DVArtist, Art, Food and Everyday Things: Wednesday

Hi Everyone!

Yesterday was a long day for us. We had to drive into Coos Bay to do some grocery shopping. That part wasn't bad, it was the driving.

There are idiots on the roads these days. I don't remember such stupid moves while driving a car before.

Anyway we made it. LOL

A few weeks ago my daughter told me about Mock Ritz cracker apple pie. I told her I remember my Nan (her great grandma) telling me about that during the great depression days.

I'm telling you it looks amazing.
Photo from internet.

However, after reading about it there is just way too much sugar for us.

In fact if you don't know about this, sugar is mixed with cream of tartar to make an inverted sugar syrup. Even though I would like to try this recipe then take to my monthly gathering. I would not make it for us.

As I thought about sugar and the depression I wondered why woman would use sugar. At the time, a 5lb bag of sugar was .30 cents. That was a lot for then. During the depression the retail price of fresh apples was between 3 to 5 cents or 25 cents for an 8lb bag. On city street corners the famous unemployed apple sellers sold one apple for 5 cents.

While a few cents sounds incredibly cheap today, apples were a poor financial choice for a home cook baking a pie for three primary reasons:

1. Volume and Waste

A standard 9-inch fruit pie requires about 2 to 3 pounds of fresh apples. At grocery store rates, buying enough apples just for the filling would cost roughly 10 to 15 cents. Furthermore, because cold storage supply chains were heavily disrupted in the 1930s, store-bought apples were frequently bruised or half-rotten, meaning a homemaker had to cut away significant waste, driving the actual cost per usable pound even higher.

2. The Total Pie Math

To make a real apple pie, you had to buy the apples plus the sugar and flour. To make a Mock Apple Pie, you entirely skipped the expensive fruit. You used a single sleeve of Ritz crackers out of a 19-cent box (about 6 cents worth) and roughly 6 cents worth of sugar. The mock version cut the filling cost nearly in half and relied entirely on stable, non-perishable pantry staples that wouldn't spoil on the counter.

3. Geographical Scarcity

If you lived in rural orchards or Washington State, fresh apples were virtually worthless because farmers couldn't afford the freight costs to ship them. However, if you lived in a major city like New York or Chicago, the cost of transporting that heavy, perishable fruit made store prices skyrocket relative to people's nonexistent wages. Crackers and sugar, by contrast, were lightweight, shelf-stable, and cheap to distribute anywhere in America. I know, Ritz didn't invent mock pies. 19th-Century Pioneer Women on the American frontier faced a severe shortage of fresh fruit. In the mid-to-late 1800s, homemakers invented "mock apple pie" using stale bread, soda crackers, or saltines mixed with warm water, sugar, and lemon juice to mimic the texture and tartness of apples.

Now before anyone mentions sugar rationing, it was NOT rationed during the great depression. It was a decade later. May 1942 during WW2. A whole different history lesson. LOL

Since I was vested in the cracker thing, I did make Saltine cracker toffee. I made a very small batch just to see how it turned out. Can I say, OMG GOOD!

I thought I had photos but they are not on my camera. Mine looked just like this photo from the internet.

I did find this photo of mine. The bottom of the cracker toffee. I seriously thought the hot toffee would make the crackers soggy. Not at all. The sweet/salty crunch of this is pure culinary bliss

Hmmm...why not try some other cracker recipes since this turned out so good.

This next one SUCKS!

I wanted something that was no bake.

OK, lay Ritz crackers flat on a baking dish. Heat up some peanut butter so it runs smooth and pour over the crackers. Spread with a spatula. Lay another layer of crackers and then cover with more peanut butter. Now take a can of condensed milk and 2 cups of chocolate chips. Heat in a pan stirring until smooth. The pour over the crackers and peanut butter in the baking dish. This mixture is very thick. The directions say to leave it out and let it set up. Ohhh nooo. I ended up putting it in the freezer.

It never did set up just leaving it out. The crackers fell apart all over the place and the peanut butter without any kind of sugar or flavoring was terrible. However, the worst part was the chocolate. Yuckkkk, mixing it with the condensed milk gave it a terrible taste and texture.

I DO NOT recommend this!