Great Depression Cooking - The Poorman's Meal - Higher Resolution - YouTube

Welcome to my kitchen. I'm Clara. I'm 91 years old.

Today we are making meals from the Depression

I'm gonna make the poor man's meal which we ate  during the Depression.

It has potatoes and hotdogs because they were cheaper. So we got the hot dogs. 

Let's begin by peeling the potatoes.

what do you want to hear about the depression I had a quit  high school cuz couldn't afford socks.

Couldn't afford anything to wear

but we survived

We survived, we were all fat, by eating potatoes.

my father used to buy a sackof potatoes

and we ate potatoes every day.

Potatoes with pasta, potatoes fried, potatoes with eggs.

My father would buy a sack of potatoes a sack of everything. Flour.

Potatoes were a  dollar a sack.

That was a lot of money. A dollar.  

This is the last one I think I'm gonna peel  

I think today the kids like this meal. My grandson's  like it.

His friends like it they come here for Poorman's Meal.

if we had a bad potato we take the best part out and still eat it.

Next step is to cube the potatoes after you  peel them your cube them take out all the bad parts.

You know I had to quit high school cause  I didn't have stockins

to wear.

and that's a fact.

Now I'm putting the onion in the potatoes.

Well it all depends on how many potatoes you have and

And I think in this case one onion is enough. 

Now I'll put a little oil in the pan.

Just judge by yourself how much oil on you need.

If it runs out of oil and you put a little more

but in this case we don't know yet

So I'm gonna put this  on the stove now and fry it.

turn on the gas.

I got all the neighborhood kids coming here. They  come in and they say can we have the Poorman's Meal?   

They all like it and we made up that name, Poorman's Meal. We should have called it "The Depression Meal."

Getting the hotdogs ready  cutting them up so we could fry them with the potatoes.

It all depends how many potatoes you got  I think about four is enough for this amount of potatoes  

Hotdogs are half cooked and

They're tasty  and they were cheap so

anything that was cheap, stick in.

oh cold.

Mark comes over. "Nana make me the Poorman's Meal."

Then he brings his friend, Tom. I usually cook for them, Mark's friends, the boys. They like my poor man's meal too.

Starting to fry now.

The Depression was very bad. It was a long one too.

I had a little garden of my own. And lady came, my one of my neighbors.

With a shopping bag and she was  going in my yard my garden and I said

where are  you going? She says I'm going to pick a few things. I said, why don't you ask me I'll give them to you.

but I don't want you to go there  and just take what you want I said that's a lot of work for me.

She was she came to fill her shopping  bag with my my garden

"Oh, I didn't think you were so touchy."

I says, I am touchy. I work hard to  have that garden.

She just made herself at home.

I'm gonna put it just a couple  of tablespoons of sauce in here  

The next thing is, I going to put the hot dogs with the potatoes.

Take the potatoes if they're cooked and you know they're done.

The hot dogs will get a little crooked.

well they'll kind of bend.

I put the water in so the potatoes will  soften up and make a nice sauce for them

let it cook for a few minutes and they're  almost ready to eat.

It has potatoes and hotdogs so  

That's about it. There's not much to it.

If you want to watch me make it I'll be right here