During the 1930s, an almost decade-long drought affected much of the Prairies along with infestations of grasshoppers, gophers and cutworms. With the lack of rain, the dry farmland blew away, creating terrible dust storms.
A worldwide Depression, which led to a rapid decline in global trade and rising unemployment, occurred at the same time.
Prairie farmers depended on the export of their grain and livestock products, and during the drought prices were very low for the little they could produce.
With no crops, no markets and no jobs, many people on the Prairies had nothing to eat.
Read Also
Starting a small business comes with legal considerations
This article sets out some of the legal considerations to start a business to sell home-grown product, such as vegetables, herbs, fruit or honey.
People in other parts of Canada sent food and clothing to the Prairies to help. The residents of Newfoundland, which didn’t join Canada until 1949, had no markets for their fish so they sent salted codfish to the Canadian Prairies through government food relief programs. Unfortunately, many prairie folk did not know how to cook the huge, hard slabs of salted fish.
In the Feb. 10, 1938, issue of The Western Producer, Laura M. Wright of Shaunavon, Sask., offered suggestions for making use of the salted fish. She suggested soaking the fish in cold water for three days, keeping them in a cool place and changing the water each day. Then, she said “they will be like fresh fish.” The fish may be cut in pieces and baked in a greased pan with a little butter on top of each piece. Or it may be fried or boiled. Left-over fish can be made into fish cakes or added to a cream sauce and served on toast.
During the drought, families struggled to grow gardens to feed their family. Bessie O. Smith of Cabri, Sask., shared a report on her garden in the Oct. 29, 1931, issue.
“We had very hard spring frosts that caught all my early seeded vegetables — carrot, beet, radish, etc. We had them frozen entirely twice. The third seeding did not germinate until after the 28th of June, when we had a heavy rain. The rain was really too heavy and ran off, but it filled our dam in the coulee for which I was thankful as I’d been having a hard time getting even washing water.
“Our small fruits are still under four feet of earth (that blew in) so we will never see them again. We had a few plums. Our apple blossom and cherry blossom got frozen in the spring frost.”
“Our potatoes are good where the soil did not drift. Where it drifted, the stems were cut off so often that they did not have strength to grow tubers.”
On Aug. 31, 1939, in her regular column, Violet McNaughton shared, “we are sorry for those in districts where crops are not coming up to expectations. Heavy straw that raised high hopes followed by disappointing yields took the spirit (but not the work) out of harvesting.”
Of drought and hoppers, one Homemaker Club member wrote McNaughton in August 1939 that “with us the hoppers completely killed 95 percent of the first garden. The second was dry so long it never came up. And the third plantings, made with endless hours of water carrying (to fill the trenches with water before sowing) resulted in the garden being nicely up when it rained. Hail followed, which cut everything to pieces, the small stuff being completely obliterated. The rain came a month too late to make a wheat crop.”
In the Aug. 22, 1935 issue, Alice Lynn Barry encouraged farm women to make use of the tomatoes they grew. To home canned tomato juice, she suggested adding a few drops of lemon juice or a dash of tabasco or Worcestershire sauce to enhance the flavour. The well-seasoned juice can be stiffened with gelatine and placed on crisp crackers or toast for a snack. Or add chopped bits of celery, cabbage and cauliflower to the gelatine and juice mixture for a salad.
For a tasty side dish, steam a half cup of brown rice and then cook with tomato puree. Broiled tomatoes go well with chops or steaks. And children will eat their vegetables when combined with mayonnaise or a cream sauce and stuffed into a nice, big, red tomato. She also suggested soaking the salted codfish overnight in water to freshen it, then drain off the water and bake the fish in a tomato sauce.
In 1913, Abbigail DeLury was appointed the director of women’s work and supervisor of Homemakers’ Clubs. She recognized the need that rural women had for information about using and preserving the food they grew.
DeLury wrote bulletins and conducted short courses on how to prepare nutritious meals and preserve foods safely. One of her most popular booklets was Food for The Family that was available free from the University of Saskatchewan.
In the Jan. 30, 1930, Western Producer, DeLury had a column that focused on eating foods in their most natural state to preserve the food value, appearance and flavour.
The following basic muffin recipe is made with whole wheat flour and uses left-over porridge to avoid food waste.
Oatmeal muffins
- 1 c. cooked oatmeal
- 1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 c. milk
- 1 egg, well beaten
- 2 tbsp. melted butter
Mix together all dry ingredients. Add half the milk and well-beaten egg, just mix. Add remaining milk to oatmeal and mix thoroughly. Add to flour mixture with melted butter. Stir just to combine. Place in well-greased muffin tins. Bake in a hot 400 F oven for 15 to 18 minutes.
Any cooked cereal, such as rice or cornmeal, may be used instead of the oatmeal.
This is from the Jan. 30, 1930, issue of The Western Producer, a recipe originally from Food for the Family by DeLury. For a fruit muffin, add some rhubarb or saskatoons to the muffin mixture.
Rhubarb was easily grown on the Prairies, as one reader identified as “Just a Plodder” submitted to the April 14, 1938, “How Does Your Garden Grow?” page.
“Both prairie and irrigated districts can raise rhubarb by the ton,” they wrote.
An unidentified writer in the June 16, 1938, issue encouraged readers to make the most of the rhubarb and to not just serve it as “stewed rhubarb, which family members, especially the children grew tired of.”
Some suggestions were steamed rhubarb bread pudding, a rhubarb sponge, made with gelatin and lemon juice, a cool drink from rhubarb juice or a sweet and savory rhubarb chutney or relish to serve with meat.
Rhubarb Relish
This updated recipe is from my friend Marilyn De Coninck Smith of Darcy, Sask. It was her maternal grandmother’s recipe that has now been passed down to Marilyn’s daughters. It is delicious with goose sausage and other wild meat.
- 4 c. rhubarb, cut in small pieces
- 4 c. onion, chopped
- 2 c. pickling vinegar
- 1 lb. brown sugar (slightly less than 1/2 kg)
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. allspice
- 1/4 tsp. cloves (optional)
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
Mix all together in a metal or crockery bowl and sit overnight. Bring all to a boil until thick, cook slowly and stir continually to prevent scotching.
Put into hot sterilized jars, add hot lids and place in a canner of hot water. Add water to cover jars by one inch and boil for 10 minutes, remove from water and cool.
The Canadian Council on Child Welfare had an article in the Nov. 21, 1929, paper that focused on how to prevent the high rate of infant deaths.
“If the baby is breast-fed, the baby is protected from summer diarrhoea, the cause of many deaths. Too many mothers bottle-feed their babies and are ignorant of the dangers of unpasteurized milk and milk that is not properly cared for. If the baby must be artificially fed, life itself depends upon the milk being “clean, cool and covered.”
Betty Ann Deobald, one of The Western Producer’s TEAM Resources columnists, will write a monthly column for the next year examining rural life in each decade of the last century.
