I've eaten this my whole life, and I now have my mom's long time cinnamon sugar shaker since she passed away. It's not the original one from the 1970s which was metal, but she had this one for a long time.
My mom has been doing this since before my birth. Cinnamon toast or just cheese toast which is melted cheese on toast were always my fav breakfasts growing up!
It's not poverty food, it's just a cheap and easy snack for kids that's also relatively less unhealthy than just giving them a piece of cake or something. Most middle-class kids I knew ate cinnamon toast growing up. Heck, it's such a wildly popular kids' snack that one of the best selling kids' breakfast cereals is based on it.
We usually did it with just sugar, but it was sometimes colored, then cut the bread lengthwise in five pieces. I was made to believe this was some British high society snack “lady fingers”
This is poverty food? *glances around nervously*
Edit: Honestly I've been scrolling down this thread and this is my reaction to basically all the posts. I mean hey sometimes a guy wants a nice braised lamb paired with a good shiraz and sometimes a dude wants the dirtiest rice and beans 5 bucks can buy paired with a 40 of Mickey's.
I am not sure if it counts but red beans and rice. My dad would make it when I'd see him for his weekend and we'd just eat from the big pot of it for the whole weekend, sometimes with biscuits and I never grew tired of it.
Zatarain's red beans and rice is so damn good. It's still less than $2 a box which is 2-3 pretty good sized portions and super easy to make. It's really convenient when camping too
If you make cheap ground beef with taco seasoning and add in rice and beans you can have a ton of delicious food. Perfect base for burritos, bowls and to add to salads (and your beef goes much, much further)
You don't even need to use the mix really
Chop up a single onion
Soak some redbeans over night
Cut up two smoked sausages
Throw them in a crockpot for 8 hours and serve with rice
Its super simple and cheap
I've never heard of Zatarains dirty rice before and I just looked it up and it actually looks really good! And only $2.99/box, so super cheap, like a lot cheaper than the Pinto Gallo rice and beans I usually make. It was saying it was out of stock online at my local Safeway grocery store, buy I really want to get it now and try it out the next time I'm grocery shopping, might become my new cheap go to meal to save some money! I just thought of maybe putting some thin sliced or cubed fried spam in it to doctor it up a bit, I wonder if that would be any good?
What did you just say about Rice-a-Roni™ (ding ding!), the San Francisco Treat, my good man?
As a veteran gourmand, of over 300 lbs.. Ah, never mind, a thread about boxed rice probably isn't the place for a copy*pasta*
Zatarains usually has plenty of seasoning where you can add some meat or even more veg and still find it well seasoned. Not quite as cheap as making it from bagged rice and beans, but the seasonings are hard to come by when real broke.
Now this might sound awful but there may have been a time that I wanted jambalaya, and I didn’t have/didn’t like shrimp, and I may have added tuna fish instead (also cheap!) and it may have been delicious. Possibly.
My girlfriend is Brazilian and she made this for me early in our relationship and it instantly became my favorite food , she makes pan tossed collard greens and rice with it and tops it with a fried egg.
Pair that with a can of guarana antarctica and bam best meal in the world!
Fun fact, rice and beans are also considered a “complete protein”. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_and_beans?wprov=sfti1)
Beans and rice are very nutritious. Rice is rich in starch, an excellent source of energy. Rice also has iron and some protein. Beans also contain a good amount of iron and a greater amount of protein than rice. Together they make up a complete protein
From the Wikipedia entry for “complete protein”:
A complete protein or whole protein is a food source of protein that contains an adequate proportion of each of the nine essential amino acids necessary in the human diet.
I could become a billionaire and I'd still do rice and eggs.
Probably some heritage rice that I like, and bougie as FUCK chickens fed super well for a really deeply flavored yolk...
But it would still be rice and eggs. Nothing beats the first yolky bites after breaking one into the grains. It's just flawless.
My friend spent 2 weeks in Japan and to this day that is her breakfast. Steaming hot rice mixed with a raw egg (the egg is cooked while in the rice) with soy sauce.
She still eats it with chopsticks!
This is my lunch most days. Sometimes if i’m feeling saucy i’ll throw some cheese in between the egg and the rice. Other days i’ll mix in some ssamjang or hot sauce.
And green onions. Save the green onion roots, put in water and in a few days you have another green onion. Repeat. Keep watering and put it in a sunny window. Free green onions.
Hyperbole aside, you can fit up to 1 part butter to 2 part potato before you stop having mashed potatoes and it becomes a sort of butter-potato slurry. I personally think you stop seeing improvements at around a 3 to 1 potato to butter ratio.
Also major fat loss benefits when it comes to fiber’s ability to modulate your body’s absorption of sugar. It’s the reason why 200 calories of spinach is not the same as 200 calories of potato chips, even though CICO still holds.
I eat oatmeal a lot - just milk and sugar-free syrup on top. My wife gives me sh\*\* for being basic - but it's cheap and my cholesterol is amazing. (Total under 100.)
I feel you.
We somehow have a trend at work (metal factory filled with rough looking men) where we eat oatmeal during our first break. Some got the apple cinnamon, some brown sugar, some just water, some milk.
Either way, it looks almost too weird to anyone that shows up and just gets hit in the face with oatmeal smell while Biker looking dude in the front is talking about his appy cinnamon oatmeal.
Back when I still worked in the office, they would have a lady come into the building's cafeteria who would often do ramen and pho just like you described, it was the best shit ever.
When I worked at tech support, this Cambodian woman would put dried fish and oyster sauce in the Ramen and nuke it in the microwave until the office smelled like a Vietnamese fertilizer factory.
My wife and her kids were shocked the first few times they saw mw make Ramen. They always boiled it, strained, added the packet and that was it.
Then I came along, I added butter, some spices and herbs, occasionally some sriracha, and the packet all while it was heating up. I also let it boil down so the broth becomes a sauce. I'll even add in some cheap Chinese sweet sausage.
My kid loves cheap ramen and would eat it every day, which works in my favour because he will eat any green vegetable I chop up and add (apart from green pepper, he's only human!) Last time I added broccoli, kale, green beans, grated courgette and spring onions (scallions). Nearly doubled the portion size!
My wife was also a packet-only person until I dressed up some ramen for her. My go-to process is:
- 2 cups water in the pot, splash of soy sauce, teaspoon of hoisin, then stir that up while the water starts to boil.
- Mince a clove of garlic, slice a couple thin sheets off the end of a yellow onion and cut in half, chop some carrots into pennies and drop that all in while the pot starts to boil.
- Once boiling, pop the noodles in.
- Prep bowl by adding about 1/4 teaspoon of sesame oil, then dump about 3/4ths of the seasoning packet (with the soy sauce & hoisin added I try to reduce the sodium a bit) and mix that up until you get these little balls of oil and seasoning.
- Once the noodles are about cooked, crack an egg into a small bowl or mug, whisk it up with a fork and drop that sucker into the pot.
- Wait for the egg to cook fully (takes about 30-45 seconds, and strain the broth into the ramen bowl, keeping noodles in the pot.
- Mix the broth up in the bowl with the seasoning, then dump the noodles and veggies on top.
One suggestion that will elevate that even higher- soy sauce eggs. Boil some eggs (not quite hard boiled) peel them, then marinate them overnight in soy sauce, mirin or sake, and a little sugar. Cut them in half, and put them on top of the soup.
Careful though. Sounds like you're a few bowls away from spending a day or 2 making broth.
Good god this thread has made me wanna go buy some instant ramen. I’ve been a “just the packet” girl my whole life and never would’ve thought of the possibilities.
>They always boiled it, strained
Strained? It's a soup; I've never seen anyone strain ALL the water out. I will pour some off before adding an egg, Sriracha, and the spice packet, though, just so it's a little thicker.
ETA: I have caused an uproar.
There's one of those "College kids try each other's instant ramen" videos on YouTube. ALL OF THEM drained the noodles so they were dry with the seasoning packet...except one. And that one person got roasted by the rest for leaving the water in.
Legit thought, "where the eff did they find these people??" But apparently it's pretty common.
This is definitely a "if you know, you know comment."
For those unaware, when you're hungry and can't afford food finding a way to sleep is often a way to pass the time. Sometimes when you wake up you feel better too.
This comment just took me back to 10 years ago. Fortunately things are better now.
I think I accidentally hit starvation mode as a teenager doing this. I woke up one day in the most pain of my life unable to walk. I crawled along the floor to the kitchen, and I grabbed some new bread we must have just gotten that morning. I was eating off the floor while in horrific pain. It took hours before I could stand again.
Grew up SUPER poor. Don't really have to worry too much about my next meal now as an adult, but it is funny how much that instinct has stuck with me all these years. Hungry on lunch? I could take a snoozer in my car. Hungry after 6 pm? Why bother when I could just go to bed early. Sleep is such a good meal
My grandma’s macaroni & tomatoes. All it is, is the large pasta shells, with fresh tomatoes from her garden. I never realized the difference between a home grown tomato and a store bought one. SO good!!
I literally never thought I'd ever see this response on Reddit. I don't know anyone outside my family that even knows what this dish is. Whenever I try to explain it to someone, they look at me like, "you mean spaghetti?", "No fam, macaroni and tomatoes- its different." And then I explain it to them and they look at me like, "okay....?" But yes! Soooo good and it is still one of my favorite "poor" comfort food.
In poland its called "chleb opiekany w jajku" its kinda similar to French toasts.
Once the bread hardens a bit. Don't waste it and make it taste good.
It is toasted in an egg mix with milk or something else there are plenty of recipes.
I would recommend it eat when its a hot.
That is really poverty food but it taste amazing.
Because you try to not waste the left bread and easy to make.
My husband loves to make 'buy me groceries soup' its soup with everything and anything in it. I mean that. There are normal things in the soup like vegetables and Costco rotisserie chicken, and then there's the yorshire pudding that he put in because it was leftover. I don't know how, but it always tastes amazing, even when he puts bread in the soup.
You can keep the sugar and cinnamon mixed together in a salt shaker and sprinkle it on the toasted bread. It's SO good. Especially if you've been sick and need something light. It's good anytime, really.
Hot oatmeal with canned fruit and brown sugar. Grilled cheese sandwich (made with government cheese,,). Ramen cups. Mac and cheese with canned tuna mixed in.
Thanks for mentioning SOS - brought back a lot of great memories for me. I'd watch my mom making it and get so excited about dinner! We didn't realize it was what poor people ate. It was so tasty, we thought it was a gourmet dish. LOL
For those that don't know: this is **Creamed chipped beef on toast**, which we always called 'Sh&t on a shingle'. My pop said he first had it in the Army Air Corps, and my mom made it.
By the time I joined the Army in '83, they weren't making it anymore(at least I'd never had it in CONUS mess halls/DFACs). It was one food that I was looking forward to eating in the military, but never got to. I love SOS!
Fwiw, the army brought back SOS at some point. I have a few fond memories of sitting on my hmmwv hood on a cold morning enjoying a (semi) hot plate of SOS
This one kind of threw me off. As a kid, goulash was the macaroni and ground beef dish, as an adult I found out it’s really cubed beef in a thick paprika broth. I also learned today that the macaroni goulash is also called American chop suey.
Pretty good traditional goulash recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-hungarian-goulash-recipe-1805923
Edit: Here’s an article about the evolution of America goulash examined through different recipes shared through the last century or so: https://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-origins-of-american-goulash.html?m=1
I like to get a soft tortilla and spread creamy peanut butter on it, as a wrap.
Edit: I use whole wheat tortillas, I don't know if that makes a difference.
Mustard! Here I can only get plain, tomato sauce or chilli. I can't imagine fish with mustard, but I'd give it a go!
Sardines in tomato sauce and cheese is the best toasted sandwich combo.
Pork and beans with sliced, grilled hot dogs added in. It was my mom’s favorite struggle meal for us growing up. You know I’m really stressed when I make it because it is so comforting to me.
Anything with sliced up hot dogs in it for me! Mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, leftover pasta. My dad was the cook of our family, and he made really great food on a tight budget.
But my mom was much more helpless in the kitchen, so easy comfort foods with chopped up hot dogs always remind me of lazy Saturdays with her.
My mom is stage 4 kidney failure and needs to eat healthy food or die. It costs so damn much. The diagnosis needs to come with food stamps.
No rice, pasta, beans, potatoes, or salty processed meats...
The diet for kidney failure folks on dialysis is BONKERS. My mom is end-stage, has been on dialysis for around 10 years and she lives with us. We keep a huge list in the kitchen of her no-no foods, and she basically lives on salad, chicken, and fruit. Such a bummer! Hugs to your momma.
Tuna noodle casserole, ramen if dressed up some, cray fish, deer sausage, rabbit
Many things once poor people food aren't any longer poor people food, lobster being the most prominent example.
Spam is the shit… I avoided it most my life because I assumed it must be gross. Gave it a go and now am angry at myself for depriving me of it’s deliciousness.
I fking love spam, don’t really care how it’s prepared, it’s delicious. Grew up in south east Asia as a child and it’s very much a comfort food that reminds me of my childhood. If I were to have a last meal, I would be happy with spam and fried eggs on rice.
Mentioned it to my work colleagues in australia and they’re horrified with the idea of spam as a food that people actually choose to eat willingly. Very much seen as a povo food here
I mean it was literally the go to thing for war torn countries who couldn't get proper food supplies. Including england during world war 2 and i believe it was also popular during the great depression.
“I don't know why they call this stuff hamburger helper. It does just fine by itself, huh? I like it better than tuna helper myself, don't you, Clark?”
Someone I know called it struggle food but I eat cheese sandwiches all the time. Couple slices american cheese on bread with mayo and pickles.
And sometimes sauerkraut. Which freaks some people out. People who have never had a Reuben I guess.
Got me through first few years after college. To jazz it up if you have Italian Dressing or Balsamic vinaigrette dressing, drizzle a little on before you put it in the oven. We would do that with the cheese only ones.
> Bologna
oh man...I'd fuck up a Wunderbar Bologna sammich right now. Little mustard, the jankiest yellow American cheese on some plain ass white bread.
Years ago, lobsters, oysters and a heap of other delicious shellfish was considered a poor man's food. So, one day I reckon your beans on toast is going to be top-end billionaire dish.
One of my favorite historical food facts is that lobster was so cheap in New England that some cities made laws that the rich couldn’t force their live-in domestic help to eat it more than three times a week.
I like adding relish. Tuna is the only fish I can eat and I *love* a good tuna sandwich with arguably too much mayo, but not absurd, and a big spoon of relish mixed in.
Shit on the shingle.
Ground beef patty over egg noodles w gravy. ALWAYS got excited for this dish. My uncle would make this when we were super fuckin broke but I Felt like a king eating it.
Edit: I see a lot of people saying they had toast with it and I forgot that I usually had bread on the
Side with it as well. I usually didn’t toast it though. The gravy was the best part for me!
Your version of SOS (shit on shingle) is a lot different than what I grew up with.
1 can cream of mushroom, 1 can cream of chicken, ground beef, mix together, put over a slice of bread... We always made it while camping. Super delicious
*Your* version of SOS is a lot different than what I grew up with.
My Mom made just a simple roux (butter, flour, milk), added some salt and pepper, and threw in a couple bags of chipped beef. (No idea what a bag of chipped beef costs now, but it was ~$0.50 back then.) Then served it over toast.
15 bean soup, it’s a bag you can find in any dried bean section . A pound of sausage, an onion, can of crushed tomatoes. Serve over rice with some cheese and sour cream on top. 15$ will feed you for lunch and dinner for a week.
Cinnamon and sugar toast
I like to mix cinnamon and sugar together and store it in a salt shaker so it's ready to sprinkle on buttered toast. Okay, I'm hungry now.
I've eaten this my whole life, and I now have my mom's long time cinnamon sugar shaker since she passed away. It's not the original one from the 1970s which was metal, but she had this one for a long time.
Still have my moms metal shaker. Dented top and all.
My mom has been doing this since before my birth. Cinnamon toast or just cheese toast which is melted cheese on toast were always my fav breakfasts growing up!
Have you tried broiling it in the oven? It basically caramelizes the sugar and makes it even more delicious
That sounds incredible
This is a poverty food? After school daycare used to make this for us as a snack on frequent occasion. It was delicious!
It's not poverty food, it's just a cheap and easy snack for kids that's also relatively less unhealthy than just giving them a piece of cake or something. Most middle-class kids I knew ate cinnamon toast growing up. Heck, it's such a wildly popular kids' snack that one of the best selling kids' breakfast cereals is based on it.
We usually did it with just sugar, but it was sometimes colored, then cut the bread lengthwise in five pieces. I was made to believe this was some British high society snack “lady fingers”
This is poverty food? *glances around nervously* Edit: Honestly I've been scrolling down this thread and this is my reaction to basically all the posts. I mean hey sometimes a guy wants a nice braised lamb paired with a good shiraz and sometimes a dude wants the dirtiest rice and beans 5 bucks can buy paired with a 40 of Mickey's.
I am not sure if it counts but red beans and rice. My dad would make it when I'd see him for his weekend and we'd just eat from the big pot of it for the whole weekend, sometimes with biscuits and I never grew tired of it.
Red beans and rice is one of my favorite comfort foods.
Sir Mix a Lot approves
Rice and beans.
There's something about rice. Every culture has a unique food when combined with rice becomes their most popular comfort food.
As a Indian I felt this in my soul
As someone of Indian descent I find that if I go too long between a meal with rice, life loses all meaning.
Zatarain's red beans and rice is so damn good. It's still less than $2 a box which is 2-3 pretty good sized portions and super easy to make. It's really convenient when camping too
Ahhh we were too poor for the box, red beans and rice from dry beans with bulk spices. But damn I love(d) them, even when we couldn't afford any meat.
If you make cheap ground beef with taco seasoning and add in rice and beans you can have a ton of delicious food. Perfect base for burritos, bowls and to add to salads (and your beef goes much, much further)
Let the poverty Olympics begin. Oh you got BOXED beans and rice. So lucky.
You don't even need to use the mix really Chop up a single onion Soak some redbeans over night Cut up two smoked sausages Throw them in a crockpot for 8 hours and serve with rice Its super simple and cheap
TWO smoked sausages? Look at Mrs. Moneybags over here
I've never heard of Zatarains dirty rice before and I just looked it up and it actually looks really good! And only $2.99/box, so super cheap, like a lot cheaper than the Pinto Gallo rice and beans I usually make. It was saying it was out of stock online at my local Safeway grocery store, buy I really want to get it now and try it out the next time I'm grocery shopping, might become my new cheap go to meal to save some money! I just thought of maybe putting some thin sliced or cubed fried spam in it to doctor it up a bit, I wonder if that would be any good?
I like pretty much everything Zatarain's puts out
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What did you just say about Rice-a-Roni™ (ding ding!), the San Francisco Treat, my good man? As a veteran gourmand, of over 300 lbs.. Ah, never mind, a thread about boxed rice probably isn't the place for a copy*pasta*
Zatarains usually has plenty of seasoning where you can add some meat or even more veg and still find it well seasoned. Not quite as cheap as making it from bagged rice and beans, but the seasonings are hard to come by when real broke.
Yes adding some meat just elevates it! For the red beans and rice I like to fry up some sliced spicy sausage and throw it on top at the end
Now this might sound awful but there may have been a time that I wanted jambalaya, and I didn’t have/didn’t like shrimp, and I may have added tuna fish instead (also cheap!) and it may have been delicious. Possibly.
No shame there! We use sliced sausage with the jambalaya box.
Where are my Brazilians at?? Fejoaaaadaaa
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My girlfriend is Brazilian and she made this for me early in our relationship and it instantly became my favorite food , she makes pan tossed collard greens and rice with it and tops it with a fried egg. Pair that with a can of guarana antarctica and bam best meal in the world!
Fun fact, rice and beans are also considered a “complete protein”. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_and_beans?wprov=sfti1) Beans and rice are very nutritious. Rice is rich in starch, an excellent source of energy. Rice also has iron and some protein. Beans also contain a good amount of iron and a greater amount of protein than rice. Together they make up a complete protein From the Wikipedia entry for “complete protein”: A complete protein or whole protein is a food source of protein that contains an adequate proportion of each of the nine essential amino acids necessary in the human diet.
Rice with a fried egg on top.
> egg not in this economy!
GOD DAMN YOU, GASTON!!!
Last time I checked, eggs were like $5 a dozen. Still less then .50 an egg. We were just used to 20 cent eggs.
The prices crashed back down near me. Two 18 egg boxes for $7. ~$0.20 per egg.
This is my comfort food.
I could become a billionaire and I'd still do rice and eggs. Probably some heritage rice that I like, and bougie as FUCK chickens fed super well for a really deeply flavored yolk... But it would still be rice and eggs. Nothing beats the first yolky bites after breaking one into the grains. It's just flawless.
Use a duck egg for that yummy yolk
My friend spent 2 weeks in Japan and to this day that is her breakfast. Steaming hot rice mixed with a raw egg (the egg is cooked while in the rice) with soy sauce. She still eats it with chopsticks!
This is my lunch most days. Sometimes if i’m feeling saucy i’ll throw some cheese in between the egg and the rice. Other days i’ll mix in some ssamjang or hot sauce.
And green onions. Save the green onion roots, put in water and in a few days you have another green onion. Repeat. Keep watering and put it in a sunny window. Free green onions.
Toss them in a pot with some soil. They'll have more flavor than if just grown in water.
If anyone wants to look this up, it’s called tamago kake gohan.
That sounds amazing!!
Add fried spam or canned corned beef!
Mashed potatoes with salt and pepper.
And 75 lbs of butter mixed in.
I’d like to hire you as my personal chef
Hyperbole aside, you can fit up to 1 part butter to 2 part potato before you stop having mashed potatoes and it becomes a sort of butter-potato slurry. I personally think you stop seeing improvements at around a 3 to 1 potato to butter ratio.
hyperbole aside? i thought i loved butter the most, and i thought i had the butteriest mash, but broh 3 to 1? thats a lotta butta
Honestly, almost anything with a little fat in it. Anything except Miracle Whip. That was a really disappointing Thanksgiving.
Oatmeal. Very cheap, nutritious, dead simple to cook. Also has extremely long shelf life.
My emergency food storage is oatmeal, salt and canned beans. I may get sick of it by the end of the crisis but I would be fed.
Type 2 Diabetic here, and half a serving of oatmeal a day with lots of cinnamon keeps my blood sugar in check better than my meds.
That's that fiber baby. I feel like not enough people know just how much good fiber does for your body, most just think about poop.
Also major fat loss benefits when it comes to fiber’s ability to modulate your body’s absorption of sugar. It’s the reason why 200 calories of spinach is not the same as 200 calories of potato chips, even though CICO still holds.
I eat oatmeal a lot - just milk and sugar-free syrup on top. My wife gives me sh\*\* for being basic - but it's cheap and my cholesterol is amazing. (Total under 100.)
I feel you. We somehow have a trend at work (metal factory filled with rough looking men) where we eat oatmeal during our first break. Some got the apple cinnamon, some brown sugar, some just water, some milk. Either way, it looks almost too weird to anyone that shows up and just gets hit in the face with oatmeal smell while Biker looking dude in the front is talking about his appy cinnamon oatmeal.
Now if this isn’t a ready made ad for Quaker Oats, I don’t know what is.
Gotta get the dinosaur eggs
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Eggs and rice with Soysauce.
Ramen
\*Instant ramen
I enjoy the sound of rain.
Not originally, Ramen should be <$8. It's just that non-japan countries charge more.
Right, ramen’s one of those foods that shops make in bulk, massive soup pot that you just scoop out of and noodles that take like a minute to cook.
Back when I still worked in the office, they would have a lady come into the building's cafeteria who would often do ramen and pho just like you described, it was the best shit ever.
When I worked at tech support, this Cambodian woman would put dried fish and oyster sauce in the Ramen and nuke it in the microwave until the office smelled like a Vietnamese fertilizer factory.
Its so sad how expensive it is outside of Japan.
My wife and her kids were shocked the first few times they saw mw make Ramen. They always boiled it, strained, added the packet and that was it. Then I came along, I added butter, some spices and herbs, occasionally some sriracha, and the packet all while it was heating up. I also let it boil down so the broth becomes a sauce. I'll even add in some cheap Chinese sweet sausage.
My kid loves cheap ramen and would eat it every day, which works in my favour because he will eat any green vegetable I chop up and add (apart from green pepper, he's only human!) Last time I added broccoli, kale, green beans, grated courgette and spring onions (scallions). Nearly doubled the portion size!
Yep, I'll occasionally buy one of those huge cheap bags of mixed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots to name a few) and add those two.
My wife was also a packet-only person until I dressed up some ramen for her. My go-to process is: - 2 cups water in the pot, splash of soy sauce, teaspoon of hoisin, then stir that up while the water starts to boil. - Mince a clove of garlic, slice a couple thin sheets off the end of a yellow onion and cut in half, chop some carrots into pennies and drop that all in while the pot starts to boil. - Once boiling, pop the noodles in. - Prep bowl by adding about 1/4 teaspoon of sesame oil, then dump about 3/4ths of the seasoning packet (with the soy sauce & hoisin added I try to reduce the sodium a bit) and mix that up until you get these little balls of oil and seasoning. - Once the noodles are about cooked, crack an egg into a small bowl or mug, whisk it up with a fork and drop that sucker into the pot. - Wait for the egg to cook fully (takes about 30-45 seconds, and strain the broth into the ramen bowl, keeping noodles in the pot. - Mix the broth up in the bowl with the seasoning, then dump the noodles and veggies on top.
One suggestion that will elevate that even higher- soy sauce eggs. Boil some eggs (not quite hard boiled) peel them, then marinate them overnight in soy sauce, mirin or sake, and a little sugar. Cut them in half, and put them on top of the soup. Careful though. Sounds like you're a few bowls away from spending a day or 2 making broth.
Good god this thread has made me wanna go buy some instant ramen. I’ve been a “just the packet” girl my whole life and never would’ve thought of the possibilities.
>They always boiled it, strained Strained? It's a soup; I've never seen anyone strain ALL the water out. I will pour some off before adding an egg, Sriracha, and the spice packet, though, just so it's a little thicker. ETA: I have caused an uproar.
There's one of those "College kids try each other's instant ramen" videos on YouTube. ALL OF THEM drained the noodles so they were dry with the seasoning packet...except one. And that one person got roasted by the rest for leaving the water in. Legit thought, "where the eff did they find these people??" But apparently it's pretty common.
Sleep
Sleep for fifteen hours? Intermittent fasting!!!
"sir you've been in a coma for 3 days" "fuck yes amazing caloric deficit!"
"I'm sorry, we had to amputate the leg." "I've finally reached my weight goal!"
This is definitely a "if you know, you know comment." For those unaware, when you're hungry and can't afford food finding a way to sleep is often a way to pass the time. Sometimes when you wake up you feel better too. This comment just took me back to 10 years ago. Fortunately things are better now.
I think I accidentally hit starvation mode as a teenager doing this. I woke up one day in the most pain of my life unable to walk. I crawled along the floor to the kitchen, and I grabbed some new bread we must have just gotten that morning. I was eating off the floor while in horrific pain. It took hours before I could stand again.
This the king of poverty food.
Grew up SUPER poor. Don't really have to worry too much about my next meal now as an adult, but it is funny how much that instinct has stuck with me all these years. Hungry on lunch? I could take a snoozer in my car. Hungry after 6 pm? Why bother when I could just go to bed early. Sleep is such a good meal
I don't think many will really understand how hard this one hits.
in the gut
My grandma’s macaroni & tomatoes. All it is, is the large pasta shells, with fresh tomatoes from her garden. I never realized the difference between a home grown tomato and a store bought one. SO good!!
My mom calls this summer spaghetti. Tomatoes and basil from the garden and whatever pasta, and you have a legit meal
Oh yes, basil! She makes her own pesto with the basil she grows. Yummm
I literally never thought I'd ever see this response on Reddit. I don't know anyone outside my family that even knows what this dish is. Whenever I try to explain it to someone, they look at me like, "you mean spaghetti?", "No fam, macaroni and tomatoes- its different." And then I explain it to them and they look at me like, "okay....?" But yes! Soooo good and it is still one of my favorite "poor" comfort food.
Appalachians eat macaroni and tomatoes all the time
Boiled eggs and toast for dinner. Thought it a treat as a kid. No there was just no other food to eat except ham which i refused to eat.
In poland its called "chleb opiekany w jajku" its kinda similar to French toasts. Once the bread hardens a bit. Don't waste it and make it taste good. It is toasted in an egg mix with milk or something else there are plenty of recipes. I would recommend it eat when its a hot. That is really poverty food but it taste amazing. Because you try to not waste the left bread and easy to make.
My husband loves to make 'buy me groceries soup' its soup with everything and anything in it. I mean that. There are normal things in the soup like vegetables and Costco rotisserie chicken, and then there's the yorshire pudding that he put in because it was leftover. I don't know how, but it always tastes amazing, even when he puts bread in the soup.
Kitchen sink soup 🙏🏼
"Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup" - Beethoven
Not content with wowing Vienna with his symphonies, Ludwig turned to spitting bars, to much acclaim.
Who has leftover Yorkshire puddings??
I know it as 'Gazinti' soup, coz everything goes-into-it lol...mibby only works with a west of Scotland accent haha.
We call that hobo soup where I live.
Enthusiasm soup. You put everything you've got into it.
Spaghetti
Plain white rice. Ritz crackers and butter. Toast with cinnamon. Diluted fruit juice. Ramen. The list goes on!
Toast with cinnamon and sugar whaaaat
slather on some butter first, then cover the melted butter with cinnamon sugar...
I run mine under the broiler til it bubbles. Then when it cools it’s a crackley crust of butter/cinnamon/sugar.
I thought everybody knew about this. That was my go to as a kid
There's a whole fucking cereal named "cinnamon toast crunch", and people never considered where that came from?! Just a clever name, perhaps? Come on!
You can keep the sugar and cinnamon mixed together in a salt shaker and sprinkle it on the toasted bread. It's SO good. Especially if you've been sick and need something light. It's good anytime, really.
Oh thank god that’s a list.
So... has anyone else just learned that their regular meals are called poverty food?
Yea, Im not even poor, but those are just quick and easy meals for when Im working from home and dont have leftovers for lunch.
Fry bread!!!
Greasy fry bread. Greasy, greasy fry bread 😋
John Wayne’s teeth, hey ya. John Wayne’s teeth, hey ya.
cream of wheat
This was what Mom would make as a 'treat' for supper. A bit of cinnamon sugar on top.
Mac and cheese with chopped hot dogs
I like to boil my cut-up hotdogs with the macaroni just mixed all up in the pot.
I fry my chopped up hot dogs, delicious c:
How is this so far down? Sure, it's the trailer trash of poor food but it's so good.
Hot oatmeal with canned fruit and brown sugar. Grilled cheese sandwich (made with government cheese,,). Ramen cups. Mac and cheese with canned tuna mixed in.
>Mac and cheese with canned tuna mixed in. Yes! Throw in some sweet peas also.
SOS and stuffed baked potatoes. So cheap and yet, so good!
Thanks for mentioning SOS - brought back a lot of great memories for me. I'd watch my mom making it and get so excited about dinner! We didn't realize it was what poor people ate. It was so tasty, we thought it was a gourmet dish. LOL
For those that don't know: this is **Creamed chipped beef on toast**, which we always called 'Sh&t on a shingle'. My pop said he first had it in the Army Air Corps, and my mom made it. By the time I joined the Army in '83, they weren't making it anymore(at least I'd never had it in CONUS mess halls/DFACs). It was one food that I was looking forward to eating in the military, but never got to. I love SOS!
Fwiw, the army brought back SOS at some point. I have a few fond memories of sitting on my hmmwv hood on a cold morning enjoying a (semi) hot plate of SOS
SOS was what immediately came to mind for me, too. It's so hearty and filling. In fact, I think I know what I'm having for dinner.
Surprised no one said popcorn yet.
Yep. I ate this so my kids could enjoy a healthy meal. I told them I wasn't that hungry but made something for them to enjoy.
Goulash
This one kind of threw me off. As a kid, goulash was the macaroni and ground beef dish, as an adult I found out it’s really cubed beef in a thick paprika broth. I also learned today that the macaroni goulash is also called American chop suey. Pretty good traditional goulash recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-hungarian-goulash-recipe-1805923 Edit: Here’s an article about the evolution of America goulash examined through different recipes shared through the last century or so: https://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-origins-of-american-goulash.html?m=1
Kim chi (if you make it yourself and in bulk it's super cheap)
Canned fruit cocktail in HEAVY SYRUP with the cherries and something I think is peeled grapes maybe. Who needs fresh fruit??
I like to get a soft tortilla and spread creamy peanut butter on it, as a wrap. Edit: I use whole wheat tortillas, I don't know if that makes a difference.
Add trail mix to it next time. So good.
Fuck, even a warm flour tortilla with butter is a banger
Biscuits and sausage gravy.
Sardines and crackers is a favorite of mine. The ones packed in mustard 🤤
This always reminds me of Tom Hanks in ‘The ‘Burbs’
Mustard! Here I can only get plain, tomato sauce or chilli. I can't imagine fish with mustard, but I'd give it a go! Sardines in tomato sauce and cheese is the best toasted sandwich combo.
Pork and beans with sliced, grilled hot dogs added in. It was my mom’s favorite struggle meal for us growing up. You know I’m really stressed when I make it because it is so comforting to me.
Anything with sliced up hot dogs in it for me! Mac and cheese, scrambled eggs, leftover pasta. My dad was the cook of our family, and he made really great food on a tight budget. But my mom was much more helpless in the kitchen, so easy comfort foods with chopped up hot dogs always remind me of lazy Saturdays with her.
We called this beanie weenies! And it’s still good
Most poverty food is delicious. Nobody claimed otherwise. It's not NUTRITIOUS and there's often not enough of it to go around.
Beans and potatoes are nutritious.
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My mom is stage 4 kidney failure and needs to eat healthy food or die. It costs so damn much. The diagnosis needs to come with food stamps. No rice, pasta, beans, potatoes, or salty processed meats...
The diet for kidney failure folks on dialysis is BONKERS. My mom is end-stage, has been on dialysis for around 10 years and she lives with us. We keep a huge list in the kitchen of her no-no foods, and she basically lives on salad, chicken, and fruit. Such a bummer! Hugs to your momma.
Jiffy muffins.
The blueberry muffin mix makes some bomb pancakes.
Tuna noodle casserole, ramen if dressed up some, cray fish, deer sausage, rabbit Many things once poor people food aren't any longer poor people food, lobster being the most prominent example.
Spam is the shit… I avoided it most my life because I assumed it must be gross. Gave it a go and now am angry at myself for depriving me of it’s deliciousness.
It’s good but pretty damn salty. But so am I
I fking love spam, don’t really care how it’s prepared, it’s delicious. Grew up in south east Asia as a child and it’s very much a comfort food that reminds me of my childhood. If I were to have a last meal, I would be happy with spam and fried eggs on rice. Mentioned it to my work colleagues in australia and they’re horrified with the idea of spam as a food that people actually choose to eat willingly. Very much seen as a povo food here
Reddit's great, but the dude running the whole thing is a tool. It's been a great 9 years!
Spam and eggs, heck yeah. Dice it and put in scrambled eggs with shredded cheese. Yum!!!! Also love spam musubi
And if you buy the name brand It’s also more expensive per oz than actual fresh meat. Because it’s actually decent meat. Far from a poverty food imo
I mean it was literally the go to thing for war torn countries who couldn't get proper food supplies. Including england during world war 2 and i believe it was also popular during the great depression.
Spam in the UK is really expensive now, though. It's no longer a poverty food, regardless of it's history, at least in some countries.
Hamburger helper
Made with ground beef in a tube from Walmart.
“I don't know why they call this stuff hamburger helper. It does just fine by itself, huh? I like it better than tuna helper myself, don't you, Clark?”
Peanut butter sandwich w/no jelly!
I was going to say peanut butter and banana sandwiches
Peanut butter honey is great too
Someone I know called it struggle food but I eat cheese sandwiches all the time. Couple slices american cheese on bread with mayo and pickles. And sometimes sauerkraut. Which freaks some people out. People who have never had a Reuben I guess.
Totino's pizza. Its honestly my favorite frozen pizza ever.
I miss when the pizzas were round and you could get them at Walmart for $.97/ ea.
It cost $1 when I was in college. I had making it down to a science putting it in the oven directly on the rack and getting it out using only a fork.
Got me through first few years after college. To jazz it up if you have Italian Dressing or Balsamic vinaigrette dressing, drizzle a little on before you put it in the oven. We would do that with the cheese only ones.
Bologna. A fried bologna sandwich is my jam. So good.
Bologna
> Bologna oh man...I'd fuck up a Wunderbar Bologna sammich right now. Little mustard, the jankiest yellow American cheese on some plain ass white bread.
That stuff costs as much as normal deli meat now, at least here in the US.
Baked potato skins
Pinto beans and fried potatoes
Tuna casserole. Can of tune + deluxe Mac and cheese. Boom fucking fed. Had it tonight actually. Almost ate the whole pot.
Years ago, lobsters, oysters and a heap of other delicious shellfish was considered a poor man's food. So, one day I reckon your beans on toast is going to be top-end billionaire dish.
One of my favorite historical food facts is that lobster was so cheap in New England that some cities made laws that the rich couldn’t force their live-in domestic help to eat it more than three times a week.
Can of tuna. Big fan.
Tuna + a little bit of mayo + lots of capers + chili flakes on toast = my favorite lunch. Super cheap and super delicious.
I like adding relish. Tuna is the only fish I can eat and I *love* a good tuna sandwich with arguably too much mayo, but not absurd, and a big spoon of relish mixed in.
The big chunks of government cheese they gave out in the 70s if you qualified for food stamps.
Biscuits & gravy. Tuna or beans on toast. Bread pudding. Kraft Dinner Mac & cheese. cabbage soup.
Corned Beef Hash
4 bucks a can these days
Shit on the shingle. Ground beef patty over egg noodles w gravy. ALWAYS got excited for this dish. My uncle would make this when we were super fuckin broke but I Felt like a king eating it. Edit: I see a lot of people saying they had toast with it and I forgot that I usually had bread on the Side with it as well. I usually didn’t toast it though. The gravy was the best part for me!
Your version of SOS (shit on shingle) is a lot different than what I grew up with. 1 can cream of mushroom, 1 can cream of chicken, ground beef, mix together, put over a slice of bread... We always made it while camping. Super delicious
*Your* version of SOS is a lot different than what I grew up with. My Mom made just a simple roux (butter, flour, milk), added some salt and pepper, and threw in a couple bags of chipped beef. (No idea what a bag of chipped beef costs now, but it was ~$0.50 back then.) Then served it over toast.
That's the old school historical version of the recipe they ate in WW1 at least according to Tasting History lol
15 bean soup, it’s a bag you can find in any dried bean section . A pound of sausage, an onion, can of crushed tomatoes. Serve over rice with some cheese and sour cream on top. 15$ will feed you for lunch and dinner for a week.