In many places this fare would be called peasant food, though it has to be said, most agrarian peasant food would not have used highly processed manufactured 'food' product, but what was grown or raised in a cottage garden with some fruits and vegetables and poultry, and possibly with a milk goat / cow and perhaps a pig or two. What was not home grown was supplemented by what could be obtained seasonally in local village / town markets on a daily as required basis. Fishing, hunting, trapping, and foraging seasonal bush tucker rounded out the ingredients for home cooking. My mother kept a kitchen garden, and some fruit trees (plum, peach, mulberry) with access to a neighbour's grapevine which hung over a shared boundary fence; and some chickens for eggs and the occasional roaster from surplus cockerels. She brewed her own ginger beer, preserved fruit / sauerkraut, and cooked most all of our food from scratch. She mostly used the cheapest cuts of meat (though it has to be said that some of which are more considered to be gourmet items now due to celebrity chef shows), such as lamb shanks, oxtails with occasional pigs heads rendered down into a very tasty brawn. Minced meat and gravy beef and hogget / mutton were staple ingredients. We were very familiar with offal dishes which included kidneys, liver, and tripe (sheep's lungs). Soups, stews and curries were a commonplace and mother did her own baking, other than bread, I guess because of my father's preference for black bread and Estonian sweet and sour, which by default us kids also ate. My mother's food was tasty, nourishing, and we never felt hungry. The food wasn't fancy, but it had variety and we never felt it to be monotonous. Our lunches were slightly exotic, given that my father was a post WW2 emigre from Europe, so we often swapped what we had for lunch with our Aussie mates so that we could eat what we generally didn't get at home. (Probably not recommended for white trash diabetics)
I grew up eating like this, we didn't know better, or ever think anything of it! Not until I joined the Air Force did I discover the wide world of fine dining that I learned there was so much more out there! We always had plenty, and never wasted a thing, we harvested game and raised Beef, Pork, and many other meats, I still love Reindeer and Caribou the most, but Moose and Swamp Donkeys take a very close second, followed by Mule Deer, and finally, our longhorn! We produced our own milk, and had a couple acres of gardens to work with, so it was rare to need to buy anything other then the basics like Salt, Sugar, and various basic needs! We could buy all the wheat we wanted locally, or trade the various overages we produced, so that it was basically a neutral exchange! Some of my favorites were Grand Moms home made hash, especially with a bit of Bear meat mixed in, good Brown Bear was a must have for our cooking, it added so much flavor, and the fat was saved from every bit we could,( I still have a bucket of Renderings from Way back when, still good) another fav were what we called Trencher Sammichs, basically a goodly sized crusty bread roll with a big 'V" vut right down the center and hollowed out, filled with Red Meat and gravy and then the top added back to it, that was one hell of a meal, especially during a hard day's work out on the wood pile, the fence line, or the fields! Grand Mom also made the worlds bestist Russian Black Bread, served with fresh churned butter right out of the wood fired oven, man, I still remember the smell and that first taste of her bread! We didn't d a whole lot of other breads beside those two, once in a while, we might have a loaf of sourdough, or some fresh wheat bread, but Gramma was pretty particular a about her bread making, and Gramps really only ate Black Bread or Crusty Bread. We also made hard tac, another favorite, especially with fresh home made Cheddar Cheese spread right outta the smoker! We also caught tons of fish, I never had a fishing licence until well into my 20's,, and I don;t think any one but maybe Grand Dad had one, and we certainly didn't know about limits, we caught what we needed and then cleaned it right there and packed it on ice for later. we ether smoked and canned it, or we deep froze it wet, and never went with out! We also saved everything but the gut pile, every bit of pin flesh got used somewhere, lots of it got mixed up with goats cheese or cream cheese ad then slathered on hard tac or fresh toast! We BBQ'ed a lot, especially chicken and pork, and didn't even know that the world had gone ape shit over Pork or Beef Ribs until I found my first rib joint, hell, we were eating like Kings before it was even cool and the rest of the world discovered what we already knew! I've gotta hankerin for some Trenchers now, Dammit, havn't had one on forever it seems, need to fix that, got a bunch of Tri-Tip I gotta do something with, maybe toss it in the smoker and then do it up on the BBQ and then let the wife have at it and make her killer gravy, I can feel the pounds coming just thinking about it! Maybe dinner will be a big hank of Smoked Cheddar and a bottle of Red Wine and some Hard-tac, THATS LIVIN I tell ya!
We just called it affordable food. Things like Round Steak, Shank cross cuts were called boiling beef, Chicken Wings were so cheap you buy a 20 pound box of them for .15 cents per pound. Pig Tails and Feet were a regular with some collard greens and sweet corn and the plate full of sliced tomatoes with every meal and of course the obligatory plate full of fried Zucchini and a pan full of biscuits. Rare to even find a whole round steak now, boiling beef has became high end osobucco or however it is spelled, and chicken wings often are more per pound than boneless breast. And if I dare mention pig tails, neck bones and feet people look at me like I am from strange alternate universe. Hell even trash fish like Tilapia are marketed at about 7 times what that garbage is worth. Point is Foodies and Often misleading Marketing have turned what was once very good and nutritious and very affordable food into expensive specialty and popular higher end foods. That leaves the Junk Food and highly processed unhealthy foods as the mainstay for a whole lot of folks. And we wonder why Half the population is fat, sick and dying younger.
You are so right, There are so many cuts of meat that were cheap and nutritious but not any more. Add to this many folks don't know how to cook-- if it doesn't come from a package pre-made they are lost. Thank god the wife is old school and can take nothing and make it into something that tastes good, what doesn't go into the compost pile goes into the freezer for soup stock.
I find it amazing and disgusting how much basic every day applied knowledge and skills have been lost in just the last 20 years. Pretty much the entire collective knowledge of the world is at nearly everyone's finger tips. Young people today should all be better educated , know history, be able to do at least basic algebra, have epic reading comprehension skills. Instead I talk to youth that can barely read, have little understanding of what they read, can barely do 4th grade level math, have no working knowledge of civics, know nothing about even recent history that are crapped out of a school and university system that no longer guides them in how to think, but rather what to think. I find a bright exception here and there but for the most part I find myself talking to ignorant rocks that are firmly entrenched in the ignorance while fully believing they are the smartest person alive. Then I look at the National Education Statistics and drop out rates and see that my personal observation are not wrong. We are fast becoming a Nation of indoctrinated , wrongly educated IDIOTS. If they can't read the recipe.......... how can they even begin to cook anything that doesn't involve a microwave and plastic heat n serve container?
We laugh at the prices of Beef in the stores, bottom round, flank, and such used to be so cheap, but not now! While it's a good thing that folks are learning to cook the non primal cuts and use more of the cow, it doesn't help us any! Another fav. was Grand Moms German Rouladen, we always looked forward to her making that. Beef flank steaks pounded flat and thin, cut about 5 inches wide and around 9 inches long, a couple table spoons of fresh canned pickle and diced onion spread out over the meat, then rolled and ether tied or pinned into rolls and boiled in the pickle juice until tender, then a cup of white wine added to the pot and let simmer down until most of the liquid cooked off, leaving about an inch in the bottom which was poured into the sauce pan and gravy was made with the leftovers. Each person ( except the really little ones) got two rolls and a big ladle of gravy along with fresh greens from the garden and smashed taters. Grams always saved the left over gravy and would over bake up some Pork medallions with mushrooms, carrot rounds, and celery chopings and add it to the gravy over the Pork, also served with ether Schnitzel or warm Potato salad! Good simple farm food, didn't really cost anything but time and love, and was always a treat! You would pay Big Bucks to eat ether one of those dishes in a restaurant! We also always had fresh pies, turnovers and tarts, there were acres of berries and trees over flowing with apples, pears, plumbs and such, hell, us kids would feast when picking time came, especially the Raspberries or the tons of wild Marion berries, and especially the mountain Strawberries, We ate till our guts hurt, and still managed to fill the baskets to over flowing so Mom and Grand Mom and whatever Aunts and Cousins came to help make preserves. they would pick out the worst and set those aside for the pies, and boy did we have Pies and Tarts! I sure miss Grand Moms Apricot Tarts, one bite and you thought you had dies and gone to see Jesus! I cant eat store bought, and rarely go out for dinner, especially fish, it just aint the same as fresh caught local, and we have most everything you could want local, so Nope! Fall Salmon and Steelhead are just around the corner, got the boat and gear all ready to go, and it's gonna be a good season! Wife's all excited and the kitchen and smoker is ready!
White trash food? Come on man! Crawfish were considered a poor mans supper until some tourist came along and tried some and then paid up for a platter or two. Now look at it, Probably an annual billion dollar industry today. White trash my arse!
We loved the venison, pork, and beef we had back then. Lots of pinto beans with cornbread,onions, and sweet tea . Milk, stews and chili in abundance. Every year we picked figs, peaches, plums, and mustang grapes for jelly and preserves. All were great on Granny’s biscuits, or toast. Had a guernsey cow for milk, butter, and butter milk. Had our own chickens for meat and eggs, but did buy bacon. Hunted and fished for quite a few delicious meals. My two best meals ever, were fried squirrel, fried taters, brown gravy, biscuits and peach cobbler for dessert. Cook venison instead of squirrel and that was my other favorite. Bunches of family around topped it all off. We were poor, but I think lived better than a lot of people. Survival School in the Army would have been a waste of time as I already knew almost everything they taught. Passed it all down to my son who is a modern Daniel Boone. I haven’t read all the classics, but did get to most of them. Spent more time in The Good Book than the others.
Ok, slum living Asian Style! BBQ pork and Lemongrass with Hosin Sauce over steamed Jasmine Rice! Thr secret to this is to use lots and lots of the Lemongrass dry rub and let it burn a little, you want to ever so slightly over cook the meat and then slather on the Ginger Hosin Sauce, turn the BBW way down and let it all carmalize into that wonderful sticky goodness, you want a little char on it, trust me! Serve over fresh steamed Jasmine Rice with steamed veggies and Iced Vietnamese Cofveve and fresh heavy cream and crushed ice! Heaven I tells ya!
Food sales down at Walmart. People dieting and taking weight loss drugs being blamed. Has nothing to do with food going up 30% to 50% or more....
