I am a big supporter of eating “real” food. If your great-grandmother would have recognized the foods you put in your grocery cart, you are eating “real” traditional food. One of the things I have researched for my meal planning is Great Depression era and WWI recipes. Too many recipes today are based on canned cream-of-blech soup. At this point these foods were just starting to creep into recipes. You can make your own substitutions for these convenience foods, but I find it interesting to look at heirloom recipes.
If your great-grandmother would have recognized the foods you put in your grocery cart, you are eating “real” food. http://t.co/Sr0Lzw395Z
— More With Less Mom (@MoreWithLessMom) May 13, 2015
Here are some Great Depression Era and WWI recipes (all from the sources below):
Barley Chocolate Cake (PDF)
Chocolate Potato Cake
Cornmeal Ragged Robins
Crumb Spice Pudding
Fruit Paste
Goldfish Loaf
Mock Duck
Oatmeal Rocks
Split Pea Pancakes
Here are some good sources of Great Depression Era and World War I recipes:
About.com Frugal Living Depression Era recipes
Best War Time Recipes 1918 from Ancestry.com’s Military Records on RootsWeb
Depression Era Recipes collection from Tish on Food.com
The Doughboy Cookbook from WorldWar1.com
Foods That Will Win the War and How to Cook Them on Project Gutenburg
Food Will Win The War Pamphlets from Project Muse, War Economy in Food may be from this series)
Great Depression Cooking with Clara This is a series of videos of a woman cooking some of her recipes, and she has released a book called Clara’s Kitchen
Heavy Table’s review of Food Will Win the War
Mary’s Depression Era Recipes
Taste of Home Forum Great Depression Recipes thread
Win The War Cookery Book from Great Food Magazine (four blog posts listed from last to first)
World War 1 Recipes from Feast of the Centuries
WWI: No One Need Be Hungry from YesterYear Once More
Great Depression Era Cookbooks:
Depression Era Recipes
Hard Times Cookbook with Back to Basics Great Depression Cooking
Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930’s and More From Your Kitchen Today, Vol. 
Great Depression Recipe Pinterest Boards
Depression and WWII recipes
Great Depression/ recipes
Great Depression Recipes from The More With Less Mom
Recipes from the Great Depression
Follow Melissa French: More With Less Mom & HousePunkery’s board Great Depression Recipes on Pinterest.
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Want to learn how to stretch food like your great grandma? Try one of my More With Less Meal Plans.
What recipe has your family handed down from the Depression?
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We hope you enjoyed our Great Depression Era Real Food Recipes post
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Frugal simple living makes room for a healthier life. Great blog post.
The titles of these recipes make me realize how desperate those times made people. And that is just the title! Gold fish loaf??? I ashamed of myself for opening my refrigerator door and thinking I have nothing to eat!
The simplicity of the ingredients shocked me. They had flour, butter, and bacon. That’s most of the recipes right there.
I checked the recipe and it uses canned salmon not goldfish!
I don’t think they had goldfish back then. Maybe the canned salmon was more orangey?
The snack, not the pet. Ewww.
My grandmother made this all the time. She never called it Gold Fish Loaf, but the recipe matches exactly!
But the name is so cute! I think these recipes are so interesting.
There were no food stamps either we ate beans and cornbread and all kinds of potatoes biscuits and gravy bread pudding rice pudding peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we were not hungry . And our pets ate the same thing.
I didn’t even think of that, cat food is expensive, my cat’s food costs more per ounce than I spend on myself.
Some of the best food I have eaten was made by my country Grandma. She raised seven children on these recipes. Beans and ham hock, vegetables and soup bone, but the best was her homemade bread. Sure wish I would have paid attention when she was baking and cooking.
I’ve always told my kids if you have the basics in the cup you’ll never go hungry. May not be what you want but keeps tummies fed
Like when they say they’re hungry, you offer them something they don’t especially want (you can have chili, more chili, or air), and suddenly they’re not hungry.
Hi, I’m going through all your links systematically because I’m interested in this era and subject. Thanks for your research! 🙂 I even was already a reader and commenter at the Taste of Home thread. Anyway, I noticed that the link to Trish’s food.com collection isn’t working but after a search, found it at http://www.food.com/user/3288/depression-era-recipes-40910470. Thanks again!
Why thank you! How helpful.
It’s no trouble! Also, sadly, Mary’s Depression Era Recipes blog is no longer operational. 🙁
I couldn’t find that one and I couldn’t find one the US gov ones, either.
And here is something I noticed, with all the diseases we have now like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and so on. Where were they back then? After all all the fat we used was lard !!!
I don’t know how much of that is just us living long enough for new problems to develop, and how much is the weird things we eat, but I’m sure they’re related.
I love this. I noticed on the candy one that they listed Fruit Rolls, and reading the recipe, it’s very similar to the protein balls that we make today, with dried fruit and nuts. Very cool.
Sadly, the barley chocolate cake link is defunct. =(
I found it. Apparently the National Archives don’t know how to forward a link but RootsWeb on Ancestry has it. It is the “Chocolate Cake” with barley flour. http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~worldwarone/WWI/HomeFront/BestWarTimeRecipes/BestWarTimeRecipes.html#page 8
Does anyone have a recipe for Vinegar Cobbler like my great grandmother made? Nothing online works right.
Oooh that sounds interesting. Sadly I don’t have a recipe.