Joe Levi:
a cross-discipline, multi-dimensional problem solver who thinks outside the box – but within reality™

Living Frugally, Depression Style

I consider myself to be fairly fortunate, for the purposes of this post, it’s because I had parents that grew up during the Great Depression. Both parents were very young during the depression, but the memories stuck (they were born in the late 20’s and early 30’s).

My dad and I were talking about our gardens yesterday. As long as I can remember my dad has always had a garden, and not a small garden. He grows much, much more than he can use in a season, and he’s still picking carrots and red beets from what he planted last year.

What he doesn’t use gets given to his kids, his neighbors, his friends, anyone that can help talk some of the bounty off his hands. Of course he stores what he can. He hangs onions in his root cellar and garage, he digs his potatoes and stores them. He leaves his red beets and carrots in the ground over the winter. My mom cans and juices tomatoes and grapes. Everything that they can’t store, can’t give away, or can’t eat goes into the compost pile, which gets spread back over the garden as soon as it has cooked.

I asked him why he had such a large garden, “when I was a little boy that’s what we ate.” He said food was scarce, and it was expensive… and work, when his dad could get any, didn’t pay much… but he was glad to do it, any of it, regardless of the pay.

Seeds were cheap. Water came from the well and you could have as much as you could pump. As long as you had enough land to grow, you’d grow as much as you and your land could support.

Then I stumbled across a YouTube video series: Great Depression Cooking with Clara. You owe it to yourself to see how they stretched even the smallest little things when making food. These videos don’t just show you the recipes, they give you first-hand insight on what it was like to live back then.

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