirrel and rabbit...hey a girl can hunt too. LOL Love going out in the spring and getting dry land fish (morels for the fancier name). My sis and I would go fishing so mama always had fish in the freezer too. We raised chickens for both meat and eggs, beef, hogs. Bought milk from a real live milk man (when we didn't have our own milk cow)...neighbor farmer...milk fresh from the cow. Yummm what goooood butter we made.

My mom made the majority of our clothes and anything else was from a used clothing store. She made quilt tops too. Sewed for other people to bring in a few dollars. Babysat too. My dad logged and they also leased land for tobacco and tomatoes. My mom took care of a lot of that while daddy worked logging.

My mom was and still is an amazing woman.

**joyofsix** · 05-02-2011, 07:01 PM

God bless my grandmothers and mom. I still pick raspberries, hunt mushrooms, crack black walnuts and other stuff. Dh jokes that we might not live well but we'll never starve. Off to check out all those links.

**Spirit Deer** · 05-03-2011, 12:00 AM

We got whole raw milk from my grandma every Sunday when we visited her. I can still recall using a ladle to stir the cream down into the milk and then dipping it into glasses for supper for the five of us.

We spent a lot of time with my grandma on the farm. I never learned to milk, but I churned butter for what seemed like days, and Grandma would give me a nickel for my efforts. Grandma made rag rugs and my job was to cut apart the splices in the rags with a razor blade. We made homemade ice cream on summer holidays. I'm glad now to have been exposed to all that knowledge and to have been able to see what self-sufficiency looked like. Grandma raised six kids through the Depression and knew how to pinch pennies.