DEPRESSION-ERA RECIPES AT TODAY'S PRICES
n75 Frugal Suppers, Meal Stretchers and Old-Fashioned Desserts from the 1930s, Each Costed per Plate, with a Stretch Note to Feed Two More

Your grandmother fed a full house on almost nothing. This book shows you how she did it, and what it costs you to do the same today, to the cent.

Groceries cost a fortune now. You know it, and so does everybody standing behind you at the checkout. Plenty of Depression-era cookbooks promise you frugal recipes, but I could not find one that tells you what the food actually costs to cook today. They ask you to trust the word. This book shows you the figure.

EVERY PLATE PRICED. EVERY POT STRETCHED.

Each of the 75 recipes carries two things you will not find on any other recipe page:

- The Cost per Plate line: what the whole pot costs and what one plate costs, worked out to the cent from a dated price table printed in the book. The prices come from US Bureau of Labor Statistics averages for September 2026, plus store-brand prices checked on a stated date.
n- The Stretch Note: one practical 1930s way to make the same pot feed two more people, and exactly what each plate costs after the stretch.

No guessing. No 'under five dollars.' Real figures you can check with a pencil.

WHAT YOU WILL COOK

- Soups and Stews That Stretch: old-fashioned potato soup, navy bean soup with bacon, Brunswick-style chicken stew, Hoover stew, canned salmon chowder
n- Meat Stretchers: oatmeal meatloaf, creamed dried beef on toast, salmon patties, porcupine meatballs, chicken and dumplings
n- Bean, Potato and Grain Suppers: pinto beans and skillet cornbread, red beans and rice, Hoppin' John, baked macaroni and cheese
n- Breads and Breakfasts: hot water cornbread, drop biscuits, fried cornmeal mush, eggs goldenrod
n- Garden Sides: cabbage cooked in milk, scalloped onions, fried apples, vinegar coleslaw
n- Desserts from Almost Nothing: eggless chocolate cake, vinegar pie, mock apple pie with butter crackers, Depression cake
n- Leftover Makeovers: bean patties, potato cakes, soup from scraps, meat and potato hash

THE NUMBERS

Plates in this book run from 9 cents to under 2 dollars, with an average of about 66 cents. A full week of suppers for a family of six comes to $59.21 at the book's prices, and the whole plan is printed inside.

ALSO INSIDE

- How Families Ate Through the 1930s: the habits that carried the decade, told from published history, not invented family stories
n- Pricing a Recipe Like a Quantity Surveyor: a five-step method and a worked example, so you can re-price any recipe with your own receipt
n- The Stretcher's Toolkit: oats in the meatloaf, beans with a little meat, gravy over biscuits, each one priced
n- A Master Cost Table of all 75 recipes, a blank re-pricing worksheet, a pantry list of 39 staples with unit prices, a conversion chart and a recipe index sorted by chapter and by cost
n- A nutrition estimate for every recipe from USDA data, and current USDA food-safety guidance in place of old 1930s storage habits

PRICES CHANGE. THE METHOD DOES NOT.

Your store will not match a national average, and this book never pretends it will. Every price is dated and every sum is shown, so you can redo any recipe with your own prices in a few minutes. The table will get old. The method lasts.

Written by a cook trained as a quantity surveyor, who prices a pot of beans the way he was taught to price a building, in a warm, plain voice that respects good cheap food.

Get your copy today. Then pick up a pencil, put on the pot, and see what supper really costs.

Depression-Era Recipes at Today's Prices

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