RECESSION RECIPES

While preparing my traditional Thursday's spaghetti sauce, I had the random thought, "Nothing gives you as much bang for your buck than good ol' spaghetti"! Thankfully, all my family loves spaghetti with or without meatballs. I usually make a meat sauce because it is easier. I prefer a chunky tomato marinara, but my son likes it smooth. Anyway, it set me thinking about my frugal family food. I have written in prior posts about my mother's comfort cooking and how she loved feeding her extended family members. She loved cooking big pots of food to have simmering on the stove when family members strolled in unexpected. My parents and my husband's parents had all survived the depression era and adapted their menu's and recipes to fit the meager times. My era was not quite as deprived as theirs but they continued their simple food preparation mainly because they had become accustomed to it and even preferred it to more expensive dishes. My husband's favorite dishes were typical farm fare. We did not know at the time how loaded with fats, white flour and sugar could contribute to health problems like high blood pressure and cholesterol. We only knew that he loved gravy and biscuits with fried sausage, bacon or ham. Occasionally, he spoke longingly of his mother fixing Banner Brand sausage, a cheap canned version that was loaded with fat. I did not fry it , because I suspected that it was "mystery meat", even though he assured me that all the fat fried out leaving a unique flavor. The canned meats that I used were Treet and Spam and I came up with a delicious version of chopped ham for two. I sliced the small loaf almost through into six sections. Into each split, I would place a half-slice of pineapple and cover all with a glaze of mixed brown sugar and prepared mustard. Baked, it was great! Not exactly gourmet, but a welcome change from fried bologna (which he also loved, by the way.) Our standard staple was brown (pinto) beans and fried potatoes. (We called them Irish potatoes, because they saved many an Irish family from the famine.) Other beans were often cooked, white navy, lima and butter beans but never as often as our soup beans. These simmered all day on the stove and eaten with big pieces of corn bread and various pickled foods. We ate fresh green beans in summer and home canned ones in the winter time. Bushels of potatoes were covered in the ground in "tater holes", covered with straw and soil to prevent freezing. One of my husband's favorite meats was pork side meat that was salt preserved like country ham. He liked slices of it rolled in corn meal and fried crisp and golden. As a matter of fact, he liked anything rolled in corn meal and fried. We both would have eaten a ______ if it was rolled in corn meal and fried. LOL! No, we did not indulge in some of the ethnic dishes like "chittlings" and "mountain oysters" that were very cheap but my mother liked hog jowl and pickled pig's feet, but I could never even look at those dishes. She occasionally wanted some potted meat or vienna sausages even though she was not to eat that as she got older. She cooked some things with bacon renderings all her life and would not substitute oil for the fat in some dishes. Her German potato salad was loaded with bacon drippings. It is a good thing that the older generation worked so hard. There certainly was no need for exercise classes back then. Hoeing a cornfield would work off a multitude of sinful indulgences. Her biscuits were light and golden and her cornbread was perfect, and I suspect a little lard made the difference. She scorned green beans and pinto beans that were not cooked with a strip of "fat-back" meat. And it sure added flavor! I always made salmon croquettes (patties) as a special treat for my husband, because he loved them. I hated for the house to smell like fried fish so sometimes I fixed them on the porch in the electric skillet. He also liked chicken livers sometimes instead of buttermilk fried chicken or chicken and dumplings. Of course, we had lots of veggies, greens and baked dishes. In later years, I tried to limit fried foods as I became more health conscious but they remained his favorite foods all his life. My son grew away from our eating style while in college. He began to appreciate a more international cuisine. Plus, he often dined with his girlfriend of eight years. Her grand- father was a wealthy cattleman, among other things, and my son became a steak-lover during those years. To be honest, he never cared as much about our home-cooking as we did. He acts incredulous about some of the things we liked (I say he is a member of the spoiled generation of burger, pizza lovers.) sometimes when I have an especially "country"meal, he sneaks out to his favorite local steak-house. I don't know which is worse, our variety meats or his red meat. I guess to each his own. I think I have learned a more nutritious way of cooking. (Maybe! ) However, when the spectre of recession hovers over us, not to even mention dreaded depression, the old days and old ways do not seem so bad. A simple life was a good life when it was always seasoned with love.