Foods that taste like 1934

Carrot cake

Those creamed peas look really…repulsive. Sorry. I'm sure they must taste very…good…though.

[quote]Oh how I loved creamed peas on toast!

Gross!

Don't get any on the davenport!

I loved a full tray of automat delicacies.

Let me know when the "Foods That Taste Like 1920" thread is posted

I won't care if I never get back

Madonna's pussy

In 1934 I saw a sugar bowl do this with a big black Devil's Food Cake

Why Can't You Sleep?

Maybe because of the Dexedrine mixed into your Ovaltine?

SMELL IT!

The biggest thing for me was the invention of stinkless gelatine in 1934. I have such awful memories of the aspics Mother made in years prior. The cats would howl in terror all night long and the rag-and-bone man once accosted me on my way to school and accused my family of holding out on him, so lingering was the stench of hide and bone!

I'm not going to micromanage this thread, R6. As long as you have memories of foods you enjoyed, as child or adult, up to 1934 — I think that's a safe cut-off point to keep the young brats out? — feel free to post them here.

I present... Pancakes Barbara!

Our delicious pancakes cannot be imitated.

Apples. Mother would buy us one every day from the jobless gent on the corner.

I love a hot cup of caffeine rich coffee at bed time!

Nope! Doesn’t make me jittery at all!

Why, Spry shortenin', of course! I never make a batch o' biscuits without it! And my pie crusts are so flaky, they git all the neighbors to talkin'!

Consommé

Tuna mayonnaise

Lamb chops with mint jelly

Rutabaga whip

Hamburger with mashed potatoes.

Salisbury steak ^^^^^

I like lamb chops. Pity nobody eats them anymore.

Werther’s Originals

Stone Soup.

Rum balls

My mom's weekly allowance from my dad for groceries and other expenses were usually not enough to last until the end of the week. When she didn't have enough ingredients or meat to make a proper dinner, she would occasionally make scrambled eggs and add in french fried potatoes and I think onions. Us kids didn't mind since it was tasty enough and mom still gave us a nourishing meal.

Creamed Eggs on toasted. Also chipped beef on toast, aka Shit on a Shingle.

Pepperidge Farm bread pre-preservatives, when it was thin as melba toast and went stale/moldy after 3 days.

Marrons glacé.

Buttered noodles with poppy seeds.

Lots of kohlrabi.

Parsnips with salt and butter.

Clara of "Great Depression Cooking" is an Italian lady who grew up in the Depression. Her grandson filmed her cooking a lot of her favorites from those hard times. (She died a couple of years ago, age 90-something.)

R24 My grandparents would complain about how they got very sick of shit on a shingle, liver (as it was a cheap protein) and onions (both with liver and in its own dishes).

I guess I have plebe tastes because my mom made creamed tuna on toast (canned tuna version of S.O.S. or chipped beef, I guess) and I loved it. I don't think my dad liked it very much; maybe it reminded him of being poor. My mom taught me how to make creamed tuna and it was just white sauce (milk, butter, and flour) with a can of tuna, maybe some peas. Buttered toast. I'd still eat it.

A hot cup of Chock Full O' Nuts

[quote]I guess I have plebe tastes

I'm torn. On one hand, you had tuna not to mention butter and milk, in your cream sauce. On the other, you couldn't even afford toast points and had to eat just....toast. :shudder:

Use Clabber Girl when baking!

I heartily recommend that everyone try that marvelous new miracle product, Bisquick, which was introduced three years ago, in 1931. Land sakes, it certainly is a timesaver, allowing me to whip up a batch of golden biscuits in a jiffy. Now I have more time to boil my laundry in my copper tub before scrubbing each piece on a washboard and letting it soak overnight in a mixture of bluing and naphtha before running it through my hand wringer and hanging it in the backyard.

I miss ad copy that purported to be about ice cream but was actually your wife's thinly veiled threat to tell all the neighbours about your limp dick if you didn't keep her in cutting-edge appliances.

[bold]THE PUBLIC WILL KNOW[/bold]

The public will know at once, that Frigidaire kept ice cream is better kept ice cream. Better in flavour and better and firmer in quality.

With Frigidaire [ ... ] you are no longer troubled with soft, mushy ice cream, and the consequent loss of custom and reputation.

There's no way there are still people on the DL old enough to remember when GWTW came out.

OP's post sounds like the narration of one of those MGM shorts on TCM, John Nesbitt's Passing Parade.

R36 When I was doing genealogy research I saw a lot of ads in old city directories and newspapers for ice cream and the word used in those ads was always....."sanitary."

Which makes me think of "sanitary napkin" now, but I guess I understand that in those days, it meant "our ice cream won't kill you with bacteria."

r37, I bet there are.

R31 At first glance I thought "ew," but I love tuna casserole which is not much different. Now I want to try creamed tuna.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Mildred! Open the door! I have the aspic and it's MELTING!

We eat the same now in 1934 and we did in 1834.

Fried squirrel!

I was apparently served fried squirrel as a child in the late 70's at a family members home in Michigan. Looking back, I hope the adults were just fucking with the kids heads.

Either way, I declined.

[quote] I'm torn. On one hand, you had tuna not to mention butter and milk, in your cream sauce.

R33, now that you say it, my mom used Imperial margarine up until maybe the late '80s. Not sure if it was a cost thing or a misguided health thing. Probably cost.

R41, try it (creamed tuna) some time. If you don't like it, not much lost on cost for ingredients.

What do marrons glacés have to do with 1934, though?

Staple of The Depression.

[quote]There's no way there are still people on the DL old enough to remember when GWTW came out.

Why not? Dame Olivia at R42 died just last month, and she wasn't exactly playing Bonnie Blue Butler.

R23. Let’s hear it for the moms all over the world who have hade to stretch the food budget to feed their families. I don’t know how they did it, but they managed to feed their families on the tightest budgets on many occasions.

My dad said during the Depression when he was a boy, he and my grandfather would have rice with milk and sugar for supper sometimes.

My father was also a child of the Depression, and I remember him occasionally asking my mother to cook him some rice and milk for dinner.

[quote] What do marrons glacés have to do with 1934, though?

They have plenty to do with 1940; one of the reasons Hitler invaded France is because he wanted to occupy a country that had better food.

I eat three almonds and a lettuce leaf for dinner.

Every day is like the Great Depression at my house

And for dessert ... tapioca pudding!

Every spoonful of slimy little beads is just like swallowing vomit.

R35: Pro tip, claim to be vegetarian if there's even a possibility of being served something odd. I did that living in Asia, it meant no pig's eyes at Cantonese banquets (popular outside of China) and no fried insects.

R17 my grandma loved Salisbury steak I always thought it was disgusting and wondered where the hell it came from. It makes sense it was a depression era dish.

During the great depression my mother's family in Athens Greece would often times have nothing to eat but wild greens they were able to forage in empty lots and fields on the outskirts of their neighborhood. My grandmother would boil them and make a soup/stew concoction. That would sometimes be their sustenance for days on end until they could manage to obtain grains or vegetable or meats. It is considerably worse to survive during war and economic depression for poor families. Like many others of their generation my mother and her siblings dealt with malnutrition during the depression and WWII.

R58 - I am amazed that none of these folks knew that NOTHING is easier to raise than a goat which has far less fat and more calcium than what we eat today. But that being said, during the Depression people lived in hard circumstances and they did what they could to survive. So sad .

Brown beans with apple or raw onion, bacon and pickles

Kale potatoe mash

🤢

They knew back then that lots of sugar and carbs were bad for you. Three large meals a day and everyone was thin.

Here's a 1934 menu for the Hotel Kimball in Springfield, MA. Food sounds good to me.

my grandfather said he lived on potatoes during the depression

Crêpes Suzette!

r60=Dan Quayle

[quote]During the great depression my mother's family in Athens Greece would often times have nothing to eat but wild greens they were able to forage in empty lots and fields on the outskirts of their neighborhood. My grandmother would boil them and make a soup/stew concoction. That would sometimes be their sustenance for days on end until they could manage to obtain grains or vegetable or meats. It is considerably worse to survive during war and economic depression for poor families. Like many others of their generation my mother and her siblings dealt with malnutrition during the depression and WWII.

Sounds like heaven to me.

rutabaga, turnips

rice and bread pudding

Call me Dan Kale R65

R62 nothing wrong with that menu. I’d happily have dinner there. I also love rhubarb

my aunt said jarred mayo was not available, and if you wanted it you had to make it.

Interesting you should post that, R62. My one and only restaurant meal as a child was at the Hotel Kimball. Doris and I shared a single smelt and a few scraps from the olive tray while Mother and her new husband tossed back sidecars and gorged themselves on greenpoint cocktails.

That was fine but I was ever so envious when Mother ordered a half grape fruit! If my grotesquely bowed stems are any indication, I was quite deficient in vitamin c.

Well, what came next was quite a slap in the face. The very instant the grape fruit was brought to the table, the new husband snatched it away and pulled giggling Doris onto his lap and began feeding her with Mother’s spoon. Mother’s very own grape-fruit spoon! And he didn’t offer me so much as a bite.

Imagine that!

Black berry cobbler cause the black berries are free for the picking.

My grandfather would not eat blackberries as he had eaten so many during the Great Depression. I've heard people say similar things about their Italian grandparents. Not blackberries but whatever grew free in Italy during the Depression.

Up until WW2, marrons glacés were considered an elegant treat -a true luxury food of the rich and famous. Since then they have been supplanted by chocolate and various other sweets.

Mint juleps and tea sandwiches, honeychile!

Ghastly, R71! Simply ghastly!

I originally posted this on 𝐖𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐭𝐞, at R95, in response to a pic of Tupperware salt & pepper shakers.

My grandmother had a set of those, R94.

The observations about Depression Era seasoning are interesting to me. I always thought that the reason my Gram (my nickname for my grandmother on my mom's side) seasoned everything so heavily - including the over-use of garlic salt - was that she was a heavy smoker and couldn't taste anything unless it was overseasoned. I inherited her seasoning tastes, although I'm not a smoker, and never have been.

The thing at [R75] about cucumbers and onions in vinegar - she did that, too; it was usually a side dish with beef roast, at Christmas. She frequently made something she called "goulash," which consisted of fried ground beef with cubed potatoes in broth, seasoned with nothing by garlic salt. I was raised on it, and it was with some surprise that I discovered in my 20s that "goulash," properly speaking, had macaroni, tomatoes, and paprika in it. The simplicity of my gram's "goulash" might simply reflect Depression Era poverty - the ground beef and potatoes may have been all they had.

Gram died of cancer in 1980, when I was sixteen. My relationship with her had become as adversarial as the one with my parents, if not more so, but I still loved her cooking. Perhaps a week ago, I made her "goulash" because I was craving it, but with the modifications I've made to it over the years - granulated garlic powder instead of the lethal levels of garlic salt she used, and Tones Beef Broth concentrate added to improve the flavor of the broth. But it's still just the ground beef and potatoes that I loved, with broth to sip and dip bread in. (Sometimes I use cubed rutabaga in it along with the potatoes, just to switch it up a bit.)

It's definitely not health food, but I like it every few months or so.

R19 If you lived nearby, I would invite you for dinner. I make Lamb Chops at least twice a month. Other times, I braise a leg, or other cuts. I make a real Shepherd's Pie in Fall & Winter as well.

[quote]I make Lamb Chops at least twice a month.

How barbaric!

I worked in a German restaurant as a 14 year old in NY in 1972. The customers got:

Relish tray with stalks of celery, long cut carrots, black & green olives, a whipped dip that was very light orange colored & very good. I never bothered to find out what is was

A big basket of warm rolls, pumpernickel bread, crackers, breadsticks & slices of fresh made bread, butter.

Shrimp cocktail. All dinners came with it

Choice of Appetizer

Beef consommé with noodles

A salad in a big bowl for each customer, choice of dressing

Entree

Dessert & coffee.

I think the average complete dinner was about $12

I hated going there for dinner when I was a kid. It took hours. I couldn’t eat 1/10th of my meal because there was too much food. So I had to sit there listening to clinking dinnerware for 2.5 hours while grownups ate & drank and smoked cigarettes.

You had to call for reservations, btw. They might take you as a walk in on a slow night, but Fri/Sat/Sun were booked to capacity every week by Wednesday night.

Light orange colored R79? It was probably flavored with paprika. Germans.

R66 LMAO

Vegemite, which was originally a flop, briefly changed its name to Parwill in an ill-conceived plot to one-up Marmite's advertising slogan [italic]My mate? Marmite[/italic] with [italic]Marmite, but Parwill[/italic]. Sales really dried up after that and the name was changed back to Vegemite in 1937.

Since DL of 2020 frequently seems to need more handholding than in the past, Parwill changed the meaning of Marmite's slogan to:

[quote]My mate? Ma might.

And answered back with:

[quote]Ma might, but Pa will.

I already posted about my dad and his dad (who was widowed) having rice and milk/sugar for supper. My mom's father raised rabbits, geese, chickens, and had a garden. He was Italian. he could pick mushrooms knowing which ones were good to eat. He still did this when I was a kid and I'd go with him.

Mother will be heartbroken to hear that no one even mentioned her signature dish: Hoover Stew.

[quote]I already posted about my dad and his dad (who was widowed) having rice and milk/sugar for supper. My mom's father raised rabbits, geese, chickens, and had a garden. He was Italian. he could pick mushrooms knowing which ones were good to eat. He still did this when I was a kid and I'd go with him.

And I followed your post by saying that my father would also ask for rice and milk, R84. My grandfather on my father's side was also Italian, and he raised chickens and had a large garden. I would also go into the woods behind his house with him when I was young as he picked mushrooms. Occasionally, I would point out some mushrooms that I thought he had overlooked, and he'd say, "Those are poison." No one in the family ever died from eating the mushrooms he foraged in the woods.

My grandmother would have rice and milk. She was of English descent from Appalachian families. She would mushroom hunt and field forage. No one ever died from her greens or mushrooms. She raised chickens and other fowl.

Was she living a quick-change transvestite life, while doing a bad Italian accent?

if you don't know, we don't. r87.

Rice with milk and sugar is pretty much universally called Rice Pudding in Europe, It's better with condensed milk, a vanilla pod and some nutmeg. But you can still buy it ready made in cans here for less than 50c.

R88, you're obviously misgynistic, since you didn't hatefully attack R86 and his predecessor.

But I forgive you. Because you're special.

Was she living a quick-change transvestite life, while doing a bad Italian accent?

makes no sense...

In Ohio we had "city chicken". It was cubes of meat (pork, beef, veal, lamb in some combination--but no chicken) on 6 inch wooden skewers. It was fried in a skillet.

I swore I did not like veal or lamb, but Mom didn't tell us we were eating it when we actually were.

They still do mixed meat Shish Kebab's (shishkabob) almost everywhere in Southern Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa (Spain, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Morocco etc). In Muslim/Jewish Countries they obviously don't use Pork. They're usually OK.

R31, that looks great to me. I mean, it's basically tuna casserole on toast instead of egg noodles, and making a bechamel sauce from scratch in lieu of a canned soup.

I forgot the link from R93.

My grandparents were from the depression era, and Italian immigrants. Of course, they gardened and canned tomatoes and made their own wine and beer. But I could never get past the notion of dandelion soup - which I actually enjoy now, as long as the dandelion greens are purchased from the grocery store.

Large blocks of pure lard.

R92, interesting. I'm from Northeast Ohio, and "city chicken" is always pork skewers, sometimes breaded. Adding in lamb and veal would be an upgrade - that I wouldn't mind at all.

R51, R52, My much older mother was a child of the Depression. Leftover brown rice, heated with milk and cinnamon (no sugar) was called imitation rice pudding and a norm for breakfast. So was cornmeal mush (cornmeal cooked in milk) and oatmeal.

Just out of interest, can't you get Shish Kebabs in The US? Almost every takeaway sells them here in the UK. Even Supermarkets sell them ready to cook at home (and Adana, minced lamb versions).

Seems strange that they aren't common?

R96 You can make 'Dandelion Soup' with Arugula (Rocket). They are the same family and I'd defy anybody to be able to differentiate between them cooked.

R84, my dad grew up in rural Europe and knew mushrooms. He used to go foraging in the park in my hometown. He knew a lot about nature and foraging, being a dirt poor mountain boy. I wish like hell I’d asked him to teach me more. It makes me cry to think about how poor and meager his life was.

Poor used to beg for leftover meat fat & bones, so that they could have a taste of meat along with any vegetables they grew. Dandelions and wild lettuce, otherwise known as weeds, are very nutritious and relieve pain. Flour and lard made gravy. Add baking soda to make biscuits.

R100, I live in NYC and you can get them from halal carts in the street. My family (white bread Americans) make chicken or shrimp kebabs on the grill, too. Sometimes they are pre-prepared in the supermarkets in the summer.

It’s not common, no, but not exactly rare. If you announced to guests that you were grilling kebabs, I don’t think anyone would be surprised. And they’d probably be happy!!

My New England grandmother used to make coffee Jello from leftover coffee. Served it with sweetened whipped cream. It seemed old-fashioned in the 1970s, and she would have been eating it in 1934, certainly.

R102 They used to split bones to get the Marrow out of them (commercial soup companies still do), It's becoming fashionable again now.

R103 Thanks, It just seemed odd that they weren't eaten in The US. They are probably more common outside of The US though because we all eat lots of Lamb, Especially The UK, Italy, Australia, Greece and Arab Countries.

Dandelion soup recipe linked.

R89 it used to be common here too. My mom loved it but I never liked it. She used to eat it with a fried plaice.

Oysters Rockefeller

re: wild dandelions

you don't know if a dog pissed on them!

R110 exactly my thought, same with brambles in the woods

[quote]Just out of interest, can't you get Shish Kebabs in The US? Almost every takeaway sells them here in the UK. Even Supermarkets sell them ready to cook at home (and Adana, minced lamb versions).

My mother, who was born in the US to Greek-born parents, made shish kebab as her "fancy company meal" frequently. She used lamb, and it was cooked outside on a charcoal grill. This was in the '50s and '60s.

Do you have a hairy anus?

Anything molasses.

R113 would have survived the Depression just scavenging for ass.

They still do mixed meat Shish Kebab's (shishkabob) almost everywhere in Southern Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa (Spain, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Morocco etc). In Muslim/Jewish Countries they obviously don't use Pork. They're usually OK.

How do you have the fucking nerve to mention Israel at all when it comes to shish kebab of all things? It really is psychotic how even the food of the Middle East has been stolen by them so that idiots think food that has been around long before 1948 is mentioned in the context of that country rather than the countless other countries in the Levant including Palestinians which have existed long before - and I include Jewish people who are from those countries, NOT Israel. That moron Rachel Ray pulled this shit a while back and rightfully got ripped a new one. You look like complete idiots when you do it, not educated in the least. It's revisionist bullshit and mentioning it doesn't make me wrong. sorry to disturb your "beautiful mind" with facts.

Polk Salad

[quote]It makes me cry to think about how poor and meager his life was.

He was livin' like s king compared to us!

Filet Mignon!

[quote]Annie

Leapin’ lizards!

We’re things like beans cheap back then like they are now? Why didn’t people just become vegetarians?

Skybar.

Cheap chocolate filled with fudge, vanilla, Carmel, and peanut butter. There was a vending machine where I worked once that was full of them. They were the chocolate equivalent of “so bad it’s good.”

Speaking of filet mignon, Marc's, of all places (discount grocery store for those of you not familiar with it) sells packs Tri-tip steaks really cheap. They're usually between $5-$7 per pack, and honestly, they cook up just like filet mignon's and are super tender.

[quote] Skybar. Cheap chocolate filled with fudge, vanilla, Carmel, and peanut butter

Cheap or not, I loved Skybars.

I also loved all the weird / cheap Necco candies R124. As kids we’d play communion with Necco wafers; and my grandma always had Mary Janes in the coffee table candy dish of her Flatbush apartment.

Teaberry Gum

Hardtack

Liver and onions

Vegemite

Monastery bread?

Spam

Bad casserole

Cherries Jubilee

Ovaltine

Instant coffee

Carnation condensed milk

Molasses and molasses cookies

Cream of wheat

Spam might be even more antique than the '30s, for all I know.

I don't really eat any of them much anymore, But I loved Spam, Ovaltine, and Cream of Wheat.

I used to love going through Central Square in Cambridge as a kid because the Necco factory always smelled so good.

It was a rude awakening when I had my first Sky Bar, probably around middle school, and realized the nasty thing in my mouth could have been so alluring from afar.

It set a pattern for years to come.

The sky bars look delicious

R121, because becoming a vegetarian would require self control and discipline, which many lack.

A lot of these '30s faves(like cream of wheat, Spam, other potted meat and lousy leftover casseroles)seem to be 100% devoid of essential nutrients.

Ketchup soup.

[quote]R121, because becoming a vegetarian would require self control and discipline, which many lack.

It's not as simple as that. We're talking about the 1930s here. Back then, and for decades to come, meat was considered essential to good health and nutrition. "The experts" pretty much recommended having meat at every meal. Yes, it was expensive, but rather than give up meat and its essential nutrients, people would eat organs and other "variety cuts," and cheap products like Spam and the Spam knock-offs.

R133 you're right and it's still that way. Mainstream advice still pushes eating plenty of "lean meats", as though those somehow clog your colon less than fatty cuts of meat.

My dad had to give up eating red meat 2-3 meals daily. He grew up with that dietary model in the '60s and developed Alzheimer's/dementia. He became vegetarian, ate tons of fresh produce and completely reversed his Alzheimer's. He started eating meat again and it came back, so he learned he must stay at least 80% vegetarian and meatless if he wants to be immune to Alzheimer's. It works.

R79, did you work at Luchow's?

Aspic

One of the things that comes up over and over in old ads is how concerned they were with their children's growth. And if it isn't actual growth, it's products promising to give kids enough energy to just make it through the day.

As someone mentioned above, the word 'sanitary' pops up constantly. 'Dainty' as well.

You could probably have made a fortune selling [italic]Drummond's Vitamine-Enriched Sanitary Scotch for Infants[/italic] if you had some combination of the following in your ad copy — pure, hygienic, cell-producing, appetite-building, health-giving, digestible, feather-light, phosphorus-rich, scientifically proven, modern, appealing, and agreeable.

"Digestible" seemed to be the most essential attribute for any food product to have in those days. Indigestion and "sour stomach" seemed to afflict most of the population back them. Spry (a Crisco-like shortening) guaranteed flaky pie crusts and tender cakes, but most important of all, it was digestible. As opposed to sitting in your stomach like a rock.

Cum.

R92 I'm late to this party so I apologize if someone upthread made this comment, but we called those skewers 'mock chicken legs'. Back in those days, chicken was more expensive than veal!

R100, to answer your question directly, kebabs are not common in most of the US and they are usually only found in Mediterranean and Levant style family owned shops. Most of these are found in major cities on the coasts.

Much of the US was never settled by Greeks or people from the Middle East. Their foods have experienced occasional surges in popularity, but this popularity was confined to mid to high end restaurants. Kebabs were never adopted into the mainstream franchise fast food menu.

Where I live, a city with not a lot of middle easterners, there are a few family owned restaurants that sell them, but there aren't any (or very few) food carts or trucks selling that type of food. We don't have many of the late-hours takeaways that are found in some cities in Europe either.

[quote]And I followed your post by saying that my father would also ask for rice and milk, [R84]. My grandfather on my father's side was also Italian, and he raised chickens and had a large garden. I would also go into the woods behind his house with him when I was young as he picked mushrooms. Occasionally, I would point out some mushrooms that I thought he had overlooked, and he'd say, "Those are poison." No one in the family ever died from eating the mushrooms he foraged in the woods.—Were we separated at birth?

R86 Maybe...it was my grandfather on my mother's side who was Italian-American, by other grandfather was Belgian.

btw When my dad said they had rice with milk and sugar, for supper, it wasn't rice pudding, it was just rice that they poured milk into, and had with sugar, for supper. Like how you'd eat cereal.