Sunny Primrose on a very overcast afternoon.

     I am always on the lookout for Depression-era recipes to help me stretch the food budget. Today I found a fascinating site from the first World War. It isn't Depression era, but it is riveting because  this "cook book" was published in the US to help with the war effort. Americans are asked to conserve wheat, sugar, meat and fats and not to waste any foodstuffs in the fight against the Prussian empire. The country that is able to conserve the most amount of food will win the war. In the first half of the book, each section begins by stating how giving up one of the aforementioned foods one day a week is going to help us win. By  utilizing meat flavour from the fat, trimmings and bones from cheaper cuts of meat and developing her family's palate towards meat substitutes, the American housewife is feeding the soldiers fighting for democracy on the front line. The rest of the section then lists recipes on how to serve meat substitutes such as nuts, dried legumes, eggs, etc. and how to use all the different parts of the animal (pig's head, chicken feet, suet) so that nothing is wasted. By giving up wheat, there are recipes for using barley, rice, rye, oats, and corn. Use less sugar by using maple syrup, corn syrup, molasses. dried fruit, etc. There are specific instructions for different ways of rendering fat, using gelatin to stretch out spreadable fats like butter or margarine, and using every bit of meat drippings. When I boil down a chicken or turkey carcass to make broth, I cool down the stock so I can skim off the fat. According to this book, you don't throw away that fat. You save it for cooking with. Whatever fat is unusable, is turned into soap. Very little was wasted. According to one of the chapters, these were the only things that were allowed to go into the trash. 

Egg shells—after being used to clear coffee.

Potato skins—after having been cooked on the potato.

Banana skins—if there are no tan shoes to be cleaned.

Bones—after having been boiled in soup kettle.

Coffee grounds—if there is no garden where they can be used for fertilizer, or if they are not desired as filling for pincushions.

Tea leaves—after every tea-serving, if they are not needed for brightening carpets or rugs when swept.

Asparagus ends—after being cooked and drained for soup.

Spinach, etc.—decayed leaves and dirty ends of roots.

            If any food was wasted, it was the result of the housekeeper's ignorance (hence the reason why the book was produced) or because they were not committed to the war effort. (Treason?) So the second half of the book dealt with recipes that were meant to help use up anything that was essentially left over. Drippings were used to make sauces to dress up recipes using beans, bread crumbs, and assorted vegetables....to make things more palatable.  There were a lot of recipes using gelatin to stretch out scraps of meat and vegetable left overs. Bread or cheese that went moldy were scraped off and grated to make various recipes. Almost anything could be served in a white sauce on toast. Anybody want to have a look at this site? Foods that will win the war, and how to cook them.  It wasn't so much economy driven as political. Don't worry. I'm not planning on boiling a pig's head to make scrapple; but, I do find this book utterly fascinating. Talk later.