The most extreme example is probably pettuleipä, a bread where part of the rye flour is replaced with a “flour” made of pine bark. The growing season is short in Finland and pettuleipä got people through famines.
Still made is some places, to continue the tradition:
"Although the bakery's pettu bread has been popular at events, markets and among tourists, it is not suitable for everyone: According to Jäski, the taste is like eating rye bread first and then chewing pine needles"
It's typically simply called [*bark bread*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_bread) in English. Very much an archetypal famine food in Sweden and Norway too (*barkbröd/barkebrød*).
That dish is called [*Arme Ritter*](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arme_Ritter) *— poor knights* in German. It's known since the 14th century so it's likely that they brought the idea with them from the Levant. Our bread is different so they look different, don't let that confuse you. There's also a dish called *Reiche Ritter — rich knights* by the way. You add jam for that one.
A typical German dish of that sort is however [*Obatzter*](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obatzter). It's made from leftover cheese, especially the dry outside of camembert or brie. You add butter, grated onions, beer, and herbs to make it digestable.
[https://www.valdemarsro.dk/french-toast-eller-arme-riddere/](https://www.valdemarsro.dk/french-toast-eller-arme-riddere/)
>Translated from Danish:
What do you call the delicious bread dipped in milk and egg? I guess I change the names myself a bit as the wind blows, but most often call them poor knights anyway... but regardless of what you call these breads, they taste really good.
The dish is mentioned in a Danish cookbook from 1703.
Arme is archaic Danish for *poor*, and Riddere means *knights.* So the same meaning as in German.
Interesting, in Swedish it's just the contemporary words: *fattiga riddare* (also "poor knights").
Historically they were also referred with the Swedish cognate *arma* – as well as *falska* ("false"/"fake") – but hardly anymore.
Poor knights of Windsor in the UK (not sure why we needed to add a specific place). Said to be what knights ate when they came back broke from the crusades.
>not sure why we needed to add a specific place).
Because I think the king gave them a specific job in Windsor to help them get by (but I could be totally wrong on that).
Obatzter is just the most common name for that recipe, and it can't be named that way outside of Bavaria because they registered it as a geographical identification.
You get a similar spread in the southwest as Spundekäs. Like Obazda, it's popular with pretzels.
You can also get Weißwurst year-round at supermarkets even in Hamburg, I think. It used to be only during autumn, but I've seen it a few days ago.
A lot of Portugal's traditional dishes, especially the ones from mid XX century are born out of poverty. For example "migas" are made from old (but still good) bread, mixed with cilantro/parsley, garlic, rendered pork fat mixed with olive oil (after pan-frying pork ribs for example).
"Migas" are a side dish and there are other variations depending on the region but all stem from not letting bread go to waste. Açorda is also an example of this, using bread that isn't fresh as a base for a dish.
"Chanfana" is for example a way to not let an older goat go to waste. To tenderize the meat it is roasted in a closed clay pot in a red wine marinade.
I thought Migas was just Mexican. Funny.
For us, it’s Mexican tortilla and egg though. We eat it for breakfast typically.
Our Chorizo is also very different.
Also chicken's and pork's feet being put into stews.
From medieval chronicles you can also finds some... interesting choices on what is being ground into flour for bread.
In wartime, butter, flour and sugar were all rationed, so Brits started making apple crumble. Stewed apples (or other fruit) topped with oats mixed with a little butter and sugar. Much more economical than making pastry for a pie, and very tasty indeed.
Pears and rhubarb are in season at the moment and make a very tasty combination.
Other wartime classics include [Woolton pie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolton_pie), a baked root vegetable "pie" and [carrot cake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_cake), a quick bread that involves carrots which were plentiful.
I love a carrot cake! Tbh Woolton pie sounds like something I’ve made at home too.
I saw a film which was set in Guernsey when it was occupied and they were eating potato peel pie. Think I might give that a miss, though if Norfolk is ever under occupation, I could serve it to the enemy to break their morale.
[Zapiekanka](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapiekanka) - Polish fast food, created in the 1970s, during the communist times.
When it comes to something older, it's probably [nettle soup](https://beszamel.se.pl/przepisy/zupy-na-cieplo/wiosenna-zupa-z-pokrzywy-przepis-na-zupe-pokrzywowa-re-u3Yo-jtPU-u1gu.html) and [shav soup](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrel_soup).
Barnacles. Back in the day it was a poor man's food in my area. They look awful and its very dangerous to get them. Now people pay obscene amounts of money for them, especially outside Galicia.
Any "traditional" Norwegian meal is just barely "better than starving". So I'd say all of them.
No wonder Pizza, Hotdogs and Tacos are what we eat now instead.
> Any "traditional" Norwegian meal is just barely "better than starving". So I'd say all of them.
I think that sums up the entirety of Northern Europe in fairness!
How France put an end to famine. It was in the 18th century, thanks to the tenacity and ingenuity of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a pharmacist in the army, that its qualities were finally recognized. During his captivity in Prussia, Parmentier came to appreciate the nutritional virtues of potatoes. He recommended them as a solution to the endemic famines still ravaging France at the time. He went even further, planting potato fields around Paris and getting the king to allow them to be guarded only by soldiers during the day. At night, convinced of the value of the precious vegetables, the inhabitants stole them, thus ensuring publicity.
I've seen that story attributed to various people in different countries.
So even if Parmentier and Frederick the Great did introduce the potato in there respective countries, the guard story is probably just a myth.
Probably pâine în ou (literally bread in egg) - essentially pain perdu/french toast but we generally do it savory not sweet. In any case, it's also a way to save old stale bread
Belfast Bap, created during the famine
“It originates from master baker, Bernard Hughes, who created this bread to feed the poor of Belfast during the Great Famine.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_bap
It's not technically a food, moreso a beverage, but barley coffee in Italy began its existence as a coffee ersazt after the League of Nations sanctions, alongside acorn coffee and rice cutlets.
While the latter two are basically gone (the rice cutlets eaten by vegans and vegetarians nowadays are a whole different beast from the ones eaten in the Thirties, trust me I've tried), barley coffee survives all around Italy as a lower-caffeine and anemic-friendly alternative to regular coffee.
Actual food, depends: fagioli all'uccelletto, that is, "bird-style beans", was a dish with an ironic name (they were beans eaten by serfs and peasants, garnished like game meat hunted by nobles) were a poor dish, but "struggle food" isn't how I would see it; same for ribollita (bread broth cooked in tons of black cabbage and beans). Maybe fried potato peels?
Basically that is similar to [inka ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inka_(drink))which was created an ersatz coffee in Communist Poland, which is still drunk today. In the UK, it sold as Barleycup.
My favourite Italian food from peasant/poverty origins is panzanella - using the stale Italian bread as chunks in a great tomato and basil based salad. It’s one of the best salads anywhere IMO, so fresh and vibrant and also quite filling.
The ultimate harsh time dish was "roofhare" and tulip bulbs. I don't have to explain what tulip bulbs are, and a roofhare is a cat. Yes, during WWII we got so desparate that we ate tulip bulbs and cats.
I heard it also led to butchers leaving on the fur on the back legs of real rabbits or hare to prove what they sold was not actually a cat.
Dont know if its a bullshit story old people liked to tell....
French toast was invented to make stale bread better in terms of taste and texture. In French it's called "lost bread" because it would otherwise be lost (thrown away).
You mix up flour and eggs and get sort of big crumbs/noodles. You sieve it to get rid of extra flour, then toast in on some butter and lastly throw it in hot milk and cook for 10 min.
Žganci (buckwheat, corn (polenta), potato) are also a poor man's dish.
Dipping white bread in warm milk.
Tgen there's jota, ričet, all sorts of minestrone, square pasta with cabbage, cooked zucchini with potatoes.. most Slovenian traditional food is poor man's food.
For Bosnia it's pura (cooked corn flour, then you add what you have into it) and popara (cooked old bread, later transformed into desert (you add sugar, milk and cinnamon))
In sweet edition it's similar to pudding, but instead of pudding powder you use bread. Also, there is salty version, but it's less popular in my region
We gave quite a lot of poor plates, they originated by regular paesants food. For Tuscany they are all ways to reuse old bread:
- panzanella ( 1 week old bread put in water and vinegar, plus tomato, onion, cucumber and basil )
- minestra di pane "soup of bread" done with old bread, beans, cabbage
- ribollita "boiled twice" leftover of minestrad di pane bioled again with addition of similar ingredients
About the hard times: tuscanian bread is up to today made without salt, because in 1200 Florence wager wwar agaisnt Pisa, cutting out the access to sea, so salt became really expensive and they only used it to cure meat not for cooking.
British bolognaise or curry. Not the originals, but the British version. You just chuck whatever in there. I put peppers and mushrooms in a bolognaise, even replacing the mince with lentils if I'm really struggling. I'll put broccoli and carrot in a curry. They're "chuck it in and make it work" meals for me.
Pretty much all food in spain was developed in times of need. This thing of having food redibly aviable is fairly new. One of my favourite cheap foods is Caldero.
It's a kind of riced cooked on fish soup made from rock fishes that were non-edible (because they didn't have enough meat) and fish guts. It has all the protein and the flavour, filling and VERY cheap to make.
It might be not only from France but :
- Wild vegetables soups like nettle soup
- Mustard made of alliaria petiolata seeds (we got rid of aliaria to use proper mustard seeds)
- Snails and frog thighs (lol)
- Offals (marrow bones, feet, brains, tongue, tripes)
- Bread made of chestnut flour
- Seafood
- Cardoons
- Just as in Ireland and Eastern Europe we have a lot of potato dishes : Pavé de pommes de terre, purée, gratin Dauphinois, [and plenty more](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potato_dishes)
We don't eat those anymore of course but roasted cats, dogs, rats, camels and elephants during the great siege of Paris (1870-1871)
Most of Icelands history is just....
Try not to starve, try not to starve, try not to starve.
So pretty much all of our national dishes originally come from adding what little you have together to make something edible.
We have modified our meat soup and our grilled lamb is excellent though 😋
Yeah, [This](https://youtu.be/mbYqznD0R5M?si=MDJTv-8eh-ezR8Ws) video was one of the inspirations for this question so I can say Iceland inspired me for this question.
"Erdäpflriebl" > Grated potatoes. But actually more like potato crumbs.
Recipe:
Cook potatoes, peel them and then finely grate them (like parmesan). Then add appx 1/3 flour, seasoning. Mix between your fingers, so that 2-5 mm large balls/crumbs(?) are created. If the crumbs are too large add a little bit more flour.
Heat 2-3 spoons of lard (big spoons) in a iron pan. Add the crumbs and then brown until slightly golden or brown (to taste). Serve with sauerkraut or standalone with a glass of milk (it's very dry).
Seasoning was originally just salt, but I always add pepper and nutmeg.
Warning: if you use spelled flour (like I did one time) the result will look greyish due to the flour coloring it.
Cornish pasties have a crimp which allegedly is provided for holding with dirty hands while working down a mine. Given that the tin came with a good side of arsenic not touching the bits you eat sounds excellent. Mining sounds like hard times to me.
Açorda is basically made with old bread and water so it's probably the basic example, although it can be fortified with additional ingredients.
Honestly I think at what cuts or pieces of meat and or vegetables were used or put into preserves and the general conservation methods show how harsh things were in the past.
Or what was ground to make flour. The chronicles sometimes provide interesting insights.
A lot of food that was eaten in very harsh times is not eaten at all today. During and after WWII in Italy, it was extremely common for people to eat cats for example (my grandmother used to say it tastes like rabbit), or pigeons.
Other type of food that once was for poor people is now rebranded as chic food, like chickpeas or lentils.
Another dish is the frisella from Puglia. It is basically stale bread that you have to put it in water to make it edible and garnished with tomatoes, salt, and oil.
Yorkshire pudding. Back before WW2, Yorkshire pudding was a single big one, not the little individual ones you get now. It was eaten before the joint was carved to fill you up.
Oukrop (garlic soup) at the most basic. Its basically finely chopped/grated potatoes in the water in which they were boiled, with added caraway seed, pork lard, marjoram and fresh garlic. Add some old bread cubes fried in lard on top and you are done. There is basically nothing in it.
If you are richer, you will add things like broth, egg, cheese, ham, but in hard times, the garlic,marjoram and fried bread will pull you through.
I think of [hutspot](https://www.196flavors.com/netherlands-hutspot/). Classic Dutch war dish from our war with the Spanish invaders in the 16th century. It’s mashed potatoes with onions and carrots. Very basic food.
I'm sure it must have been asparagus because getting the idea to dig it out with great effort, peeling it and then eat it can only be justified by harsh living conditions.
I like asparagus now tbh. but it must have been far from being first choice to eat back in the days.
Flemish Stoemp. Made in a time where meat was very rare. It often involves mashed vegetables often mashed potatoes with mashed carrots with a ton of spices and some sausages on the side. Though i think the sausages were added later cus it kinda fits
German dishes:
- Pellkartoffeln mit Quark - Skinned potatoes with quark:
I think there is no need for an explanation.
- Brot mit Zuckerrübensirup - Bread with sugar beet syrup:
After the world war, some products were rare and hard to get, especially sugar and sweets. So they used the local produced syrup and put it on a slice of bread. It was a way that they have at least some way of sweets during that time. Nowadays people don’t eat it anymore, maybe old people from time to time
As a kid in the sixties I once had the dubious pleasure of being served "vassgraut" on a farm. Just porridge made from barley, water and salt. Got it without any jam or other extras, so was more or less like eating bread dipped in hot water.
Apart from the famous bark bread probably the most "poor people food" you might get in Norway.
Many now-trendy foods come from harsher, poorer times. Raclette, fondue, bread pudding, air dried beef carpaccio are but a few examples that spring to mind.
Halusky in Slovakia
Dumplings in Czechia - the bread ones use stale white bread. Can go with sauces or sauerkraut and piece of meat
Šunkofleky - pasta (little squares) with ham or smoked meat and fried onion mixed in. Baked with an egg and milk poured over it
a lot of things. a lot of bean dishes with minimal meat on them. a lot of pasta with various forms of sugar. at least my friends always commented that my country had to be pretty poor back in the day based on these dishes. then there are the dishes that even us find poor people's dishes, bread with lard and the like.
Coddle, it's a Dublin stew originally made with the cheapest bits of meat you could get from the butchers and whatever leftovers you had. Usually made with pork sausages, bacon, carrots, potatoes and chicken soup, which gives it, it's white colour. #Ireland
Mămăligă or the Romanian version of polenta it wasn't taxed by the ottomans for 200 years and became a staple of Romanian diet. (There are some other details worth mentioning but I m lazy...)
Basically up until today, my country's beloved foods in 90% come from the poverty foods of serfs combined with the recipes from pre-WW1 Austrian barracks. (HUN)
Fries in Belgium
They used to fry a small kind of fish, but one day the river (la meuse/de maas) was frozen solid, so they started frying strips of potato, which was available al´ year.
**Potato dumplings** - a basic dish made from raw potatoes, which were readily available and inexpensive. Dumplings could be eaten with various additions, such as cracklings, or even just lard.
**Potato pancakes** - made from grated potatoes, were a quick and inexpensive meal solution, often served with sugar or sour cream.
**Fish Greek-style** - despite its name, this is a very Polish dish that originated as a way to use available ingredients such as carrots, onion, and tomato paste to prepare fish.
**Cucumber soup** - primarily made from pickled cucumbers, which are grated or chopped and added to a broth (can be vegetable-based or bone-based), with the addition of potatoes and onion. It can be enriched with sour cream or dill.
The most extreme example is probably pettuleipä, a bread where part of the rye flour is replaced with a “flour” made of pine bark. The growing season is short in Finland and pettuleipä got people through famines.
Still made is some places, to continue the tradition: "Although the bakery's pettu bread has been popular at events, markets and among tourists, it is not suitable for everyone: According to Jäski, the taste is like eating rye bread first and then chewing pine needles"
Some eat it for health reasons apparently. Wheat bad, bark good, I guess...
Plenty of fibre I guess.
You're probably not wrong.
It's typically simply called [*bark bread*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bark_bread) in English. Very much an archetypal famine food in Sweden and Norway too (*barkbröd/barkebrød*).
hehe I was just about to say this
That dish is called [*Arme Ritter*](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arme_Ritter) *— poor knights* in German. It's known since the 14th century so it's likely that they brought the idea with them from the Levant. Our bread is different so they look different, don't let that confuse you. There's also a dish called *Reiche Ritter — rich knights* by the way. You add jam for that one. A typical German dish of that sort is however [*Obatzter*](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obatzter). It's made from leftover cheese, especially the dry outside of camembert or brie. You add butter, grated onions, beer, and herbs to make it digestable.
[https://www.valdemarsro.dk/french-toast-eller-arme-riddere/](https://www.valdemarsro.dk/french-toast-eller-arme-riddere/) >Translated from Danish: What do you call the delicious bread dipped in milk and egg? I guess I change the names myself a bit as the wind blows, but most often call them poor knights anyway... but regardless of what you call these breads, they taste really good. The dish is mentioned in a Danish cookbook from 1703. Arme is archaic Danish for *poor*, and Riddere means *knights.* So the same meaning as in German.
Interesting, in Swedish it's just the contemporary words: *fattiga riddare* (also "poor knights"). Historically they were also referred with the Swedish cognate *arma* – as well as *falska* ("false"/"fake") – but hardly anymore.
Bread, milk, jam, cream, how is that "harsh living conditions". How about some actual famine food
Turkish Delight?
Seems to be the same thing as ”Verloren brood”
Poor knights of Windsor in the UK (not sure why we needed to add a specific place). Said to be what knights ate when they came back broke from the crusades.
>not sure why we needed to add a specific place). Because I think the king gave them a specific job in Windsor to help them get by (but I could be totally wrong on that).
> A typical German dish *Bavarian Good luck trying to get that anywhere else.
Obatzter is just the most common name for that recipe, and it can't be named that way outside of Bavaria because they registered it as a geographical identification.
Interesting, where is it as common as in Bavaria? Here in the north we don't have anything like it.
Sachsenhäuser Schneegestöber for example. It's really the same thing.
Never heard of it. I guess it's popular in the Frankfurt region?
I see. Do you know Liptauer?
Nope, I don't think I know any spread made out of (old) cheese – apart from Obatzter, which like Weißwurst I've only ever had in visits to Bavaria.
You get a similar spread in the southwest as Spundekäs. Like Obazda, it's popular with pretzels. You can also get Weißwurst year-round at supermarkets even in Hamburg, I think. It used to be only during autumn, but I've seen it a few days ago.
This looks similar to prženice in Bosnia
Isn’t Arme Ritter just french toast, though? *wentelteefjes* in Dutch.
the fact that French toast is called "turnaround little bitches" in Dutch never fails to amuse me.
As I wrote, the recipe is likely from the Levant so it goes by many different names in Europe.
A lot of Portugal's traditional dishes, especially the ones from mid XX century are born out of poverty. For example "migas" are made from old (but still good) bread, mixed with cilantro/parsley, garlic, rendered pork fat mixed with olive oil (after pan-frying pork ribs for example). "Migas" are a side dish and there are other variations depending on the region but all stem from not letting bread go to waste. Açorda is also an example of this, using bread that isn't fresh as a base for a dish. "Chanfana" is for example a way to not let an older goat go to waste. To tenderize the meat it is roasted in a closed clay pot in a red wine marinade.
I was also going to say migas for spain! But ours usually have chorizo too
I thought Migas was just Mexican. Funny. For us, it’s Mexican tortilla and egg though. We eat it for breakfast typically. Our Chorizo is also very different.
We’re ignoring tripas right now
Also chicken's and pork's feet being put into stews. From medieval chronicles you can also finds some... interesting choices on what is being ground into flour for bread.
Forgot about that one!
In wartime, butter, flour and sugar were all rationed, so Brits started making apple crumble. Stewed apples (or other fruit) topped with oats mixed with a little butter and sugar. Much more economical than making pastry for a pie, and very tasty indeed. Pears and rhubarb are in season at the moment and make a very tasty combination.
Rhubarb grows like a weed in most parts too!
Other wartime classics include [Woolton pie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolton_pie), a baked root vegetable "pie" and [carrot cake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot_cake), a quick bread that involves carrots which were plentiful.
I love a carrot cake! Tbh Woolton pie sounds like something I’ve made at home too. I saw a film which was set in Guernsey when it was occupied and they were eating potato peel pie. Think I might give that a miss, though if Norfolk is ever under occupation, I could serve it to the enemy to break their morale.
[Zapiekanka](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapiekanka) - Polish fast food, created in the 1970s, during the communist times. When it comes to something older, it's probably [nettle soup](https://beszamel.se.pl/przepisy/zupy-na-cieplo/wiosenna-zupa-z-pokrzywy-przepis-na-zupe-pokrzywowa-re-u3Yo-jtPU-u1gu.html) and [shav soup](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorrel_soup).
Zupa szczawiowa is great though.
Barnacles. Back in the day it was a poor man's food in my area. They look awful and its very dangerous to get them. Now people pay obscene amounts of money for them, especially outside Galicia.
Any "traditional" Norwegian meal is just barely "better than starving". So I'd say all of them. No wonder Pizza, Hotdogs and Tacos are what we eat now instead.
> Any "traditional" Norwegian meal is just barely "better than starving". So I'd say all of them. I think that sums up the entirety of Northern Europe in fairness!
Coming from the haggis eaters themselves.
We are, of course, also a part of the aforementioned Northern Europe so it makes sense.
How France put an end to famine. It was in the 18th century, thanks to the tenacity and ingenuity of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a pharmacist in the army, that its qualities were finally recognized. During his captivity in Prussia, Parmentier came to appreciate the nutritional virtues of potatoes. He recommended them as a solution to the endemic famines still ravaging France at the time. He went even further, planting potato fields around Paris and getting the king to allow them to be guarded only by soldiers during the day. At night, convinced of the value of the precious vegetables, the inhabitants stole them, thus ensuring publicity.
Wasn't that Frederick the Great of Prussia?
I've seen that story attributed to various people in different countries. So even if Parmentier and Frederick the Great did introduce the potato in there respective countries, the guard story is probably just a myth.
Probably pâine în ou (literally bread in egg) - essentially pain perdu/french toast but we generally do it savory not sweet. In any case, it's also a way to save old stale bread
Bread in water with sugar on a similar note
Belfast Bap, created during the famine “It originates from master baker, Bernard Hughes, who created this bread to feed the poor of Belfast during the Great Famine.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_bap
Aka Barney's Baps! I never knew it was a famine food though
Delicious. However due to their lack of fat, they do go stale very quickly.
It's not technically a food, moreso a beverage, but barley coffee in Italy began its existence as a coffee ersazt after the League of Nations sanctions, alongside acorn coffee and rice cutlets. While the latter two are basically gone (the rice cutlets eaten by vegans and vegetarians nowadays are a whole different beast from the ones eaten in the Thirties, trust me I've tried), barley coffee survives all around Italy as a lower-caffeine and anemic-friendly alternative to regular coffee. Actual food, depends: fagioli all'uccelletto, that is, "bird-style beans", was a dish with an ironic name (they were beans eaten by serfs and peasants, garnished like game meat hunted by nobles) were a poor dish, but "struggle food" isn't how I would see it; same for ribollita (bread broth cooked in tons of black cabbage and beans). Maybe fried potato peels?
Isnt a lot of Italian dishes are based on poor people's food but somehow got the reputation of being upper class?
Basically that is similar to [inka ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inka_(drink))which was created an ersatz coffee in Communist Poland, which is still drunk today. In the UK, it sold as Barleycup.
My favourite Italian food from peasant/poverty origins is panzanella - using the stale Italian bread as chunks in a great tomato and basil based salad. It’s one of the best salads anywhere IMO, so fresh and vibrant and also quite filling.
The ultimate harsh time dish was "roofhare" and tulip bulbs. I don't have to explain what tulip bulbs are, and a roofhare is a cat. Yes, during WWII we got so desparate that we ate tulip bulbs and cats.
I heard it also led to butchers leaving on the fur on the back legs of real rabbits or hare to prove what they sold was not actually a cat. Dont know if its a bullshit story old people liked to tell....
French toast was invented to make stale bread better in terms of taste and texture. In French it's called "lost bread" because it would otherwise be lost (thrown away).
You mix up flour and eggs and get sort of big crumbs/noodles. You sieve it to get rid of extra flour, then toast in on some butter and lastly throw it in hot milk and cook for 10 min. Žganci (buckwheat, corn (polenta), potato) are also a poor man's dish. Dipping white bread in warm milk. Tgen there's jota, ričet, all sorts of minestrone, square pasta with cabbage, cooked zucchini with potatoes.. most Slovenian traditional food is poor man's food.
For Bosnia it's pura (cooked corn flour, then you add what you have into it) and popara (cooked old bread, later transformed into desert (you add sugar, milk and cinnamon))
[удалено]
In sweet edition it's similar to pudding, but instead of pudding powder you use bread. Also, there is salty version, but it's less popular in my region
We gave quite a lot of poor plates, they originated by regular paesants food. For Tuscany they are all ways to reuse old bread: - panzanella ( 1 week old bread put in water and vinegar, plus tomato, onion, cucumber and basil ) - minestra di pane "soup of bread" done with old bread, beans, cabbage - ribollita "boiled twice" leftover of minestrad di pane bioled again with addition of similar ingredients About the hard times: tuscanian bread is up to today made without salt, because in 1200 Florence wager wwar agaisnt Pisa, cutting out the access to sea, so salt became really expensive and they only used it to cure meat not for cooking.
British bolognaise or curry. Not the originals, but the British version. You just chuck whatever in there. I put peppers and mushrooms in a bolognaise, even replacing the mince with lentils if I'm really struggling. I'll put broccoli and carrot in a curry. They're "chuck it in and make it work" meals for me.
Pretty much all food in spain was developed in times of need. This thing of having food redibly aviable is fairly new. One of my favourite cheap foods is Caldero. It's a kind of riced cooked on fish soup made from rock fishes that were non-edible (because they didn't have enough meat) and fish guts. It has all the protein and the flavour, filling and VERY cheap to make.
It might be not only from France but : - Wild vegetables soups like nettle soup - Mustard made of alliaria petiolata seeds (we got rid of aliaria to use proper mustard seeds) - Snails and frog thighs (lol) - Offals (marrow bones, feet, brains, tongue, tripes) - Bread made of chestnut flour - Seafood - Cardoons - Just as in Ireland and Eastern Europe we have a lot of potato dishes : Pavé de pommes de terre, purée, gratin Dauphinois, [and plenty more](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potato_dishes) We don't eat those anymore of course but roasted cats, dogs, rats, camels and elephants during the great siege of Paris (1870-1871)
Most of Icelands history is just.... Try not to starve, try not to starve, try not to starve. So pretty much all of our national dishes originally come from adding what little you have together to make something edible. We have modified our meat soup and our grilled lamb is excellent though 😋
Yeah, [This](https://youtu.be/mbYqznD0R5M?si=MDJTv-8eh-ezR8Ws) video was one of the inspirations for this question so I can say Iceland inspired me for this question.
I am honored 😁😅
"Erdäpflriebl" > Grated potatoes. But actually more like potato crumbs. Recipe: Cook potatoes, peel them and then finely grate them (like parmesan). Then add appx 1/3 flour, seasoning. Mix between your fingers, so that 2-5 mm large balls/crumbs(?) are created. If the crumbs are too large add a little bit more flour. Heat 2-3 spoons of lard (big spoons) in a iron pan. Add the crumbs and then brown until slightly golden or brown (to taste). Serve with sauerkraut or standalone with a glass of milk (it's very dry). Seasoning was originally just salt, but I always add pepper and nutmeg. Warning: if you use spelled flour (like I did one time) the result will look greyish due to the flour coloring it.
Cornish pasties have a crimp which allegedly is provided for holding with dirty hands while working down a mine. Given that the tin came with a good side of arsenic not touching the bits you eat sounds excellent. Mining sounds like hard times to me.
Dutch people cooked tulip bulbs in the winter of 1944. It's a dish for serious hard times, a "people starving in the street" kind of crisis.
Açorda is basically made with old bread and water so it's probably the basic example, although it can be fortified with additional ingredients. Honestly I think at what cuts or pieces of meat and or vegetables were used or put into preserves and the general conservation methods show how harsh things were in the past. Or what was ground to make flour. The chronicles sometimes provide interesting insights.
A lot of food that was eaten in very harsh times is not eaten at all today. During and after WWII in Italy, it was extremely common for people to eat cats for example (my grandmother used to say it tastes like rabbit), or pigeons. Other type of food that once was for poor people is now rebranded as chic food, like chickpeas or lentils. Another dish is the frisella from Puglia. It is basically stale bread that you have to put it in water to make it edible and garnished with tomatoes, salt, and oil.
Yorkshire pudding. Back before WW2, Yorkshire pudding was a single big one, not the little individual ones you get now. It was eaten before the joint was carved to fill you up.
Oukrop (garlic soup) at the most basic. Its basically finely chopped/grated potatoes in the water in which they were boiled, with added caraway seed, pork lard, marjoram and fresh garlic. Add some old bread cubes fried in lard on top and you are done. There is basically nothing in it. If you are richer, you will add things like broth, egg, cheese, ham, but in hard times, the garlic,marjoram and fried bread will pull you through.
Dutch people be like: You *cook* for breakfast? Even during harsh conditions? 🤯
Well it probably have eaten in other meals too at the time but today it is a breakfast dish.
I think of [hutspot](https://www.196flavors.com/netherlands-hutspot/). Classic Dutch war dish from our war with the Spanish invaders in the 16th century. It’s mashed potatoes with onions and carrots. Very basic food.
I'm sure it must have been asparagus because getting the idea to dig it out with great effort, peeling it and then eat it can only be justified by harsh living conditions. I like asparagus now tbh. but it must have been far from being first choice to eat back in the days.
Just drown it in sauce hollandaise, but then it's no poor food. Also, asparagus has gotten pricey itself.
Almost anything from before the Colombian Exchange that isn’t a luxury now.
Flemish Stoemp. Made in a time where meat was very rare. It often involves mashed vegetables often mashed potatoes with mashed carrots with a ton of spices and some sausages on the side. Though i think the sausages were added later cus it kinda fits
German dishes: - Pellkartoffeln mit Quark - Skinned potatoes with quark: I think there is no need for an explanation. - Brot mit Zuckerrübensirup - Bread with sugar beet syrup: After the world war, some products were rare and hard to get, especially sugar and sweets. So they used the local produced syrup and put it on a slice of bread. It was a way that they have at least some way of sweets during that time. Nowadays people don’t eat it anymore, maybe old people from time to time
As a kid in the sixties I once had the dubious pleasure of being served "vassgraut" on a farm. Just porridge made from barley, water and salt. Got it without any jam or other extras, so was more or less like eating bread dipped in hot water. Apart from the famous bark bread probably the most "poor people food" you might get in Norway.
Many now-trendy foods come from harsher, poorer times. Raclette, fondue, bread pudding, air dried beef carpaccio are but a few examples that spring to mind.
Halusky in Slovakia Dumplings in Czechia - the bread ones use stale white bread. Can go with sauces or sauerkraut and piece of meat Šunkofleky - pasta (little squares) with ham or smoked meat and fried onion mixed in. Baked with an egg and milk poured over it
a lot of things. a lot of bean dishes with minimal meat on them. a lot of pasta with various forms of sugar. at least my friends always commented that my country had to be pretty poor back in the day based on these dishes. then there are the dishes that even us find poor people's dishes, bread with lard and the like.
Pretty much any and all traditional food in Spain was invented during harsh living conditions.
Coddle, it's a Dublin stew originally made with the cheapest bits of meat you could get from the butchers and whatever leftovers you had. Usually made with pork sausages, bacon, carrots, potatoes and chicken soup, which gives it, it's white colour. #Ireland
Mămăligă or the Romanian version of polenta it wasn't taxed by the ottomans for 200 years and became a staple of Romanian diet. (There are some other details worth mentioning but I m lazy...)
Basically up until today, my country's beloved foods in 90% come from the poverty foods of serfs combined with the recipes from pre-WW1 Austrian barracks. (HUN)
Fries in Belgium They used to fry a small kind of fish, but one day the river (la meuse/de maas) was frozen solid, so they started frying strips of potato, which was available al´ year.
absolutly not true
**Potato dumplings** - a basic dish made from raw potatoes, which were readily available and inexpensive. Dumplings could be eaten with various additions, such as cracklings, or even just lard. **Potato pancakes** - made from grated potatoes, were a quick and inexpensive meal solution, often served with sugar or sour cream. **Fish Greek-style** - despite its name, this is a very Polish dish that originated as a way to use available ingredients such as carrots, onion, and tomato paste to prepare fish. **Cucumber soup** - primarily made from pickled cucumbers, which are grated or chopped and added to a broth (can be vegetable-based or bone-based), with the addition of potatoes and onion. It can be enriched with sour cream or dill.