Well, that’s the way to start the year. I remember two summers ago telling some friends that this would happen, and they seemed pretty skeptical. It’s a different world now, as even the most happy-go-lucky among us has begun to realize. I’m sure you’ve read predictions for 2008 around the web and elsewhere. My intuition, combined with everything I read, combined with the things that have already come to pass and which have been predicted, tell me that this will be a very difficult year. I don’t know what specifically will go wrong. But things around the world are impossibly stacked and balanced on top of each other as if by Dr. Seuss himself, so as I see it, one wrong move and the whole thing comes down. And what are the chances of some idiot doing something stupid?

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

Yeah. You see what I mean.

Food pantries across the country report very high demand for their help, forcing them to stretch their supplies by cutting portions. Many working people seek assistance because they simply don’t make a living wage.

Demand is being driven up by rising costs of food, housing, utilities, health care and gasoline, while food manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are finding they have less surplus food to donate and government help has decreased, according to Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks.

[snip]

“We’ve lost factory jobs and many service jobs don’t pay a livable wage,” said Dick Stevens, director of the organization’s food and nutrition division. “We see a lot of desperation in families who are trying to figure out how to pay higher fuel and utility costs and still put food on the table.”

Most food banks and pantries aren’t optimistic about the coming winter.

I have a cookbook called The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook by Tom Bernardin. (Wimmer, 1991) It’s full of letters and stories from people who came to America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and what they ate and how they lived. Many recipes are very simple, and each culture seems to have some version of things to cook with milk, eggs, flour, oil, salt and/or sugar. Since our country seems to be going back in time to the robber baron days, let me share a little story (circa 1910) from this book (p.131).

The recipes that I am giving are really what we were able to afford. I remember very lean years, for a long time to come, so we named them Poor Man’s recipes.

Poor Man’s Pizza

Everyone made their own bread. There were no bakeries in small towns, so my mother would take some bread dough and flatten it out on a cookie sheet or pizza pan and let it rise for half an hour. Again, then with her fingers, she would make indentations pressing her fingers down into the dough. She would brush it with olive oil and make sure it would go into the grooves, then sprinkle chopped garlic and oregano and bake for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

Poor Man’s Lunch (Panne Cotto)

Enough stale bread, as needed, broken up small. Put aside in a dish.

One large onion sauteed in 1/4 cup olive oil. When limp, add as much water as needed for the bread to soak. When the water and onion and oil have come to a good boil, break the eggs and poach them into the juice.

When your eggs are nicely coated and cooked to your taste, remove and pour over the stale bread till the bread is soaked and soft. Salt and pepper, to taste.

Of course, in the years since people have made millions of dollars taking recipes like these and marketing them into restaurants, cooking shows, books, etc. We’ve been summarily removed from our immigrant history, when the people who came to this country survived by their wits and skills. I mean, look at this recipe for “Rustic Flatbread” from Bon Appetit!, October 1997. Is it really very different from Poor Man’s Pizza? No, it just takes them three times as long to describe how to make it, turning it into some kind of marketing experience. “Oh, yes! Last night we made Rustic Flatbread in our new kitchen, and we had it with a Roumier burgundy, and it was just divine for an appetizer!”

You know what I mean? Someone should do a show on how to feed a family of four on $20 a week or something. Show people every kind of pancake they can make with eggs, flour, milk, salt and oil. I’d like to see them market that.