What items were rationed during the Great Depression?

Answer 1

During the Depression, this self-sufficiency carried over into their social life. One-dish suppers and church potlucks were important ways to have fun and share food. On radio and in women's magazines, home economists taught women how to stretch their food budget with casseroles and meals like creamed chipped beef on toast or waffles. Chili, macaroni and cheese, soups, and creamed chicken on biscuits were popular meals. Women baked their own bread.

In the 70 or more years since the Great Depression, a lot has changed on the farms of rural America. All of these changes have resulted in farms that usually specialize in only one main crop. Today, entire regions have become "monocultures."

Across the nation, hungry people waited in "soup lines" for a free meal, especially in larger cities. On the farm, growing, tending, preparing, and preserving food took many hours of work. There was usually no electricity to power refrigerators, so it was difficult to keep milk and other foods fresh, especially during the summer heat.

Yet even during the Depression, many new foods were invented or introduced including:

• Spam
• Kraft macaroni and cheese
• Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Good Humor ice cream bars
• Bisquick
• Krispy Kreme doughnuts
• Ritz Crackers
• Nestle's Chocolate Chips.
• And Kool-Aid was invented in Hasting, Nebraska in the late 20s and became a national brand in the 30s.

Also during the 1930s, Colonel Harland Sanders developed a secret formula of spices to flavor the fried chicken at his Sanders Court and Café (motel and restaurant) in Corbin, Kentucky. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

In 1938, activists sponsored a "relief banquet" at the Congress Hotel, demonstrating the average meal of families on welfare, Kraig said. The 8-cent dinner included carrots, onion, a slice of bread and half an apple. In comparison, a lobster dinner at the hotel in 1937 cost $2.75.

Dining During the Depression (Reminisce Books, 1996), a collection of recipes contributed by people who grew up in the 1930s, tells a wider story. It features a variety of dishes made from weeds, such as poke salad, dandelions, milkweed and cattails.

Where they could, people grew large gardens. Farmers struggled, but country folks ate better than urbanites.

Velma Floyd, 91, a resident of the Smith Crossing retirement community in Orland Park, grew up on a farm in Lawton, Iowa, near Sioux City.

"My dad butchered meat, and my mother canned it. It had a special taste. Today, I can still tell," Floyd says.

The stove, she recalls, had no way to regulate the temperature, so cooking in it took considerable knowledge and patience, unlike today's microwave ovens. "That's all I have now," Floyd confides.

Working-class families had few conveniences.

"Everything was homemade," says Rosalie Schnierle, 89, a Gage Park resident who grew up in Back of the Yards. "There was a lot of cooking. There was a lot of baking,"

Her family didn't own a refrigerator, so they had to buy food daily.

"I remember going to the Atlas Market and buying two pounds of meat and a bone," Schnierle says. Her mother would make it into a stew with potatoes and vegetables, and that would be dinner.

Stews and soups, which could stretch a long way, made up many people's principal meals in the 1930s. Cooks made soups out of whatever they could find: coffee soup, pretzel soup, milk and noodle soup and the famous Depression soup -- 1/3 cup ketchup and 2/3 cup boiling water.

Charity kitchens ladled out soup to the unemployed. Even notorious gangster Al Capone contributed, setting up Chicago kitchens to feed 3,000 jobless people three meals a day.

"Breakfast consists of coffee and a sweet roll, and dinner and supper of soup, bread and coffee, with a second or third helping permitted," the New York Times reported.

Answer 2

People with money ate as they always had, but let me tell you a true story. My grandfather somehow met a man who was throwing away bushels of onions which he had grown but could not sell, so grandpa bought them for a dime. For one summer he fed a family of five on creamed onions ( They had a cow ) and rabbits which my uncle shot plus what they could raise in the garden.

Answer 3

Private charities made available soup kitchens where people lined up and got soup for free. There was also bread lines that ran 1 km long and you could get 1 kg of apples for $5.00.

But in general those foods that are now grown locally were available then. This includes eggs, chicken, beef, pork, rice, noodles, breads and the common fruits and vegetables (in season) like corn, beets, squash, peas, beans, carrots, celery, apples, Pears, cabbage, cucumbers, spinach, apricots, cherries, berries, etc., etc.

Answer 4

Food was not rationed in the US during the Great Depression. Many people had difficulty buying it, but the government did not impose rationing until the need arose to send large quantities of food overseas to the armed forces during World War 2.

Answer 5

1. Casseroles, with a little meat, lots of veggies and some pasta with a sauce to bind it together. Sprinkle bread crumbs mixed with butter on top.

2. Bread pudding for dessert. (It used up stale bread, and there are still some good recipes for it on epicurious.com).

3. Dishes like tamale pie and spanish rice. Both economical, can be stretched to feed a crowd, and tasty. (Again, see epicurious.com)

4. Soup. Lots of veggies, chicken or beef stock, some potatoes, and either chicken or beef. Can be stretched with water and a little corn starch to feed a crowd.

5. Beans. There are many different types of beans, and can be seasoned different ways, and meat can be added.

6. Home made desserts using fruit. (Baked apple, pears or peach cobbler)

Answer 6

during the great depression people ate whatever they could get. they were self conservitive nd depended on their selves.

Answer 7

Many ate bread and cheese because they couldn't afford meats.

Answer 8

food, clothes, and money

Answer 9

very little