20 Unconventional Meals People Actually Ate During The Great Depression
By Sophia Maddox | February 5, 2024
Mulligan Stew
The Great Depression wreaked havoc on the United States between 1929 and 1941, leaving millions without jobs, money, and resources. Out of the growing need of the American public came some unique and even strange recipes. To keep food on the table with what little they had, families turned to unusual ingredients since some were not available. Check out the unusual foods people had to eat during the Great Depression, and you'll never complain about your mom's cooking again.
Though many call it Mulligan stew, some also know it as hobo stew due to its early roots. Food historians can trace it back to the early 1910s when migrant workers known as “hobos” began whipping it up with whatever they had on hand or could find. The dish also became known as community stew as groups of people shared their limited ingredients to make one big soup that could feed a crowd. Mulligan stew grew out of the idea that combining resources would create a dish that was better than anything one person could make on their own.
Since Mulligan stew changed based on who made it, it doesn't have a specific recipe. It usually consists of root vegetables like potatoes and carrots and some meat. While recipes today call for chuck roast or other large cuts, during the Great Depression, squirrel and possum were quite common.
Creamed Chip Beef
You can walk into any grocery store today and find packets of creamed chip beef ready to go, but it wasn't as readily available during the Great Depression. During the early 20th century, the military started making this dish because it was cheap and easy to prepare. Military cooks could easily make a batch large enough to feed a crowd. The “Manual for Army Cooks” from 1910 even included a recipe that made 60 servings. Once the soldiers returned home, they started requesting it from their wives and mothers. Soldiers nicknamed the dish SOS.
Also known as creamed chipped beef, it's a simple and filling dish that consists of salted and dried beef cooked in a thin, white gravy. Usually made from beef round or similar cuts, it uses one of the cheapest cuts of meat. Great Depression cooks often cured the meat at home and used farm milk.
Balogna Casserole
When it comes to cheap meats, few are as inexpensive as bologna. Made from the parts leftover after processing other cuts, it was a staple during the Great Depression. It had enough preservatives to last without refrigeration, becoming a main part of the migrant diet. While you might throw a few slices between two pieces of bread and call it a day now, back then it was often the main part of a meal.
Bologna casserole originated in the 1930s as a way to combine cheap and simple ingredients in a new way and put a full meal on the table. It also helped cooks make a casserole based on things they already had in their pantry. The original recipe used canned beans, bologna, and onions. While the bologna provided protein, the beans added more protein and worked with the onions to fill out the dish.
Hoover Stew
Another dish that incorporated lots of cheap ingredients was Hoover stew. Named in honor of President Herbert Hoover, it was a common meal in Hoover Towns. People struggling during the Great Depression who had nowhere to go often developed shanty towns they named after him. The dish became popular because it just required a few ingredients and was easy to make. Migrants and homeless people could make it right over a fire.
A legend associated with the dish claims that women in Seattle came together to share ingredients, which wound up becoming Hoover stew. In other parts of the country, people called it Great Depression soup or poor man's soup. The basic recipe calls for hot dogs, stewed tomatoes, and elbow macaroni. Stewed tomatoes were readily available as so many people canned their own while elbow macaroni and hot dogs were fairly affordable.
Garbage Plate
The history of the garbage plate dates back to Nick Tahou Hots, a restaurant that opened in 1918 in Rochester, New York. Alex Tahou opened the restaurant, which he named after his son. Tahou designed the garbage plate as a way to provide diners with lots of calories and food for less money. He started with two patties made from ground beef topped with fries made from cheap potatoes. Tahou would then add side dishes to fill it out.
Tahou wanted to make sure that locals had enough food to get through the day when times were hard. Nick came up with the idea of adding more to the plate based on a request from a customer. On top of the hamburger patties, Nick allowed diners to add macaroni salad, beans, fried potatoes, fries, or a combination.
Mock Apple Pie
Apples were a luxury during the Great Depression. The 19th century saw many people dry apples at home to have a large supply throughout the colder months. When they didn't have dried or fresh apples but still had a craving for pie, they needed to get creative, which led to mock apple pie.
Though people already knew about mock apple pie, we can credit Ritz with its popularity. In the early 1930s, Ritz added the pie recipe to the back of its cracker boxes and sent them across the country. The recipe sounds unusual and maybe even a little gross to some. It calls for crackers added to a pie crust. You then make a sugary syrup, bring it to a boil, and pour it over the crust. The result is a pie that tastes like apple pie but doesn't use apples.
Rabbit Stew
Rabbits might be a common pet today, but they were once a major food source. During the Great Depression, hunting allowed people to get free food that they could stretch across multiple meals. They could even dry and cure the meat to ensure they had enough food through the winter. Rabbit stew started in the south and spread across the country. Hunters could also sell or reuse the pelts, making this stew a double-duty dish.
While the recipe differed across regions, most called for a rabbit and some simple ingredients. The cook dredged the rabbit in flour and seared it in a Dutch oven. They then added carrots, onions, potatoes, and any other vegetables they had. Adding a little more flour with some liquid created a rich and flavorful gravy. Rabbit stew cooks long and slow over low heat.
Vinegar Pie
If you've watched a TikTok video on Sprite or Coca-Cola Pie, you already know the basics of vinegar pie. Though used for its acidity today, it was once a popular dessert ingredient. Vinegar pie was part of a category of recipes called desperation pies during the 1930s. Ingredients were so hard to source during the Great Depression that bakers went to great lengths to find new options. Vinegar pie first appeared in the 1900s.
The recipe is pretty simple. Vinegar, sugar, water, and flour go into a pot on the stove that cooks until it's well combined and the sugar melts. This mixture then goes into a pie shell that bakes in the oven. Though some recipes added a meringue mixture to the top, not everyone used it because eggs were so expensive. Others added lemon juice to the vinegar mixture to make a citrus pie.
Peanut Butter and Pickle Sandwich
Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches are so common today that Stephanie Plumb, the heroine of Janet Evanovich's popular book series, even eats them. You may not know that their history goes back to the Great Depression though. Pickles were easy to make and a staple found in most households. They could keep for years and provide families with some good vitamins and minerals. Peanut butter was another affordable staple people could make or buy.
Several cookbooks from this era had a similar recipe that used just three things: bread, relish, and peanut butter. The basic recipe says to add a layer of peanut butter to one piece of bread and add relish to the other piece before combining them. Later recipes replaced the relish with pickle slices. The acidity of the pickles cut through the richness of the peanut butter to create an unexpected flavor.
Milk Bread
While milk bread is the name of a popular bread that is light and fluffy, it's also the name of a completely different Great Depression recipe. Anyone with access to flour and a few other basic ingredients could whip up a loaf of bread. It was rare for people during this era to buy bread from the store because of how easily they could make it. Milk bread, or milk toast, provided bakers with a way to use old and stale bread.
Making the dish involved melting butter in a pan and toasting the bread in it. They would then cover the bread with milk and cook it over low heat until the bread absorbed the liquid. Think of it as a nonsweet version of French toast. A sweet version of the dish used condensed milk and vanilla or brandy in place of standard milk.
Chop Suey
Chop suey is a Chinese American dish that grew out of the need to reuse leftover ingredients. Though some claim it dates back to the Chinese immigrants who worked in the early 1800s, others believe a Chinese restaurant created it later in the century. Chop suey recipes vary between restaurants, regions, and even homes.
It usually begins with some type of meat like chicken or beef. It goes into a pot with leftover veggies and a sauce made from cornstarch. American chop suey is a completely different recipe that uses ground beef, tomato juice or sauce, and macaroni. This was equally popular during the Great Depression because the person making it could customize it based on what they had. They might use fresh or stewed tomatoes, or they would replace the ground beef with rabbit or another type of meat.
Corn Bread
Cornbread was one of the main side dishes found during the Great Depression. The Great Depression version was savory and used a small number of ingredients. Cornbread back then used just cornmeal, lard, and salt. After mixing, the baker would add boiling water and mix to combine. They then fried the bread in patties similar to cornbread.
Another version used similar ingredients but baked them into a bread loaf. Most people used cast iron that they passed down through their families. Though some recipes used baking powder, others added a small amount of flour. Cornmeal and lard were always on the list. The cornbread was baked in the oven until it was cooked through with a brown and crusty top. Great Depression bakers would occasionally make frosting to turn the bread into a quick cake.
Mushroom Roly Poly
The first recipe for mushroom roly poly appeared in 1936, but historians believe it existed before then. In the same way that hunters turned to wild game to feed their families, foraging for mushrooms became popular among those who couldn't hunt. Mushrooms were a good substitute for ground meat and appeared in hundreds of recipes.
Mushroom roly poly is a recipe that calls for chopped mushrooms and some spices. It starts with a biscuit base and allows the person making it to use their favorite biscuit recipe. On top of the base goes the chopped mushrooms, which the base rolls around to cover the mixture completely. It bakes until crispy and golden brown. The printed recipe also suggested serving it with brown gravy made from leftover meat or a quick sauce made from wild parsley and other herbs.
Vegetable Loaf
Not everyone could afford ground meat during the Great Depression, which is why some developed recipes for a vegetable loaf. Though it looked similar, it didn't taste nearly the same. Often called meatless loaf because it contained no meat, the dish even appeared in “The Grapes of Wrath.” Newspapers across the country ran economical cooking columns that featured cheap and delicious meals. One of those shared a recipe for vegetable loaf in 1936.
This recipe called for split peas, tomatoes, onion, salt, pepper, and an egg. It also required the juice from a can of tomatoes and bacon grease, as most people canned homegrown tomatoes and kept their bacon drippings. They combined all the ingredients into a loaf pan and baked for two hours. Suggested side dishes included the remaining canned or stewed tomatoes, cornbread, and mashed potatoes.
Frozen Fruit Salad
Depending on where you live, you might hear frozen fruit salad called great grandma's frozen fruit salad. Buying fresh fruit was hard for many people during the Great Depression and impossible for others. Though farmers still had tons of fruit, they didn't have customers to buy it. Their new customers became companies capable of turning fruit into canned goods that were easier to ship and cheaper to buy.
Frozen fruit salad grew out of the abundance of canned fruits. It used canned pineapple, cherries, lemon juice, canned sweetened condensed milk, and whipped cream. Many people used Cool Whip in place of the whipped cream because it was more affordable. They then froze the dish until it was solid. Cutting through the soft white cream revealed the fruit inside.
Surprise Baked Potatoes
Odds are that you had surprise potatoes and didn't even know it because this was the original name for twice-baked potatoes. If there was one ingredient everyone had on hand during the Great Depression, it was potatoes. They were so cheap that households relied on them. While other vegetables were more expensive, this simple recipe helped them stretch those veggies to feed more people.
Surprise potatoes start with baked potatoes. After baking the potatoes, remove the insides, leaving behind the flesh and a small amount of the white part. The cook would then mash the potatoes with a small amount of milk and butter. They layered other veggies inside, like carrots and peas, before topping them with mashed potatoes and baking them again. The “surprise” came when diners dug through the top layer and found the veggies below. Some recipes also added cheese.
Economy pudding
Desserts were a rare treat during the Great Depression simply because sugar and other sweet ingredients were expensive. To save money, home bakers looked for economical recipes like economy pudding. Unlike the thin pudding you see today, this recipe was more akin to a cake or the figgy pudding we sing about during the holidays. When baked properly, it develops a slightly crunchy crust on the outside and a rich, moist interior.
Economy pudding uses flour with a handful of other ingredients to give it a sweet flavor. It used a small amount of raisins with a little cinnamon, but some bakers also added nuts for more crunch. The original also used suet because so many people had it in their homes. If you want to make it today and can't find suet, you can replace it with vegetable shortening.
Oatmeal Cookies
When you grab an oatmeal cookie today, you may not think about its history or origins. Fannie Merritt Farmer created the first recipe, which she included in her book “The Boston Cooking School Cook Book,” released in 1896. Farmer's recipe grew in popularity during the Great Depression because it included so many ingredients that people had on hand, such as oatmeal, flour, and sugar. Quaker Oats picked up the recipe and began printing it on the back of its oat containers near the turn of the century. Though Farmer didn't add raisins to her recipe, Quaker Oats did.
Oatmeal was a staple during the 1930s because it was affordable, and users could stretch it in so many different ways. On top of making it for breakfast, it could stretch out ground meat for meatloaf or mix it with other ingredients to make cookies.
Eggless, Milkless and Butterless Cake
It's hard to imagine a cake without butter, eggs, or milk, but this cake was quite popular during the 1930s. During World War I, the American government rationed some of those ingredients. The government released “War Economy in Food” in 1918, which was a pamphlet that included a recipe for War Cake. It called for molasses, raisins, and corn syrup rather than white sugar to give the cake a sweet taste. Later changes to this recipe led to the Great Depression cake.
Great Depression cake used baking powder, water, and vegetable shortening instead of eggs, milk, and butter. The finished product was a sweet and slightly dense cake that was the perfect dessert for a special occasion. Betty Crocker's Cooking Hour and Ladies' Home Journal both included recipes for similar cakes through the 1930s. For those craving sweet desserts during this era, few recipes could compete with Great Depression cake.
Banana Cake
You might assume that fresh fruits weren't readily available during the Great Depression, but both banana bread and banana cakes were popular. Part of the reason for their popularity was that home cooks couldn't afford to throw away ingredients. When bananas went bad and turned brown or black, they had to find some way to use them. Thus, banana cake was born.
Banana cake was easy to make with limited pantry ingredients like flour and sugar. Entenmann's even began making and selling a version that didn't include eggs, as they were so hard to come by. Regional variations popped up, too. Those who could afford to spend more could add a handful of chocolate chips or top it with frosting. As a bonus, home bakers could add any alcohol they had on hand to preserve the cake and make it last longer.
