Richly Blessed Man’s Meal

Richly Blessed Man’s Meal

Now, if you search this recipe, it will come up as Poor Man’s Meal – directly from the 1930’s.  But I say to you that if any man/person is lucky enough to have someone to cook for him/her, they are richly blessed.  To have something to put in the pan makes you among the luckiest in the world.  During the Great Depression (US population 123.1 compared to 330 million today) with over two million homeless people, a double-digit unemployment rate (over 15 million without jobs), and an average income drop of over 40% - people were hurting all over.  People, however, are resilient.  Those who roamed the country (hoboes, vagrants – outdated terms for transient homeless people) developed codes that they etched on trees, telephone poles, and fence posts to let their fellow down-on-their-luck compadres know what to expect of people and places.  You can see a whole list of them here:  https://www.logodesignlove.com/hobo-signs-and-symbols  You can imagine in a day of the most rustic of communication options that these codes were essential for people to be safe.  I am particularly interested in the etching of a cat – means a kind lady lives there.  I am pretty sure that, that sentiment is about all I want on my tombstone.  A kind lady lies here.  To read a story about the background on this etching, read here:  https://daysgoneby.me/great-depression/. 

I hope we never see another time when strangers wander our streets asking for food.  I hope we are better prepared, have more soft places for people to land, and are more able to use communication technologies to connect people to the help they need.  But I also hope this – if I have food and someone I know needs a meal, I hope I fill their plates before I fill mine.  I might go ahead and etch that drawing of a cat on my telephone pole just in case.  

Rich Man’s Meal 

Ingredients

4-5 potatoes, peeled, diced (bigger family, more potatoes) 

1 onion – diced 

½ teaspoon Paprika 

Black skillet – it is essential enough to put on the ingredients list 

Oil – you are going to fry these potatoes

Bacon – and the essential grease 

¼ cup tomato sauce or ketchup 

½ cup water 

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste 

Options:  you can add hot dogs, kielbasa, corn, green peppers 

1.     Peel potatoes and dice – nothing too fancy – you can sort of just “whittle” them into a bowl if you like.  Best to put them in water and remove as much starch as possible. Drain very thoroughly – even rub with paper towels to remove as much water as possible. 

2.     Cook bacon in black skillet – do not overcook.  RESERVE bacon grease.  Put bacon on plate.

3.     Add enough cooking oil to skillet with bacon grease so that you have enough to fry potatoes.

4.     Add potatoes to black skillet SLOWLY so that you do not overwhelm the HOT oil.  

5.     After the potatoes start cooking sprinkle then with paprika, salt and pepper.  

6.     Keep turning occasionally – if you continually stir them they will get goopy.  Yes, that is my cooking term for soggy, broken potatoes.  

7.     Once the potatoes start to brown, add crumbled bacon, ¼ cup of tomato sauce or ketchup, and ½ cup water – the water helps steam the potatoes so they are soft.

8.     Cook over pretty high heat until water is absorbed and potatoes are the desired level of brown.  

You will be pleasantly surprised that this dish is filling and satisfying.  Can use leftovers as start for a potato soup (not enough tomato taste to effect soup flavor).  As usual, some good fried cornbread, bread and butter pickles, and a slice of homemade chocolate cake makes this the meal of a very Blessed Rich Man.  Agreed? From one “kind lady’s” mouth to your ears.