Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What do you eat when the budget is tight?

With 6 mouths to feed and only dad working while mom stayed home to take care of us, the food budget was always pretty slim growing up. We ate game meat and locally caught fish alot, especially after my brothers and I got old enough to contribute. We always grew a big garden and mom spent alot of time canning vegetables. Other than that I remember alot of boxed mac- n -cheese with cheap hot dogs cut up in it, chicken and biscuits that was long on gravy and skimpy on chicken, pancake night, liver and onions once a week {yuck, but liver was cheap}, rice with gravy, chipped beef on toast and home made waffles. I still like most of that stuff with the exception of liver and onions.

Times have been tough a few times, but I never had to cut the budget like some of you folks, for which I'm grateful. That said, we buy half a beef every year, bulk chicken, pork on sale, 5 dozen eggs for $3.78. Fresh fruit and veggies whatever is in season cheap.

I notice that when I get to the checkout line at the grocery store, there's rarely anything with a brand label in the cart. Even spices, and the coffee is from the bulk bins. Today my food budget is the same as grad school in the late 80's, and I eat better.

But when things get really, really, REALLY tight, I guess I'll have to add beans to the chili.......

More than a few nights we had pancakes for dinner in our house growing up. Banana, chocolate chips, and on occasion splurging was some blueberries. Usually some sort of bottled "maple syrup" which is sugar water/corn syrup with flavoring in it. We kids usually looked at it as a treat. For me especially it beat the heck out of fish sticks on friday nights. I hated fish sticks.

Not much in the way of pots of beans in our house, as I said earlier it was pasta as a staple for us. Usually spaghetti or lasagna or such at least twice a week, first dinner and leftovers. Then there was a lot of tuna noodle casserole and baked mac and cheese on Fridays, no meat that day for a Catholic family. Lotsa noodles. I still love them.

My wife is the bean eater in our household. Many times she just opens a can of beans, usually black beans, and puts it over leftover rice, cous cous, or rice. Me, I can take 'em or leave 'em. They don't do much for me. And it's nice to knwo she can live "poor" too. Once she was purchasing a condo and survived on mostly hot dogs for a while in order to afford it. Bay Area you know, even years ago housing was expensive there.

Geno

Dutch,

Maybe some fish soup?

Geno

Well, the catfish hit a pound this month, so some caldo de bagre most definitely in the near future. Some pan-readies, too. And I do make a mean trout chowder......

A couple other things I remember eating alot of growing up was goulash and spaghetti. Usually made with venison burger and moms sauce made from our home grown tomatoes. Mom made darn good sauce so either was very good.

never had to skimp on food their is so much were I grew up . most things we did for fun was getting food shrimping ; crabbing ; fishing ;digging clams; getting oysters ; hunting ; gigging frogs. when my kids were young they had a lot of fun catching a fish in the back yard or shooting a dove off of the power line in the front yard with their bb gun then making a fire and cooking and eating it after they cleaned it . these days I would prob. get arrested for letting them do it . it was just how I grew up .these days I eat very little store bough meat and no bough fish

Baloney aka Horsecock sammachies!

First night at any camp dad made boiled spuds, green beans and venison burger patty. Next night, same but with fried venison steak. Pretty much the same as at home but we might get a night of pork chops or chicken too... Never had beef. Buckmeat sandwiches were common fare, on Wonder bread.

Never had catfish in soup. Might have to try it someday.

Geno

PS, I forgot my old buddy, who grew up in the midwest during the end of the Great Depression, told me he ate a whole lot of carp sandwiches for school lunches. Fried carp filet between two pieces of bread. So far I haven't been that poor.

We eat of squash our of the garden in the summer, wifey makes squash casseroles she freezes for winter.

Oh, that's right, you're one of those cold water trash fish guys.....

Carp ain't nothing to look down on. The traditional Christmas meal in Poland is a carp. But I side track... if your buddy is from the Midwest, carp sandwiches were just local food. Fall fisheries has processed and sold carp for decades, and Joe Tess still sells lots and lots and lots of fried carp sandwiches....

http://www.joetessplace.com/go/about-us/

Must be different from the european carp we get here, they smell like crap but if you hold your breath, suck on some petrol, and stick a lit stick of gelignite up your bum then it is possible to eat a small piece that has been smoked, without choking...just.

Grilled cheese and soup. I grew up on it but the kids hate it.

Same fish, different water. Fish taste like what they eat and the algae in the water they live in. If you'd pull some barcoo grunters out of the same water you got the carp from, they'd taste like kangaroo [bleep], too......

Likely one and the same fish. Just caught or raised in clean cold water. Our catfish can get the funky smell when caught in summer in some waters where they algae are going great guns. Go back in the winter or spring before the bloom and the catfish taste wonderful

Geno

Only catfish I've had tasted like mud. But then I like good lutfisk!

Oh boy, do you have me wrong. I love my salmonids for catching and even raising but I have a different philosophy about eating fish. I thought perhaps you might have noticed me espouse that belief on some of the other food related threads we've had here over the years.

My favorite fish?





the one that's on my plate!

I'll try any once at least. I've had deckhands on the boats out of San Diego look at me askance when I tell them to put "that" fish in my sac.

Geno

PS, when at school at that infamous "Salmonid U" I used to tell the salmon heads............."Real fish have spines in their fins"

Not a dang thing wrong with that for lunch or supper. Especially when made with good homemade bread and a nice cheddar or Swiss.

Fall is right around the corner so I'll have to keep it in mind.

I feel sorry for your kids.

Geno

Orrr.....American and sandwich bread.....