#depression-era-cooking

#depression-era-cooking

In 1924, Lionel Sternberger, at just 16 years old, first put cheese on a hamburger and served it to a customer at the Rite Spot in Pasadena. This simple act changed the course of American food history, leading to the creation of the cheeseburger, a dish that billions of people have enjoyed since.

We generally average about $250 a week on food and a Costco trip every six to eight weeks that hits between $500 and $600. We've been shopping primarily at Aldi's & Trader Joe's because we go through so much fruit. A year ago, that $250 a week would actually last close to two weeks.

East Village Cookbook began with a loose group of residents who met while walking their dogs during COVID, forming an accidental community that was diverse in age, religion, and profession.

Iceboxes were large lined, insulated wooden cupboards built to store ice, food, and drinks. The ice would usually be placed on the upper shelf, with the food and drinks below, and the cool air from the melting ice would help to keep everything nice and chilled.

Foodies, have you heard of 'grandma-core dining' or 'nonna-stalgia' yet? Well, according to Yelp's 2026 top 100 U.S. restaurants report, grandma-core is one of the hot new food trends you can expect to see in 2026. This particular trend entails restaurants embracing nostalgia and comfort. That means you, as the diner, would experience old-fashioned and traditional recipes, often made with simpler ingredients. You'll find these homey meals served in a cozy, whimsical setting.

According to Ruth Painter Randall, author of "Mary Lincoln: Portrait of a Marriage," per Mr. Lincoln's White House, Mrs. Lincoln specifically asked the cook to prepare "fricasseed chicken and small biscuits with thick cream gravy poured all over it, all on one platter." The cook obliged, and it was such a hit with the president that he had three helpings.

In this cursed timeline of one alarming headline after another, I dream-on a daily basis-of shutting my laptop, plugging in some earphones, and diving headfirst into a steaming container of rotisserie chicken. (I have a whole rotisserie routine of arranging various sauce cups around the bird, which usually includes honey mustard, buffalo sauce, and ahem, Jezebel sauce.) But, alas, a new report by the Wall Street Journal has killed my high.

To prepare, I spent a lot of time meal planning, before combing through Aldi's website to compile my shopping list and get a price ballpark for everything. I made swaps to keep costs down - IE buying uncooked beans, or white bread instead of whole wheat - and was able to stay under budget. Still, these meals are pretty limited when based purely on the serving size on the nutrition label.

When you're cooking with meat, it's hard to go wrong with ground beef. The versatility of ground beef allows it to be used in far more dishes than steak, chicken breast, pork chop, or shrimp. Once it's ground up, the texture and the flavor lend themselves to countless applications. It may not be the perfect ingredient, but it's certainly in the running.

This isn't a traditional sandwich that is made on two pieces of bread stacked on top of each other with a filling in between. It's more of an open-faced sandwich that features a paste-like spread added to "circles of hot buttered toast." To make this vintage sandwich no one remembers anymore, you're instructed to grind two cups of fresh popcorn in a meat chopper (use a food processor for a modernized version),

Slen­der as it is, there's no short­age of meaty mate­r­i­al: Mod­ern chefs may find some of the first Amer­i­can cook­book's meth­ods and mea­sure­ments take some get­ting used to. We like to cook, but we're not sure we pos­sess the where­with­al to tack­le a Crook­neck or Win­ter Squash Pud­ding. We've nev­er been called upon to "per­fume" our "whipt cream" with "musk or amber gum tied in a rag." And we wouldn't know a whortle­ber­ry if it bit us in the whit­pot.

I love Samantha Seneviratne shepherd's pie. I add frozen peas because that's how we made shepherd's pie at my summer camp, in a big Dutch oven over a campfire. (Unreal.) It's so warm, delicious and extremely hearty. I also love how Sam mixes ground lamb with ground beef. I've never heard of that before and it's out of this world. Making this is always a task. We took our time so it was fun, and gave us something to do besides watch movies.

Not unlike pot roast, another Boomer generation classic, beef stroganoff transforms an unglamorous combination of stew meat and mushrooms into an elevated, rich, stick-to-your-ribs, Russian culinary institution. In fact, beef stroganoff's old-school, vintage feel was already centuries old by the time it became a Boomer favorite. The dish is named for the eponymous Stroganov family, nobility tracing back to 15th-century Imperial Russia who served as the viceroys of Siberia as contemporaries of the heralded Romanov family ("Anastasia" Broadway musical fans, rise up).

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. With budget-conscious cooks turning to Depression-era recipes for inspiration and help stretching their grocery dollars further, vintage is what's for dinner tonight. One-pot meals are an excellent way to keep kitchen clutter and dirty dishes to a minimum while yielding a hearty batch of food sure to satisfy even the most picky palates. If you love poultry, cream sauce, and the comfort of a plate of noodles, look no further than the humble turkey tetrazzini.

When baking cookies, there is one particular old school kitchen tool that boomers love. This tool is none other a vintage cookie press. If you're not familiar with what it is, a cookie press is handheld gadget, perfect for making spritz and other retro Christmas cookies. It has a hollow tube that holds cookie dough, and a plunger that you use to push the dough through patterned disks. The result are fun-shaped cookies ready for baking.