Depression Era Recipes

Wow! The group presentation we had in class on Monday was fabulous. Not to mention the fact that we had so many accepted students in class who I'm sure were blown away by the music, photos, and FOOD.  I really feel like I have a better understanding of what the Jode's and many other family experienced on their journey to California.

The main aspect of their presentation that resonated with me was how resourceful the families were. I looked into the recipes from the Depression and found a great deal of information. These women and men were creating cakes without flour and pies without fruit! The portion of their travel guide with food prizes definitely made the financial strain more understandable. When you compare the idea of buying sliced baked ham for 39 cents a pound to beans for 13 cents a can, is there really an option? Not to mention how difficult it was to secure fresh produce. Just look at this quote from the NY Times from an article "Urges Charity Gardens," "Soup kitchens and the missions state that they can always get meat scaps and day-old bread, frequently for nothing and always for very little, but the vegetables that make up the bulk of the soups and stews which they serve are few and far between, and those they can afford are poor and stale. Arrangements are being made to have baskets at the Grand Central and Pennsylvania Station to recieve contributions of fruit and vegetables brough in on trains."

In their presentation, one of the recipes covered was "mock apple pie" and we were even given the opportunity to taste it! Surprisingly, I found it actually resembled traditional apple pie which made me think - what else can we create without the normal ingredients?



I stumbled upon a 93 year old woman's blog that is completely devoted to recipes from the great depression. Here is one of her youtube videos of her cooking in the kitchen:

And here is one of her recipes:

Meatless Meat Loaf

Ingredients

1 cup rice
1 cup peanuts crushed
1 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon salt

Directions
Combine all the ingredients together. bake in a loaf pan for 30 minutes or until loaf is good and set.

History
With meat at a premium during the Great Depression, many people made do without chicken, beef or pork, except on rare occasions. One recurring theme that I have read from each story from someone who lived through the depression was that they remember being hungry all the time. The Meatless Meat Loaf may not sound appetizing, but it was filling.

Response to the NYTIMES - Gatsby!

Adieu, Sweet Life of ’20s Luxury

"Dan McCall, a professor emeritus at Cornell University, taught the book for 40 years. He marvels at the hold Gatsby still has on students. On the one hand, he said, with its hypnotic prose, its layers of longing for money, status, reinvention and love, it’s still channeling the American experience. “It’s not an antique to them, it’s never gone out of style the way some books I teach.” On the other hand, he said, Gatsby’s evocation of the American dream has an innocence and passion that are impossibly distant, like astral material from a lost galaxy. “Gatsby’s dream, the way he’s so devoted to it, that’s not something you find much in this economy, at this time. I think it’s breathtaking for kids in college. It’s an America they haven’t heard about from their parents.” " - PETER APPLEBOME


"Maybe someone will write today’s “Gatsby.” Or maybe it would just be an epic tweet: “Yo, Gatz. Blue lawn, green light, so close, but too far. Ahh, Daisy. We beat on, boats vs. the current, borne back, lol, into the past.”

 

I think that Peter Applebome's comment on how students connect to The Great Gatsby is really true. First off, it is a short novel that many of us had read before coming to Harrington's class. Though one of my peers, Elise, had never read it before though and I remember distinctly her reading it in one of our other classes. It drew her in so intensely that she could not put it down! Personally, I had read the novel in high school and was astounded at the beautiful sentence structure all over again. Even something as simple as in Chapter 7 as a boat moving along the water, Fitzgerald is able to capture intensity, movement, and beauty in with his words. "On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea...Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky." Fitzgerald pulls us in with his words.  They meld together so smoothly that before I realized I was already half way through the book. More over, Fitzgerald has astounding characters that represent ridiculous aspects of society. We see immense wealth, moral decay, death, adultery. These are the topics that get audiences engaged and that is why this book functions so well in the classroom. Is Fizgerald representing the American Dream? Is Gatsby corrupt?

Applebome goes further in the NY Times article to comment on who Jay would be in the 21^st century. Would he be a Bernie Madoff or a Mark Zuckerburg? I think that this article captures a great deal in the side comments. The commentary was brought up though because a huge mansion in Great Neck is being sold and it is said to be the inspiration for The Great Gatsby. Does it matter if these mansions disappear? Apparently over 500 of these mansions have already been knocked down.