Found a weird fact about old cookbooks in a library in St. Louis

I was looking through some old community cookbooks from the 1930s at the St. Louis Public Library. One of them had a recipe for 'mock apple pie' that used crackers instead of apples because of a fruit shortage. I had no idea that was a real thing people did back then. Has anyone else come across a recipe that was totally shaped by its time like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

diana_king1mo ago

Honestly, that sounds kind of genius (and desperate).

keith2641mo ago

That "crime against dessert" line got me. My grandma used to tell me about her mom's "war cake" from the 40s. No eggs, no milk, just raisins boiled in water with some sugar and spice. They called it cake but it was basically a brick.

spencer_chen61mo ago

Wait, crackers? They just put crackers in a pie crust and called it apple? That sounds like a crime against dessert. The 30s were a different time.