What's a "Poor Person" Food That You Still Eat?

a reply to: YouSir

You make pemmican!? We had a survivalist teacher in Grade 4 and he made us pemmican with just fat,bison jerky, and cranberries in it.

It was... something you could survive on. 😂 But it's rich people food today.

What is a Cheetos snapped cracker???

originally posted by: putnam6

originally posted by: geezlouise
a reply to: Atsbhct

Lol, I got one for ya.

Cabbage.

It really fills you up, so you feel full longer. Stuffed cabbage, one of my all time favorite dishes.

Cabbage is so versatile, but how could I forget collard greens. Simmered all day in ham or chicken broth some onion and hot sauce and cornbread

Collard greens are fancy food to buy here! About $5 CAD for a tiny bunch that boils to nothing.

We did a Christmas in Harlem themed "American Thanksgiving" one year and braised them like that and woooowwww. It's heavenly.

originally posted by: abago71
a reply to: Sookiechacha

Spam Musubi really makes me miss Maui.

Ahh... and some laulau and opihi.
But opihi isn't very cheap.

Our go to was Ham and beans, corn bread and fried potatoes.
Also Mackerel patties with mac n cheese.

I lived on Maui for almost 30 years. Opihi is cheap if you pick it yourself. Dangerous, but cheap. We used to make lau lau and chicken long rice at the canoe club on the regular. Can't find the Luau leaves or the Ti leaves to make the dish here.

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: YouSir

You make pemmican!? We had a survivalist teacher in Grade 4 and he made us pemmican with just fat,bison jerky, and cranberries in it.

It was... something you could survive on. 😂 But it's rich people food today.

What is a Cheetos snapped cracker???

The pemmican I make is non traditional…I slice beef roast thin and dehydrate it…then I dehydrate bananas and pears and apples and strawberries and blueberries and pineapple and kiwi…etc…
I process mixed nuts into a butter…render some beef fat into tallow…

I then freeze the dehydrated meat and fruit at -10F to evaporate out any residual H2O…then I process them in my ninja into powder (I leave some small pieces of the fruit and nuts for texture…then I mix the dry ingredients with honey…the nut butter…and the reheated beef tallow…and a touch of sea salt…

Definitely NOT…the survival only food the Aboriginals and trappers used to choke down…this is a delicious meat…nut…and fruit super food bar…

I misspoke… they’re Cheezit snapped crackers…not Cheeto…my bad…




YouSir

originally posted by: geezlouise
a reply to: Atsbhct

I'm still poor.

I can't get over this title, and all the non poor people commenting, it's #ing hilarious. "Poor people food," LOOOOOL. WTF.

Ummm…Geeze…Louise…someone somewhere once said…”how much better…to be poor in this world…than to be poor in spirit”…(obvious paraphrasology at play there)

Going but that qualifier…you are most definitely…not…poor…rather…you enrich the environments you occupy…simply because you are…and are therefore enriched because creation chose to express itself in your form…that we might marvel at such a quintessentially wonder filled and benign spirit…

At least…some have noticed…

Also…

There’s no shame in shunning the materialistic…none…

And even the most base of food…will leave the savor of feast…on the tongue of hunger…

From such an experiencer…





YouSir

a reply to: YouSir

That actually sounds amazing. Why aren't we all eating that?

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: YouSir

That actually sounds amazing. Why aren't we all eating that?

Ummm…I can always make some more…

TBH…I have a food fetish…rather…there were so many long…long…days when I was a kid…when we didn’t have anything to eat…when a simple glass of tea and some peanut butter saltine sandwiches…was like an honest to god feast…

I remember sitting with one hand wrapped around a glass of orange pekoe blend, with a pile of saltine crackers and a thin spread of peanut butter. I would close my eyes and rock as I cuddled and coddled my…feast…and that’s where my mind would be…on images of cake and glazed ham…honest to god mashed potatoes and real beef…I could almost taste it…almost feel it…I could almost be there…

So…now…I make…keep…and cherish delicious and wholesome food…and vowed that I would never feel the pain and gnawing of malnutrition…ever again…and I have thus far kept that vow…

To my taste buds content…I might add…





YouSir

a reply to: putnam6

Mmmm that sounds delicious.

a reply to: YouSir

Speechless really!

And so beautifully put... I think you must be projecting even just a little bit, because all of that sounds exactly like you right now, "that we might marvel at such a quintessentially wonder filled and benign spirit." I love you. Thank you for this.

a reply to: YouSir

I really feel that. I think a lot of us here can relate to that feeling of having nothing and being comforted by something so small and practically intangible. For me it was cookbooks. I would read those Better Homes & Gardens, and really any cookbook I could get my hands on. I would dream about having access to all this food that didn't even seem real.

I can also remember drinking cups of tea as a kid and playing cards or scrabble to pass the time of just being hungry and cold in the winter. No tv, no oil, no power sometimes. When it got really cold we'd bundle up and walk to my grandparents, and that was like heaven. Still poor people food, but lots of it. Fresh baked bread for days.

Having so little built so much character in you. I see that in almost every person who grew up very poor and somehow made it through to stability.

Why are food topics always posted when I'm hungry?

Anyway, I'm reposting my choices from two other past topics.

Pane Cotto!

Stale rustic bread. Boil in water, add a clove of garlic, a few bay leaves and break a few eggs in at the end (stracciatella).

My grandma would make it for me at the first signs of sniffles... I always had the sniffles when I went to their house. Isn't it odd?

Verza e Fagioli

In the Abruzzo region in Italy, kale, the variety we call verza is part of the traditional Christmas Eve meal. It's very simple, just boiled kale eaten with white lingot or borlotti beans. Just olive oil, salt/pepper, a couple of bay leaves and a whole clove of garlic.

It could be classed as peasant food and reminds us each year of the poor times when food was scarce.

a reply to: Encia22

Yumm. All these posts about beans! I need beans now. It's hard to get really good dried beans where I'm at. We basically have kidney, pinto, black, or "white" 😂 it never says what kind of white bean, juat white. But tomorrow I'm going to soak some of those white beans and make cassoulet. I might actually make beans all week.

Totinos party pizzas.
Ramen.
pb&j.
Mac & cheese (add a little yellow mustard).
King cobra 40oz premium malt liquor.

Basically what got me by between 18 and 25.

+1 on fried bologna.

another Spam is 'Treet'. (I don't like either of them)

ham n cabbage n taters boiled up. we had that a lot in the winter. great comfort food.

college dish was ramen and smoked sausage fried to a crisp and add catsup. (onions if available)
also onions and taters (tater tots if available) and corned beef. also fried to a crisp.

family had white (navy) beans. never could eat.

originally posted by: drewlander
Totinos party pizzas.
Ramen.
pb&j.
Mac & cheese (add a little yellow mustard).
King cobra 40oz premium malt liquor.

Basically what got me by between 18 and 25.

Hahahha. This sounds like everything I ever saw in guys houses between the ages of 18 and 25. Replace King Cobra with White Shark, a local "wine".

a reply to: ElGoobero

Tater tots!! We didn't have these as kids but I love these so much. Tjey make great poutine with cheese curds and gravy, especially if you overcook them a little.

Reading about ham and potatoes and cabbage all boiled up takes me back to giant family dinners at my relatively rich aunts house. The only thing she knew how to cook was boiled potatoes with hotdogs and sauerkraut. It was actually really tasty.

And you HAVE TO fry all of that cheap meat to a crisp. It's the only way.

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: putnam6

My husband loves Cream of Wheat. Me, I grew up on Shredded Wheat, or, ugh, still have nightmares about these, giant bags of "Puffed Wheat", which was basically like eating a bowl of packing peanuts.

I vaguely remember a concoction right after deciding
the quickest road to ruin was as a professional musician.
Bass players usually drink, smoke and worst EAT almost
anything. I proved one Wednesday to have hit what others
called the Low Water Mark in the Valley water closet-- I
called it Hamburger Helpless. Let's just say the Velveeta
powder from another epoch and artificial porcine fragments
were most of the flavor for borrowed Ramen. It's too bad the
veggie oil turned the cheese powder into 5-minute yellow epoxy...

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Absolute funniest post I've seen in awhile.

a reply to: geezlouise


If I may, I’d like to drop the pretense, set aside the charade, talk no more in tones of condescension, and speak from that place where innocence resides.

Awhile ago, in another thread, you asked me. “Why do I love you so much”?
Because that question caught me off guard, I blithely stated.
“Because, you are the most female”.

Your question deserved so much more than being brushed off with safe rejoinder.

I would however like to answer your question with truth, with logic, and with honor, an honor that might express the answer that you truly deserve, and quite frankly had hoped I might be willing to give.

You love me so much, because you see beyond that pretentious I that populates this sphere we converse in. You see into the realism of my core as I have been want to speak from and through at times. You see the honest me that does not hide when I speak the language of poetry.

And such resonates within your own core, as you also let go of pretense and allow yourself to accept those visions that my words paint as good, as like speaks to like, as a single note might sound, and call vibrato from one soul to another.

In those instances you recognize that I have created a truth with my words, and that truth mirrored your own.
In essence you love the idea of what I might truly represent when I wrested emotion from you, as you shared first person the brief vision I chose to represent, that I chose to cause to be.

That’s why you once again state that you love me, because you sense a kindred spirit, because you know the innocence that is the truth of what I am, and it shivers your recognition of that same within yourself.

What will you do with this knowledge I wonder, this knowing that you have already known.

I am a mirror.


YouSir

originally posted by: derfreebie

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: putnam6

My husband loves Cream of Wheat. Me, I grew up on Shredded Wheat, or, ugh, still have nightmares about these, giant bags of "Puffed Wheat", which was basically like eating a bowl of packing peanuts.

I vaguely remember a concoction right after deciding
the quickest road to ruin was as a professional musician.
Bass players usually drink, smoke and worst EAT almost
anything. I proved one Wednesday to have hit what others
called the Low Water Mark in the Valley water closet-- I
called it Hamburger Helpless. Let's just say the Velveeta
powder from another epoch and artificial porcine fragments
were most of the flavor for borrowed Ramen. It's too bad the
veggie oil turned the cheese powder into 5-minute yellow epoxy...

😂😂😂 Velveeta powder sounds just... very orange.

I don't know how old you are now, but my father in law is a former bass player (He's almost 60.) At this point in time he has a giant bar that he keeps FULLY stocked. But he doesn't drink. He has a sales job where the job is... schmooz. He spends every Sunday at the Church of the Lawn. He plays Bridge. And once a year he meets up with his old bandmates for a wild weekend at an old hunting cabin where they eat a lot of food their wives sent and he comes back and tells stories about how their lead singer just never grows up. He used his accumulated Visa points to buy a giant pool and installed a giant umbrella and just floats around in there like a rural king. 😂 He's passionate about volunteer firefighting.

In other words. Bassists mellow out? Also the only thing he can cook is "Tuna Surprise". 🤣

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: JAGStorm

Name brand Spam is crazy expensive here. I've never actually eaten it. There's a rip off brand called... and this is very original... Kam. 😂 My grandmother liked making sandwiches with it.

I have a very gross off brand Spam story.

I am a super smeller, seriously like a bloodhound.
I purchased off brand one time and almost vomited upon opening it.
Smelled 100% like an old man. I still to this day wonder if someone fell in, or lost a hand/arm/leg in processing.
I'm convinced there was human in there.