What Is A Poor Man's Meal And How Did It Get Its Unpleasant Name?

Just because it's a poor man's meal doesn't mean it tastes poor. The title "poor man's meal" represents a collection of meals that are uniquely cost effective — essentially, old-school dishes that might seem unusual. The name derives from the Great Depression when a majority of people struggled financially, striving to make ends meet and feed their families with any foods they could come up with. Resourceful in nature, a poor man's meal consisted of the cheapest ingredients households could find like beans, cabbage, and rice. A typical poor man's meal included potatoes, onions, and an inexpensive meat. Many households chose hot dogs for their poor man's meals. Costing a nickel each, hot dogs fed families without a large financial strain. Potatoes were also significantly used during this time as they were easy to obtain in large quantities and could make any meal heartier.

In a YouTube video, Clara Cannucciari, a 91-year-old Great Depression survivor, shares how her father purchased ingredients by the sack while cooking a poor man's meal of potatoes, hotdogs, and onions. "Potatoes were a dollar a sack ... that was a lot of money," Cannucciari exclaims, highlighting how the sackful could last her family many meals. Emphasizing the strife of the era, Clara jokes that any meal devised during this time should have been called "the Depression meal."

Despite being staples in the Depression, many poor man's meals are highly revered today — and not only because they're a great bang for your buck. Many people enjoy consuming poor man's meals due to their pleasing, simple flavors as well as childhood nostalgia. Additionally, several poor man's meals have been manipulated by modern-day chefs into exquisite, elevated dishes – some of which you may not have even realized came from a poor man's meal.

While you can make a plethora of cheap ingredients into a poor man's meal, many people enjoy the classics: cheese sandwiches, beanie weenies (or beans and hot dogs), fried cabbage and noodles, and more. Fans might not be financially limited to these poor man's meals, yet the simplistic flavors and the easy construction of these meals have them coming back for more. Plus, these meals remind people of an easier time in their lives: their childhood. Even I, a Zoomer who was raised on poor man's meals by my Gen X mom, will still reach for modest ingredients that remind me of being at her dinner table as a child.

Many famous poor man's meals have been upgraded with modern, finer ingredients. Take the classic tomato sandwich, for example. What was once two slices of white bread with a large slab of tomato between them has since transformed into fancier varieties such as a BLT with aioli on sourdough bread. Even a bologna sandwich can be upgraded from the poor man's white bread, mustard or mayonnaise, and bologna to fried bologna with homemade pickles, dijon aioli, and toast. What screams "comfort food" the most to me is the poor man's meal of beans and cornbread — I mean, come on, who doesn't give a sigh of relief when thinking of this? While this poor man's meal typically consists of pinto beans and cornbread, famed country singer Reba McEntire transforms this meal with the addition of thick-cut bacon, bay leaves, chicken stock, and sherry vinegar. With the economy a lot better than it used to be in the Depression era, there are a countless array of choices to upgrade simplistic, poor man's meals.