Depression-era Cooking (With Clara)

Note: This is from my Money Saving Monday series at Blogging For Michigan

Let’s talk about Clara, a 93 year old cook and great grandmother, from upstate New York. Clara has a popular online cooking show, Great Depression Cooking. In her show, Clara teaches you how to prepare depression-era meals, and she shares stories about her childhood. Here’s a video in which she shares 5 Depression Cooking Survival Tips:

1. Family
2. Have a garden
3. Use & re-use
4. Make your own meals
5. Eat healthy

Clara has been doing this for a couple of years. Here’s her first episode, in which she makes pasta and peas.

“It’s not expensive and it’s nourishing … we ate a lot of pasta during the depression. … What are we doing to eat tonight? Pasta with garlic. What are we going to eat tonight? Pasta with peas. What are we going to eat tonight? Pasta with beans.”

Dice some potatoes, dice an onion, put some olive oil in and fry ‘em up until the potatoes are rosy. When the potatoes are rosy, put in the peas. Add enough water to cook the pasta in. Boil and season the water, add pasta. Cover the pan and turn off the stove, and use the heat to cook the pasta. “In the depression we would turn off the gas and let it cook in its own heat, so we would save gas. Anything to save anything.”

And she also tells the story of the whiskey bootleggers next door. Very entertaining.

Clara’s youtube channel is here, and her blog is here. She also has a forthcoming DVD.