Poor people meals

yelper43

Senior Member
When I was a kid I told mom that we needed to try something different to eat. The next day she made hominy that broke me.
 

Ruger#3

RAMBLIN ADMIN
Staff member
I still eat corn bread and milk. There’s always left over corn bread when we have pintos. The wife knows to save the corn bread.
 

ryork

Senior Member
My grandfather used to use the term "Depression Food". I was probably in my early teens before I finally figured out he was referring to the Great Depression and not something to make you feel better etc. You name it, he had tried it and probably liked it. Any and all parts of a pig (literally), turtles, hornyheads out of the creek, possums, poke salit, and more or less anything else you could catch, kill or dig up and put in a pot. I like snapping turtle if done right, never tried the hornyheads best I can remember, never tried possum for sure, and if I'm down to poke salit I'll just starve to death! I do miss the fresh pork we had from him in my early youth, he was a pig farmer among other crops. But he literally would not waste any part of a pig. He used to make the sousse and head cheese type stuff at home, and as others have mentioned the aroma was something to behold for sure.
 

mrs. hornet22

Beach Dreamer
I like everything mentioned in the thread,cept the pig liver. When I was a kid, peanutbutter was really hard to spread on loaf bread. We mixed mayo with it to make it softer. Have not eaten that in years but I always liked it. As to liver. The only liver I eat is deer or rabbit livers.
Still the way I make pbj&m today! Got one for lunch today. :cool::cool::cool:
What the heck is that
You neva had chicken mull????? :eek:
 

T-N-T

Senior Member
Lots of y'all think like me.
The foods we ate, we didn't know were poor folks meals. We ate em because they were served to us by our parents who were getting us fed on what they had.

Now that we are old enough to get it, we are thankful for their efforts.

But it's these foods that make us feel like we are home again.
 

mrs. hornet22

Beach Dreamer
Lots of y'all think like me.
The foods we ate, we didn't know were poor folks meals. We ate em because they were served to us by our parents who were getting us fed on what they had.

Now that we are old enough to get it, we are thankful for their efforts.

But it's these foods that make us feel like we are home again.
Yep. My thoughts exactly. I know my Diddy fished daily after work and took the whole family on the weekends. He also went quail hunting a lot. We ate a lot of fish and quail. :bounce:
love me some SOS
Had some a few weeks ago. :bounce:
 

Nicodemus

The Recluse
Staff member
I reckon I never did get past my raising or far from my roots, because I still eat about all the foods we had when I was a youngun. I get fancy ever once in a while but peas, butterbeans, greens, okra, squash, onions, eggplant and a few others that we grew and I still do for the most part, and a lot of pork and chicken. Supplemented with fish and wild game. I do eat more beef than we had back then.

Bologna, Treet, Spam, oil sausage, and sardines were occasional tablefare, but we did have salmon patties right regular. Bottom line was if you didn`t like peas and butterbeans, you were in a fix. They were and still are staples around here.
 

Oldstick

Senior Member
Like others said, this doesn't qualify as true poor folks food, just stretching things on a working class budget until the end of the month.

But one meal I remember regularly as a kid, was plain rice, with some Velveta cheese mixed in it. That was the "meat" dish then it would be canned early peas, we called them English peas for the vegetable. I always dreaded those meals as a kid, not knowing any better.

I reckon kids, even back in the depression era probably fussed too, until they got old enough to understand.
 

Knotmuch

Senior Member
I was a lad in the 70's. My dad planted a garden and us chilins picked green and speckled butter beans, peas, squash, tomatoes, eggplant, radish, mustard, turnips, collards, cucumbers, carrots, watermelon, and peanuts. We butchered or own hogs and cows for meat as well as wild hog and deer. I love that part of my life, and still eat everything listed except radishes.
 

sinclair1

Senior Member
I would pick a spam sandwich or potted meat sandwich over a T Bone, if that's what I am in the mood for at the time.
I grew up on it and even crave it, but poor folks food is expensive today, if you're one to fall for the quality scraps over regular scraps.

1lb oscar myer Bologna is $4. I can do much better with real food in that price range.

I see hot dogs for $4 a pack. Poor folks food is for rich folks now.:bounce:
 

T-N-T

Senior Member
My grandfather grew up on a farm in South East GA. The house he was born in stood about 150 yards from where I work every day.
He told stories of gathering scrap corn that didn't make it to market or in the hogs mouths for bird traps.
They would build traps by hand and scatter a few pieces of corn under them.
The goal was dove or quail. But he said it didn't matter really. All the local birds tasted about the same in rice.

He also said he could see the chickens under the house though the floor. The hogs across the dirt road through the wall. And the stars though the roof, in that old house.



We had to push it in and burn it about 8 years ago. Sad times.
 
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karen936

Head Researcher, McDurdellson Enterprises, Inc.
cornbread with potlicker from turnips or collards
cornbread and white beans
 

tsharp

Senior Member
Raised in south Louisiana we would eat what season it was. Spring we would eat crawfish, perch, catfish and crabs. In summer, shrimp season would be open and it would be shrimp, crabs, fish and what ever else was caught in the net. Fall it was rabbit, ducks and coots. Winter time it was white shrimp, oysters and fish. We did eat a lot and I say a lot of white rice with beans.
 
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mark-7mag

Useless Billy Director of transpotation
Raised in south Louisiana we would eat what season it was. Spring we would eat crawfish, perch, catfish and crabs. In summer, shrimp season would be open and it would be shrimp, crabs, fish and what ever else was caught in the net. Fall it was rabbit, ducks and coots. Winter time it was white shrimp, oysters and fish. We did eat a lot and I say a lot of whit rice with beans.

That's rich folks food! lol
 
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