Depression Era Cooking

This is a lovely set of videos posted by a grandson who taped his now 93 year old grandmother Clara cooking and talking about the Great Depression. As we are in a recession ourselves, it's something to keep in mind!
My own grandmother Laura experienced the Great Depression herself on the Hildebrand family farm in LaClede IL. Now that she is gone, I wished I had learned more about it. Grandma always said she was the "runt" being the youngest of 11 children. One of our favorite meals Grandma made was, of course, "Scrapple", but this was not the ordinary Scrapple that you can buy in the store. Hers was more of a firm cornmeal mush, almost like a fried polenta. Grandma said that during the Depression they ate a lot of scrapple. She died never leaving a recipe behind.
I have worked very hard to recreate Grandma's scrapple recipe, and my last batch was made at Christmas time last year as a gift for my dad. The Divinity candy I tried to make didn't come out so good, but the Scrapple was about as close as someone has gotten. This year's batch should be even closer. I think we've gotten a few of her meals recreated pretty well for her never working from a recipe.