barbie gee wrote in rec.food.cooking:

>
>
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2016, cshenk wrote:
>
> > barbie gee wrote in rec.food.cooking:
> >
> > >
> > >
> >> On Wed, 17 Aug 2016, wrote:
> > >
> >>> Saw it today in the window of my local independent bookstore, then
> >>> I flipped open today's New York Times and...
> > > >
> >>>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/di...ion-food-squar
> >>> e-meal-book.html
> > > >
> >>> By STEVEN KURUTZ AUG. 12, 2016
> > > >
> > > >
> >>> First paragraphs:
> > > >
> >>> In March 1933, shortly after ascending to the presidency, Franklin
> >>> Delano Roosevelt sat down to lunch in the Oval Office. A gourmand,
> >>> President Roosevelt had a taste for fancy Fifth Avenue foods like
> >>> pâté de foie gras and Maryland terrapin soup.
> > > >
> >>> His menu that day was more humble: deviled eggs in tomato sauce,
> >>> mashed potatoes and, for dessert, prune pudding.
> > > >
> >>> ?It was an act of culinary solidarity with the people who were
> >>> suffering,? Jane Ziegelman said. Her husband, Andrew Coe, added,
> >>> ?It was also a message to Americans about how to eat.?
> > > >
> >>> The couple, who live in Brooklyn Heights, are food historians. Mr.
> >>> Coe?s last book, ?Chop Suey,? was about Chinese cuisine in
> America, >>> while Ms. Ziegelman told the story of life in a Lower
> East Side >>> tenement through food in her book ?97 Orchard.?
> > > >
> >>> Their new, collaborative work, ?A Square Meal,? which will be
> >>> published Tuesday by Harper, is a history of American food in the
> >>> Great Depression. Showing some culinary solidarity of their own,
> >>> they met a reporter for dinner at Eisenberg?s Sandwich Shop, a
> >>> tiny, no-frills lunch counter in the Flatiron district that has
> >>> been in business since the year of the crash, 1929.
> > > >
> >>> Ms. Ziegelman, 54, ordered a cream cheese and chopped olive
> >>> sandwich, while Mr. Coe, 57, had the turkey, mashed potatoes and
> >>> vegetable medley. When a reporter ordered meatloaf, the couple
> >>> deemed it fitting for a discussion of Depression-era eating.
> > > >
> >>> ?Loaves were very popular,? Ms. Ziegelman said. ?There was peanut
> >>> loaf, liver loaf, bean loaf. They were made from an ingredient and
> >>> a cheap thing that stretches the ingredient out. Imagine eating
> >>> enough peanuts to serve as your dinner.?...
> > > >
> > > >
> >>> More than 100 comments so far.
> > >
> >> I heard something about Depression Era cooking on NPR recently, but
> >> it seemed that the recipes were really bland and sad.
> >> They didn't want people "enjoying" their rations too much...
> >
> > John, rationing was during wartime. There was no rationing in the
> > USA depression, just a lack of funds and jobs.
>
> It was me that wrote that, and yeah, I was a little confused, I do
> remember now that rationing coupons were for WWII.
>
> Hell, come to think of it, I can hardly imagine how my parents and
> grandparents got through both the Depression and WWII... but I
> understand now their frugality.

It's ok. What happened during the depression was very different from
WWII rationing with coupons.

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