Food is an important part of our lives, and most of us can’t start their day without their shinny plate of morning omelets. Having sufficient food is important for the continuation of the day, as people need certain amounts of proteins and calories in order to indulge in their daily labor. However, during times of economic woes, the dining table might completely change. In the course of human history, economic crises have led way for new dishes to evolve, and some of those dishes turned out to be a culinary hit that still stands to this day.
In this blog post, we will take a trip back in time to examine famous dishes that emerged during hard times. These dishes have evolved during a plethora of well-known economic crisis including the great depression and the Irish famine. Your first thought would be that people limit their consumption of food, which is true to an extent. However, creative dishes have evolved offsetting the problem of price increases in food.
You CAN do it!
During the great depression, canned food emerged as a superior in the American kitchen. Canned foods are affordable, easy to prepare, and tastes okay in most cases. Spam is one of the canned foods that sustained beyond the great depression. It’s made of pork, salt, potato starch, and several other ingredients that help maintain its dorky consistency. Spam was released in the USA during the great depression to substitute the very unaffordable pork shoulders at the time. Released in 1937, the canned pork quickly found its way to the American dinning table due to its easy preparation process and became a household staple in the late years of the great depression. With the second world war at arm’s lengths, the popularity was set to increase dramatically. Spam became a hit between the lines of the allied forces and was a staple food for their daily calorie intake. After the war, the popularity of spam just kept increasing constantly until it became a stereotypical item in the American kitchen.
The Wacky cake (no pun intended)
This dessert also emerged during the last few years of the great depression, and it gets its name not from taste, but from its lack of basic cake ingredients. Your average cake should include eggs, butter, and milk. You guessed it right! Wacky depression cakes included none of that due to the increased prices of specific ingredients at the time. The Wacky cake was a hit, as it only required mixing several ingredients that were easy to come by in a single pan. Those ingredients included the cheaper part of the basic cake recipe with the addition of all-purpose flour and cocoa powder. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the wacky cake came to the rescue once again. The cake re-emerged again in the kitchen of the great depression mommy due to its easy preparation, and that way she can suppress the sugar rush of her kids. I have personally given the wacky cake a try in the kitchen, though it was wacky and tacky as it included no cocoa powder whatsoever. So don’t take my non-existent culinary mastery as a blueprint.
The loaf that always delivers.
Despite the increased prices of dairy products and meat during the great depression, people of the silent generation have worked their way around the dull recession back in the day. The great depression has seen the comeback of the meatloaf, a dish that appeared during the time of the Romans. In its basic form, meatloaf consists of ground beef combined with filler ingredients, those include carrots, breadcrumbs, boiled eggs, and even cereals. Meatloaf was a sustainable dish, offering nutrients and taste for a low budget. The meatloaf reserved a place on the American dining table and was positively received by the people as it assured their survival.
Meatloaf is a very flexible dish, meaning that u can shove whatever you have in the kitchen into the ground beef mix. This assured the longevity of the dish as a staple throughout history. After WWII, meatloaf became widely commercialized, and has found its way across almost every kitchen around the globe. Its ease of preparation made it a comfort food for many people, and depending on where you live, the name of the dish changes. I just realized that I have been eating meatloaf ever since I can remember, and I love it!
A dark period in the Irish kitchen
During the early 1800s, potatoes were a staple dish for the Irish people, and most of the Irish population depended on potatoes for nutrition. Potatoes are one of those vegetables that are packed with nutrients, and for the poverty of the Irish population at the time, it shinned on their dinner table. However, the reign of the potatoes didn’t last long amid the Irish famine. The Irish famine hit in 1845 and extended up until 1852. During the famine, potato crops in Ireland suffered from deadly fungus called potato blight. The agrarian epidemic spoiled potatoes and made them inedible for the Irish people, and those who dared to eat the potatoes would be welcomed with inevitable death. Yet, potatoes were not the only form of food available in Ireland, but government made the access to them almost impossible. The British government at the time would export all forms of crops to England, leaving the Irish people to consume nothing but the spoiled potatoes.
The Irish famine was an example of the divine punishment mentioned by Thomas Malthus in his population theory. His theory was that population would rise at a rate much higher than agricultural produce, leaving people for wars, famines, and disease to eat at them as a god sent punishment for their inability to regulate their fertility. The British government adopted Malthus’ views of population at the time, accusing the Irish people of being lazy and unworthy of saving.
This deemed the Irish famine by historians to be a systematic genocide, credited to the British governments rejection of providing help to the suffering Irish people. The famine was a dark period in history, rendering government policies oppressive and ineffective at the time. Needless to say, no quirky dishes emerged during the famine, until the mass immigration of Irish people to the land of the free. The Irish kitchen was revived again in the United States, with potatoes retrieving its place on the dining table. One of the Irish stars of the dinning table was the coddle, which was garnished with characteristics of survival. Coddle is a dish that includes potatoes and whatever pieces of leftover foods are available. Some people’s disasters are others’ benefit, and the coddle served as one of the saviors of the great depression. However, coddle wasn’t the only Irish dish transferred to the United States through famine and disaster, other dishes like boxty bread and colcannon made their way to the American dining table.
Conclusion
Economic crisis can change the way people choose to allocate their food resources. Even though they impose harsh limitations on food consumption, the kitchen still reigned victorious. Alongside the dishes mentioned above, hundreds of other remarkable dishes have helped people get through times of distress. The real victory of the dining table is the survival instinct, and the ability to create so much with so little. So, if your fridge seems empty, always remember that with limited resources there is still room for marvelous creations. And to my Neo-Malthusian friends, Malthus sucks hard.