Mama's "Depression" Cooking

Mama, so young

So I wrote about Mama and said she was a good cook in the 50’s, a woman who could stretch a small budget to feed six people and have leftovers. I also said that someone told me once that some of her recipes might be called “Depression” food because they were probably created during the Great Depression when people couldn’t afford much meat and found ways to augment it with rice and other starches, and vegetables they could grow in their backyards.

I decided to publish a couple of Mama’s “stretcher” recipes here not because we’ve returned to the Great Depression, but because they are actually pretty darn good recipes. If you try them, let me know what you think.

RICE DINNER
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef or turkey
½ cup chopped green pepper
½ cup chopped celery
½ cup chopped onion
3 tbsp cooking oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cans whole tomatoes (15 oz. cans)
1 cup rice, uncooked
Directions:
In a large saucepan or skillet, sauté onion, celery and pepper in small amount of oil. Add beef or turkey and brown. Reduce heat. Mix well and spread as bottom layer in pan. Coarsely chop tomatoes and spread (with juice) on top of beef or turkey. Evenly sprinkle rice on top and cover tightly. Cook on low heat for about 1 hour or until rice is done. (Add water if necessary.)

This one sounds simple, eh? It is. It does, however, require some watching. Mama often spent the entire time it was cooking in the kitchen not far from the stove, sometimes making biscuits to go with the meal or chopping up fresh fruit to be served with a little sugar on top as needed. If we had fresh strawberries, some of the biscuits might include some sugar and we’d eat them with strawberries on top for dessert.

We might also have green beans or peas from Daddy’s garden to go with this dish. I don’t recall many green salads being served at our table. Daddy didn’t grow lettuce and we weren’t finding it in stores as readily as we do today. Nobody back then would have imagined we’d be getting lettuce already cut up in plastic bags!

Daddy & Mama

One more staple from Mama’s recipe box was Country Fried Steak. This was a favorite of my father's and was usually served with mashed potatoes.  Don’t be misled by the use of the word “steak” here, by the way because the whole point of this dish was that it was based on cubed steak, a cut of beef that is still available, but was more popular in middle-class homes back then because it was the cheap way to eat beef. Cubed steak, for those who haven’t had it, is meat that requires beating before cooking to tenderize it. Mama did this with either a wooden mallet or the top of a Coca-Cola bottle, the old kind that was made of glass and in our house had multiple uses after the Coke was out of it. Despite this less than glamorous introduction, I will tell you that this is one of my favorite dishes (when I’m not dieting) and one that my son requests from my kitchen.

COUNTRY FRIED STEAK
Ingredients:
1-2 pounds cubed steak, tenderized (Beat it within an inch of its life, folks)
½ cup flour
1 dash salt
1 dash pepper
1 stick butter or margarine
1 cup milk
Directions:
Mix seasonings with flour and dredge both sides of beaten steak. In electric (or large) skillet, heat butter. Brown both sides of steak in butter; cook until done. Remove steak to platter and hold in warm oven while making the gravy. Using the same skillet, add more flour and butter (if needed) and brown slightly. Then add milk and cook, incorporating browned beef bits (we called “scrumples”) and stirring frequently, on low heat until gravy is at desired consistency. Serve gravy hot over steak, cooked rice and/or biscuits.
Note: The Armstrongs are partial to gravy with “body” rather than the classically smooth or thinner gravy.

Now, as with all my cooking, I’m prone to experiment and add my own touches. So these days I’m partial to coarse ground black pepper and garlic powder in recipes like these. I encourage anyone who cooks to try things. The only right way is the way that you or those you are serving enjoy the food.

Mama hasn’t always approved of my innovations, by the way. She grew up with the notion that the way to cook green beans was all day in a pot with fatback. In an attempt to live a somewhat healthier life, I steam green beans. The first time I served them, slightly crisp, but I thought really tasty, she was appalled. “What have you done to these green beans,” she asked with horror. When I told her I steamed them, she huffed and said she was surprised to find that I’d taken up Yankee cooking methods.

There’s no question that her green beans, steeped in fatback and juices all day, did have a wonderful taste. They tasted, of course, the same way that anything cooked that way would taste—like the fatback with which they were cooked. I couldn’t convince her that the naturally sweet taste of the beans themselves, steamed briefly, could compare. Actually, I assured her, I like both, but since I don’t work all day in the fields, I can’t afford to eat the way people used to eat. I also don’t work the same way Mama did then, on her feet much of day, ironing, cooking and sewing and sometimes going to work in an office, as well.

Mama's kids

For those who look over their shoulders for “the good old days,” I say “not me.” I had a wonderful childhood, thanks to Mama and Daddy, and I’m grateful for that. I’m also happy that our world has changed in the way the world always changes. Some things change for the worse, some for the better. I wouldn’t trade the time period I’ve known for any other. I don’t think Mama would have, either.

The picture above was taken some time in the 50's.  That's me on the left (with the strange hairstyle), my brother Buddy and my sister, then known as Patsy.  The dog's name was Inky.  I think she liked Mama's cooking, too, because she and her companion dog, Bingo, were always underfoot in the kitchen, hoping for a scrap or two, usually competing for those with one of our cats.