Great Depression - Tumblr Posts
History memes #38
“Food’s a lot better, we used to boil everything.”
I’m reading A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, and I just encountered this passage, which had me imagining the meals of Steve Rogers’ childhood in uncomfortable and depressing vividness:
Among the foods on Atwater’s “expendable” list were eggs, butter, chicken, meat, and fish. Fruits and green vegetables, though commendable as a source of bulk, were likewise unnecessary, their consumption discouraged. Condiments and seasonings (Atwater called them “food adjuncts”) inflamed the appetite, leading to overconsumption, another form of waste, and were therefore to be avoided.
His food budget now appropriately trimmed, the worker was left with unadorned potatoes, cabbage, turnips, dried peas, and assorted cereals, the cheapest available sources of both energy and protein. The New York quotas [weekly food relief supplied to the poor by city government starting in 1930] paid tribute to the sturdy, utilitarian foods recommended by Atwater as replacements for more expensive fare. The cooking instructions that came with the quotas were equally Atwater-esque. On the premise that nourishing food should all be “plain,” the city provided homemakers with instructions to wring the most nutrients from the accompanying ingredients while ensuring the utmost in culinary simplicity:
All vegetables should be thoroughly washed, pared and cooked in enough salted boiling water to cover. cook with cover on the pot and until tender. Save water that vegetables are cooked in for soup stock.
Dried beans are to be soaked in cold water over night. In the morning cover with fresh water, heat slowly and cook until skin will burst.
Macaroni–cook in salted boiling water until tender. Drain water, then rinse off with cold water.
Vegetable soup–potatoes, onions, cabbage, turnips, beans and barley.
Stock for soup can be made from the vegetables that they are cooked in.
Beans–plain–or cooked with onions and tomatoes.
Macaroni–plain–or cooked with onions and tomatoes.
Cabbage, carrots and onions, raw sliced or boiled.
Turnips–plain–cooked or mashed with potatoes.
During the Great Depression, there was a group of “book women” who delivered books, regardless of weather, to rural communities in Kentucky. These women would ride up to 120 miles every week on horseback, traversing dangerous terrain, to ensure that their readers received their books on time.
"The Three Little Pigs" is a 1933 Walt Disney cartoon that symbolized the Great Depression - the wolf was a symbol of the Depression, and the pigs were a symbol of ordinary American citizens who suffered from the disaster, but, united, gradually achieved success.
Clyde's jacket after he and Bonnie were ambushed by police. He took about 50 bullets, she about 60.
Do you guys ever think about the fact that Adamandi takes place in the 1930’s and that thus every living character would have to see World War 2? They cannot catch a break they literally went through all the events of Adamandi during the Great Depression only for an international war to strike just a few years after the graduate. 😭