MEAT in the Golden Era

[LizzieMaine]

For what it's worth, the "ideal American middle-class meal" of the 1930s would be a small chop -- pork or lamb, likely -- or a serving of roast beef, with mashed potatoes, peas or string beans, bread and butter, coffee, and a slice of pie for dessert. That sounds like a heavy meal until you realize the portions would have been much smaller than they are today. Gluttony was still considered one of the deadly sins, not something to be celebrated and encouraged.

Chicken was for poor people, turkey was for Thanksgiving, and steak was a treat you had at a restaurant. Hamburgers were something you grabbed on the run from a lunch wagon. Unless you lived on the coast, you didn't eat much fish other than sardines or canned tuna or salmon.

Nobody ever heard of "pasta." Macaroni and spaghetti, however, were popular.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

[YOUTUBE][YOUTUBE]Xe1a1wHxTyo[/YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]I" grew up in England in the 1960's and chicken was a luxury!"

 

[Paisley]

"I think many of us are overweight from eating pasta and rice, my parents and grandparents, only ever ate "Meat and 3 Veg" and all the "Reducing diets" prohibited "Starch = Carbs"

Very true! I think this was common knowledge long ago. Fruit is full of carbs, too, but I imagine fresh fruit was available only in season, and canned fruit perhaps wasn't really a staple.

I cut the carbs down to about 50 grams per day and lost 15 pounds while working out less. It cured my acid reflux, too.

 

[Paisley]

But surely potatos were one of the 3 veg in meat & 3 veg? They may have avoided rice and pasta - or didn't know what they were - but I am sure there was a lot more bread and potato on the table. We are overweight from eating too much EVERYTHING.

In my mother's family, bread and potato part was unfortunately true. Potatoes, gravy, corn bread and beans--there was even a toaster on my grandparents' table. I say "unfortunately" because my mother has been obese much of her life and has had diabetes II for 20 years. Without going into a technical discussion, all those starchy carbs were to blame: I've always observed my mother to eat in moderation. My grandfather had such bad acid reflux (like me) that he took baking soda by the spoonful. (The best theory of acid reflux I've read is that digesting carbs create gas, which pushes stomach acid into the esophagus.) He died of esophageal cancer.

If people are eating too much of everything, part of the reason might be all those starchy, sugary foods that the government and various "health organizations" encourage us to eat. Eating carbs causes blood sugar to rise, which makes you release insulin, which (in some people) causes blood sugar to drop far enough to cause hunger, no matter how much food is in their stomach.

(Anyone interested in low-carb living is welcome to read my blog.)

 

[Paisley]

For what it's worth, the "ideal American middle-class meal" of the 1930s would be a small chop -- pork or lamb, likely -- or a serving of roast beef, with mashed potatoes, peas or string beans, bread and butter, coffee, and a slice of pie for dessert. That sounds like a heavy meal until you realize the portions would have been much smaller than they are today. Gluttony was still considered one of the deadly sins, not something to be celebrated and encouraged.

Chicken was for poor people, turkey was for Thanksgiving, and steak was a treat you had at a restaurant. Hamburgers were something you grabbed on the run from a lunch wagon. Unless you lived on the coast, you didn't eat much fish other than sardines or canned tuna or salmon.

Nobody ever heard of "pasta." Macaroni and spaghetti, however, were popular.

Here in the West, my parents (b. ca. 1930) ate a lot of trout--so much that my mother won't eat fish anymore. My father poached deer and antelope and hunted elk with a license (I think). He remembers overhearing a conversation between his father and another man when he was a kid: the other man said, "Don't tell your kids it's horse."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Venison has always been the big thing here -- the number-one conversation starter at gas stations and diner counters in November remains "Gitcha deeah yet?" Those who don't hunt are pretty much guaranteed to know someone who does, and an awful lot of venison gets passed around. During the war, game was the number-one source of off-the-ration meat, and if you got your deer you were sure to be swarmed by relatives, friends, and passing acquaintances.

Living on the New England coast, fish was always an important part of the diet -- you pay good money for cod and haddock in restaurants today, but it was very cheap poor-people food during the Era. The cheapest, poorest-peoplest food of all was mackerel, sold by kids who went door to door pulling malodorous little red wagons with their day's catch.

 

[Puzzicato]

For what it's worth, the "ideal American middle-class meal" of the 1930s would be a small chop -- pork or lamb, likely -- or a serving of roast beef, with mashed potatoes, peas or string beans, bread and butter, coffee, and a slice of pie for dessert. That sounds like a heavy meal until you realize the portions would have been much smaller than they are today. Gluttony was still considered one of the deadly sins, not something to be celebrated and encouraged.

Good point - a friend of mine (only a couple of years older than I am, so we're only talking child of late 70s, early 80s) has told me that her mother would cook a 3lb roast on Sunday. They'd have the leftovers cold with pickles Monday, and the leftover leftovers minced and made into rissoles or cottage pie Tuesday. So that was a family of 4 getting 3 meals out of a 3lb roast, but she said they never felt that there wasn't enough meat. I can imagine that earlier, the meals might have been even thriftier.

 

[Chasseur]

I didn't claw my way to top of the food chain to end up eating tofu

Amen brother, truer words were never spoken...

 

[Chainsaw]

I remember my Grandmother telling me stories about the war in Poland. There wasn't much food to be found any where in the towns. She said if you had cigarettes though, you could get anything you wanted from a farmer. Milk, eggs, meat et-cetera. I lot of the soldiers that didn't smoke used their cigarette rations to trade for grub.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I didn't claw my way to top of the food chain to end up eating tofu

Amen brother, truer words were never spoken...

Vegitarian is an old indian word for lousy hunter.

 

[John in Covina]

Portions were smaller for most people but a lot of people still worked in physically demanding jobs. Most power tools and conveniences like forklifts were just concepts in the Golden era. Ditch diggers dug with pick and shovel. Farm work was sun to sun and often into the night. The ability to lift and move stock from truck to shelves to outgoing truck was more by hand than now. The concept of a walkup apartment was not foreign. You might have to shovel coal for the furnace or cut wood for the fire back then.

Few rural / farm areas had electricity although the number grew over the 1920's and 30's. Some farms had wind generated power with a battery system for the home but the convenience of a lot of farming assist devices that were electric powered was not ubiquitous in use until the power companies reached the rural areas. It may have been the 1970's before the vast majority of farms could boast electric services in the US.

It means usless there was a tractor hook up you were doing a lot more by hand, I'd think.

 

[LocktownDog]

Grilling fresh elk steaks here tonight. Mmmmm.

Has really nothing to do with the thread topic. Just bragging.

 

[Chainsaw]

Wild game must all be in the preperation. I had some bottled Elk (in salt brine) that was prepared by some Newfies, that was just amazing. We have wild Turkeys in my area now, that we got from our American friends. I am looking forward to sampling that meat.

 

[green papaya]

Im sure lots of people ate large portions back then too, especially home made food if it was plentiful.

I grew up eating lots of fresh caught fish and home made cooking, home grown vegetables, didnt even try Kentucky Fried Chicken until the 6th grade because my mother made fried chicken at home regularly didnt need to buy it

we also made our own burgers, so I rarely had to buy a hamburger from a restaurant, we ate as much as we liked

we kept a large fish tank with live Bass & catfish so we could have a fresh fish anytime

 

[Viola]

I think chicken was big in my family.

I don't think anyone cooked pork at home, even if they ate it out sometimes. Maybe, I think I recall my maternal granddad eating scrapple.

Chopped chicken liver, chicken soup, chicken pretty much anyway you want it.

I don't know how to spell the name of the beef and cabbage dinner my grandmother would make...prakkis? Prakkus?

And of course there's always brisket, Jewish corned beef, and Hebrew National salami.

 

[Silver Dollar]

I think chicken was big in my family.

I don't think anyone cooked pork at home, even if they ate it out sometimes. Maybe, I think I recall my maternal granddad eating scrapple.

Chopped chicken liver, chicken soup, chicken pretty much anyway you want it.

I don't know how to spell the name of the beef and cabbage dinner my grandmother would make...prakkis? Prakkus?

And of course there's always brisket, Jewish corned beef, and Hebrew National salami.

I'm of Jewish eastern European ancestry. The plucked chicken is our national bird. lol We had chicken soup, chicken salad, fried chicken, boiled chicken *yucky* , baked chicken, chicken frikazee, chicken and meat balls, cooked with chicken fat, chicken pot pie, chicken sandwiches--------They don't call me Forrest Gumpowitz for nothing.

 

[Viola]

L'chaim, Silver Dollar! I raise a bowl of chicken soup with matzo balls to you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't know how to spell the name of the beef and cabbage dinner my grandmother would make...prakkis? Prakkus?

Is this by chance kin to our own New England Boiled Dinner, otherwise known as the Irishman's Delight or Jiggs' Dinner? A big hunk of corned beef brisket boiled up with potatoes, turnips, and cabbage, preferably with the windows open...

 

[Viola]

Is this by chance kin to our own New England Boiled Dinner, otherwise known as the Irishman's Delight or Jiggs' Dinner? A big hunk of corned beef brisket boiled up with potatoes, turnips, and cabbage, preferably with the windows open...

Well, the Ashkenazi Jews certainly do roast beef brisket, (yum) and corned beef, but this one I am trying to think how to write - having only ever heard it - is more like meatballs stuffed into cabbage.

Its basically cabbage being used as a vehicle for meat and sauce.

Its better than it sounds.

 

[lolly_loisides]

Do you mean holishkes?