This One-Pan Breakfast Helped Families Power Through The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a difficult period for tens of millions of Americans, many of whom struggled to afford even the basics. Among the places where this period of economic turmoil made the most visible impact was the kitchen table. Creative home cooks had to make the most of limited ingredients to ensure their families were fed, leading to the development of new recipes that were equally filling and affordable. Among them is the simply named "homestead breakfast."

Unlike some Depression-era meals we don't eat anymore such as dandelion salad or peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, the structure of the homestead breakfast will likely be familiar to today's cooks, if not the same. It's essentially an egg scramble, with pieces of chopped bacon cooked in a pan with potatoes and onions, before a mixture of beaten eggs, milk, and seasonings is poured in. The technique embeds the flavorful and filling ingredients in a mixture of fluffy scrambled egg, which can be easily portioned out and served from the pan.

A look at prices back then can make modern-day food shoppers quite jealous. In 1933, eggs were only about a penny each, while a pound of bacon was just 14 cents and a pound of potatoes just two pennies. Accounting for inflation, the estimated cost of $0.15 to $0.20 for the entire dish translates to roughly $3.83 to $5.12 today, a relatively affordable price for an entire family's breakfast.

There were numerous advantages to this kind of meal for those struggling through the Great Depression. For one, it's particularly affordable for families who kept their own chickens (a far more common practice in those days), who could provide the meal's main protein without a trip to the store. It's also extraordinarily simple when it comes to required cooking knowledge or technique, and can be easily scaled for any size group, with the original six-egg, six-slices-of-bacon version likely enough for three to five people.

Although it's delicious as-is, modern cooks with a more varied palette and a less restricted budget can also add some ingredients that take any scrambled egg dish to the next level. These include green onions or bell peppers for freshness, cheese for added richness and flavor, or spinach for a pop of healthy greens in an otherwise protein-heavy recipe. Some of this customization no doubt happened during the homestead breakfast's original era, with Depression cooks freely substituting with what was available. 

What's more, some Depression-era foods are weirdly making a comeback, from chipped beef on toast (also known as "SOS") to navy bean soup. However, while the name may have changed, the homestead breakfast truly never left, and lives on in countless egg scrambles on cafe and restaurant menus across the country.