A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression

Summary (from the publisher): From the author of the acclaimed 97 Orchard and her husband, a culinary historian, an in-depth exploration of the greatest food crisis the nation has ever faced—the Great Depression—and how it transformed America’s culinary culture.

The decade-long Great Depression, a period of shifts in the country’s political and social landscape, forever changed the way America eats. Before 1929, America’s relationship with food was defined by abundance. But the collapse the economy, in both urban and rural America, left a quarter of all Americans out of work and undernourished—shattering long-held assumptions about the limitlessness of the national larder.

In 1933, as women struggled to feed their families, President Roosevelt reversed longstanding biases toward government sponsored “food charity.” For the first time in American history, the federal government assumed, for a while, responsibility for feeding its citizens. The effects were widespread. Championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, “home economists” who had long fought to bring science into the kitchen rose to national stature. Tapping into America’s longstanding ambivalence toward culinary enjoyment, they imposed their vision of a sturdy, utilitarian cuisine on the American dinner table.

Through the Bureau of Home Economics, these women led a sweeping campaign to instill dietary recommendations, the forerunners of today’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. At the same time, rising food conglomerates introduced packaged and processed foods that gave rise to a new American cuisine based on speed and convenience. This movement toward a homogenized national cuisine sparked a revival of American regional cooking. In the ensuing decades, this tension between local traditions and culinary science have defined our national cuisine—a battle that continues today.

A Square Meal examines the impact of economic contraction and environmental disaster on how Americans ate then—and the lessons and insights those experiences may hold for us today.

 

Review: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from the publisher.

 

"Food, like language, is always in motion, propelled by the same events that fill our history books" (189).

 

This work of non-fiction covers the culinary habits of a nation in the wake of World War I and through the Great Depression. Before the depression, America had an abundance of food, although rural and urban areas had very different habits concerning meals. Yet the economic downturn left many malnourished and starving. For the first time in American history, the government stepped in to make sure its people had something to eat. This gave an opportunity for early pioneers of dietary recommendations to shape America's perception of a 'balanced diet' and understanding of dietary recommendations. The resulting tension between tradition and culinary science is one that still continues today.

 

To gain perspective on the changes in diet that occurred during the Great Depression, it is necessary to understand what habits existed before. Ziegelman and Coe do an excellent job of providing a history of something that is so fundamental to every human, and yet something that rarely is given much space in history books - the average human diet. The description of the average rural and city diets following World War I was one of the most fascinating sections of the book for me. It was fascinating to read of the huge, hand prepared meals eaten by hard working Americans who lived on farms. I had no idea of many of their habits, such as eating a pie with all three meals of the day. The emphasis on using every resource available to them was stressed, including pigs, whose fat was even used to make a specialty called "killed lettuce" which was "made from pokeweed, dandelion, and other wild greens that were drizzled with hot bacon grease that 'killed,' or wilted, the tender, new leaves" (21). Meanwhile, in urban cities, the "kitchenette" was gaining prominence in new, modern apartment buildings. Along with its cramped cooking space, corner delicatessens, cafeterias, and lunch counters grew in popularity for the first time.

 

However, the sections of the book devoted exclusively to depression-era cuisine focused largely on charity distributions and government-provided meals, with much discussion of federal policies that shaped this service. Home economists capitalized on the national emergency to push nutritional standards on school nutrition programs and in the foods that were distributed to destitute families. The impact of both the depression and this scientific approach to the diet was also felt by still employed families, who were encouraged to alter their shopping and eating habits. Families were encouraged to use inexpensive ingredients, dressed up or made more palatable in cream sauces or hidden in casseroles. This was the age of the casserole, as it was "well-suited to inexpensive ingredients, it was easy to serve and to clean up after, and like all one-pot meals, a casserole saved on fuel costs" (128). Women were urged to keep a strict food budget, guided by menus planned out in advance of shopping.

 

Although fortunate that the government changed its early stance prohibiting charity in the form of food distribution, it was disheartening to see the starvation rations many were reduced to during this time period. For instance, one reporter "lived for a week on the city's $1.20 weekly food handout, eating mostly oatmeal, potatoes, stewed tomatoes, and cabbage, and lost nearly ten pounds" (242). In other words, government-provided food helped, but it clearly was not enough to keep a family healthy and well nourished. One astonishing figure that illustrated the long-term impact of the country's malnourished state were the condition of draftees at the beginning of World War II. Government health experts confidently "expected perhaps 2 percent to be found unfit. They were shocked, however, when they tallied the figures: more than half a million draftees were examined, and 43 percent of them had failed. The culprits were poor teeth, bad vision, heart disease, syphilis, tuberculosis, and low body weight," many of which can be contributed to the nutritional deficiencies that were rampant during the Depression (246).  

 

There was a wealth of fascinating and critical national history in this book. However, I was greatly disappointed in the lack of organization. The book completely lacks an introduction and a conclusion that would have provided a framework and thesis statement for what to expect from this text. As this book was written by a husband and wife team, I wonder if part of issue stems from multiple authors, who each worked on separate sections of the book and combined them when they were completed. Indeed, each chapter seems to jump from subject to subject, which seemed to indicate discrete essays that were then bound together into one work with little thought to narrative flow beyond placement in chronological order. At the very least, I expected a concluding chapter that would have provided a summary or overview of the many disparate topics covered within this book's pages. While clearly well researched and greatly informative, this work needed a heavier editorial hand to further polish it before sending it on to readers.

 

Stars: 3