Saturday, June 24, 2017

Stretching a Meal

When I was a kid, it was not unusual for friends or relatives to show up at our house on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  TV was a rare commodity then.  My family didn't have one until I was 15 years old.  Personal computers and cell phones were somewhere in the future.  People went visiting.  They sat on front porches and talked about the weather and the condition of the crops and wasn't that daughter of Aunt Ruby's acting just disgraceful with that boyfriend of hers.  And when the sun was getting low in the western sky and the visitors showed no signs of leaving, they were invited to stay for supper.  And most times, they accepted.

My mother was one of those women who planned.  She knew that on Monday she would wash clothes and on Tuesday I would iron them.  She planned nothing for Saturday morning except setting her daughters to cleaning the house.  If you have ever experienced scrubbing out the corners of a set of stairs with a toothbrush, then you know the extent of my mother's planning.  And she knew exactly what each meal would be for a week.

Mother didn't take it well when her plans were disrupted.  So it was always a wonder to me how she coped with guests for the supper she had planned for four people.  She took it in stride and never batted an eye.  Thinking back, I realized how she did it.

If she had a roast beef or a chicken in the oven, she sent one of us kids down to the basement, which doubled as our cold storage area, to bring up more potatoes to be boiled and a handful of fresh carrots to be cleaned and cut into carrot sticks.  She had us get a quart jar of dill pickles and a pint jar of relish.  And added to that were a couple of jars of home canned peaches for dessert.  A plate of homemade baking powder biscuits rounded out the meal, now with enough food for company.

I remember once having supper guests when Mother had made a pot of chili that was enough to feed just our family.  Mother calmly cooked up a pot of rice and made a double batch of cornbread.  She added a plate of sliced cheese and another of raw carrots, radishes and sliced cucumbers from the garden.  She filled bowls half full of rice and topped that off with chili.  Dessert was sliced strawberries from the garden, with cream and sugar .

The point is.....Mother was prepared.  She was a girl growing up during the Great Depression.  After that came the WWII food rationing.  Her mother taught her how to stretch a meal.  Although my Grandfather was one of the fortunate ones to be employed during the Depression, he still had seven children to feed.  That was not always an easy task.  My grandparents grew a garden.  They canned as much food as they could.  My father grew up in a similar environment with the added benefit of living on a farm where they could have meat and milk animals to feed his family of nine children.  Both my parents carried on the tradition of preserving as much food as they could in the summer and fall.  They passed on that lifestyle to me.  One of the best things they taught me was how to stretch a meal.

I don't always have fresh food on hand.  I can't raise a garden.  But I can go to my shelves and pantry and get the fixings for any number of meals.  And like Mother, I keep on hand ingredients to be able to stretch a meal when needed.  Just makes sense.

20 comments:

  1. My grandmother had a magical ability to be able to feed people who showed up at a moments notice. I thought she was the only one. Great post. This reminds of someone I still miss.

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    1. Thanks, BW...I think the ability to feed extra people at a moments notice comes from a time when folks actually cooked from scratch and planned ahead by preserving food. I'm glad this post brought you some good memories. It was the sifting through my memories that brought about this one.

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  2. LOL - As I've told you before, Vicki, you're a wise woman!

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    1. Gorges, I'm not so sure about the wise part. I am just grateful that I retained at least part of what I was taught. These days that would be a stretch. :)

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  3. My past as a kitchen manager has me planning out our families meals for two weeks, grocery shopping, stocking a pantry deep, and doing as much as possible to stretch our meals. My friends are amazed that we eat 95% of our meals at home and together. A lot is to be said for tradition.

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    1. K...I did a lot more meal planning when my kids were still living at home. Now that I live alone it doesn't seem so important. My planning consists of stretching meals by making enough to last me more than a day or two. For example: Day 1 is homemade chicken soup. Day 2 is the soup with dumplings added. Day 3 is thickened soup over biscuits. Anything left over is frozen for later. Aside from fresh fruit I shop to keep my deep pantry stocked.

      It is good to hear that there are those like you who know the importance of not only eating meals at home, but also eating meals together as a family. Growing up, my family always ate supper together. I carried on that tradition with my own children. We as a society seem to be falling away from the old values and traditions. Personally, I think we would be much better off if we went back to many of the traditions we grew up with.

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  4. Just love how you write. What great memories.
    I remember my Mom telling me about growing up in Kansas and canning in the summer. She didn't carry on the tradition but somehow I've learned to do some things. She did, however, pass on the joys of fresh picked corn. We'd go by this one farm stand many afternoons in the summer. The corn would still be warm from the field.
    Dad would tell stories of the Depression and his favorite Sunday dinner was milk toast. Cheers, SJ

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    1. Thanks, SJ...I'm just glad my memory still works fairly well. Odd...I can remember years gone by but sometimes forget what I ate for breakfast. :)

      I think home canning was just a way of life for our parents and grandparents. It was more a means of survival during the long winter months. I wonder if that tradition was more or less lost about the time it took two paychecks to meet expenses. That and the explosion of convenience foods like tv dinners. My mother was ill most of her life so she taught me to do what she physically was unable to do like canning. I did quite a bit over the years but didn't really get serious about it until I retired and had the time.

      I remember my Dad telling about milk toast. He had something similar that he liked even more. I probably have told you this, but...he would tear up a slice of bread into a coffee cup, pour hot coffee over the bread and sprinkle on a little sugar. He called it Poor Man's Pie. I think perhaps it might be good to look into the kind of cooking that was done during the Depression and during war rationing. Especially for those of us on a fixed income or those feeding a family. Those folks knew how to stretch a dollar.

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  5. Those who grew food were better off in the Depression. I know I am dependent of farmers. However, my last blog post about eating the weeds just shows you can find food if you want it. I add things to dishes all the time, even now. My friend was coming up to visit on his regular visit. However, I just did not feel like cooking a meal as I usually do. I had leftover chicken breast, not quite enough for two people. I made a hearty, thick soup and put a piece in each of our bowls. He was happy and thought my make-do meal was great. Either of us could easily eaten the chicken. But, just using it as an ingredient worked better for the nutrition we received.

    I intend to eat more weeds.

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    1. You get it, don't you, Linda. Those of us who were raised by Depression Era parents learned the art of frugal living and how to stretch a meal. I have doubts as to whether most today would have the ability to turn a single piece of chicken into a hearty meal for two.

      I haven't the knowledge to know which weeds are edible and which aren't. But I do remember foraging in the woods to supplement our food supply. We picked wild blueberries, raspberries and strawberries in season. There were wild chokecherry and pin cherry trees growing in the woods. Their fruit made awesome jelly. The banks of the drainage ditches here in farm country often had asparagus growing on them. Even if those aren't weeds, they still gave us more food to add to our supply.

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  6. Same here. We are stretching meals for the past week and this week.

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    1. It gets to be a habit, doesn't it, Kristina. Although I will admit to sometimes losing a bowl of leftovers in the back of my fridge until it looks like a science experiment run amok, I really hate to see food wasted. And with the basic cooking done to begin with, it is nice to be able to come up with a meal just by adding those ingredients to stretch it out for another meal. That really helps on my lazy days. :)

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  7. I was thinking the other day how nice it is that it's virtually impossible for me to "run out" of anything in the normal course of events. Whatever I need, from spices to paper towels, is in one of the store rooms.
    When I do my periodic experiments to see if my calculations are correct on stockage, I might run out of things like fresh fruit, but overall I can go a month without any real impact, and a lot longer if need be. That's something I benefit from on a daily basis, whether anything untoward happens or not. Having lots of food on hand is a good feeling psychologically, as well.

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    1. Although my pantry isn't nearly as deep as yours, I believe we could eat reasonably well for a long time on what I have stored so far. I find it is easy to become complacent when the larder is full, but I still keep adding to it every month. The world around us is so uncertain these days that it just makes sense to me to keep adding to the food storage. Bottom line - my family will be able to eat no matter what happens.

      Having fresh food like fruit is a problem, but my family canned peaches and pears and apples, etc., and I got used to eating those during the winter months. Same with meat. It is nice to have fresh meat to cook for a meal, but it isn't necessary. It is amazing the meals one can come up with using home canned beef or chicken.

      You are right about it being psychologically satisfying to have deep pantry. There is a certain amount of satisfaction when I look at my shelves full of home canned food, knowing that the work involved will pay off and that my family will benefit. And the fact that should some life changing event occur, I won't have to rush to the store. I like that part. :)

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  8. I wish there was more visiting like that, although I might not be able to whip up a meal I always have tea and coffee!

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    1. Jenn...I miss those days when we actually talked to one another. Sending a text message just doesn't seem the same. There is something to be said for having tea and coffee. Many times I have sat on the porch or at the kitchen table with friends or relatives, solving the problems of the world over coffee and cake. Good times.

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  9. I credit learning how to stretch meals to my roommates in college. One year there were 5 of us girls sharing a 3-bedroom apartment. The next year 4 of us shared a 3 bedroom house. In each of those years, none of us had any money to speak of. And none of us really knew how to cook either.
    We shared dinners together. The year I lived in the apartment was the year I learned how to cook, as did most everyone else. Well,everyone ate the food no matter how well it came out.
    And, it was amazing how many of the guys from church would show up at dinner time. So -- we'd just learn to make the meals stretch. Or eat PBJ sandwiches after they had left if there really wasn't enough.

    The other memory was that whoever said grace had the edge on getting to the food first. As she ended the prayer, she'd be reaching for the food. Too funny as I think about it.

    Those roommates the first year also had the daunting task of teaching me how to grocery shop and follow a budget. What sweet, patient girls they were.
    Thanks for helping me walk down memory lane. Cheers, SJ

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    1. SJ...Great memories! How fun to learn with a group of friends. It seems to ease the way if more than one is on the same path. Sounds to me like your efforts were a roaring success. I love the story about the one saying grace getting a head start on the food.

      Your memories triggered a couple of my own. Dad told me how he learned to cook. As a very young man he was working as a logger in a camp in the north woods. He had hurt his arm and was unable to do the heavy work required. He didn't want to lose his job as the family needed the cash he earned, so he convinced the boss to let him work as the camp cook. He said he learned to cook very quickly because the thought of what would happen should he serve bad food to a dozen hungry loggers was enough to scare him.

      Dad had 8 brothers and sisters. They ate their meals around a huge dining room table. His mother was in the habit of setting slices of pie for dessert next to each plate before the meal began. Dad and his brothers delighted in stealing a fork full of pie from one another during his Dad's blessing of the food. When caught in his shenanigans, he spent a considerable amount of time doing unpleasant chores, like cleaning out the chicken coop. Knowing Dad, I think he thought it was worth the punishment to snatch part of his brother's pie. :)

      I think a younger generation misses out on not only learning practical habits like stretching meal or even learning to cook from scratch. You just don't make memories of good times with friends by deciding whether to go to McDonalds or KFC for supper.

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  10. You had me laughing with your stories about your Dad. I just bet he made sure the meals were good -- who would want to face some angry and hungry loggers!
    Another funny I just remembered from that first household was that we dubbed any food-flop as an "Olympic Meal" --- namely, one that should not be served any sooner then four years from now.
    So remembering that phrase, I was the cook for a 'dinner' party with a household of all guys from church. I made a vegetarian lasagna with beans. Somehow, I had missed the part in the recipe that said the beans should have been pre-cooked. So, I served my lasagna for the group and the beans were rock hard!! Teeth breaking hard.
    To a person, each of my four other roommates kept repeating how this was 'such an Olympic meal". Well, the guys were such true gentlemen. None of them said a critical word but the look on their faces was priceless. One of my roommates finally told the joke and we ordered pizza.
    And,yes, there is something special about breaking bread with people. Some of my fondest memories were of sharing dinner around the table with those friends. There were a few other households in our church college group and we would often throw together dinners. One household or the other would just bring over what they were cooking and we'd share.
    SJ

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    1. SJ...Now that is funny - the bean lasagna. As was the 'olympic meal' thing. Meals shared with friends make for good memories.

      I have to tell you about the first time I made baked beans. As a new bride, I wanted to impress my husband with my culinary skills and knowing he liked old fashioned baked beans, I gave them a go. Followed my mother's recipe. Neglected to read the part where the beans needed to be soaked overnight. The sauce was delicious. The beans remained like small rocks. The dog would have nothing to do with them. Finally, unwilling to admit to my husband that I didn't know how to properly make a pot of baked beans, I took them out back into the woods and buried them. Deep.

      It was a long time before I dared try to make baked beans again. :)

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