I was told that people would be interested in a series of diaries on what someone eats on food stamps. So I'm doing one. I'm not interested in getting into the theory of public assistance here; we do plenty of diaries on that on this site. I'm really not interested in getting into disability politics as they relate to Bear and I. These diaries are not about that. This is about food, and eating food, and doing so when poor.
I'll start by discussing what I'm dealing with. Like most real people, when I contemplate feeding the household, it involves dealing with people's likes, dislikes, medical issues, and familiar foodways. It's no good cooking if your audience won't eat it, after all, and we can't afford to throw food away.
I am feeding my husband, my father-in-law, my father-in-law's caregiver, and myself. We are all unrepentant happy omnivores. We all grew up on Good Ol' American Cusine, complete with big slabs of meat on the plate and an abjuration to clean your plate. Indeed, my father in law grew up with a mother who began dinner preparations by walking out into the yard and killing a chicken. Their idea of a nice full meal is a fried piece of meat, potatoes, and one or two vegetables on the side, probably well buttered.
We all have food intolerances and issues. I cannot eat most cruciferous vegetables without my gut going into a weeklong uproar. Same with most beans; I keep trying, but so far black, red, navy, whatever, boom goes the gut. So no beans for me. I also have to manage how much fat I eat....too much of a deviation from normal on either side will cause uproar. I am not particularly fond of potatoes, except in chip form. I am also sensitive to fructose, and so eat very little fruit because it makes me sick. (I miss it terribly, and have a little occasionally and just deal with feeling bad. But I miss eating an entire pound of strawberries.) I also feel ill if I don't have meat daily.
My husband cannot have cashews, cucumbers, or capsicums, and has lost enough teeth that some foods are difficult for him to eat.
Dad refuses to put in his teeth, and dislikes chicken, and vegetables, and hot pepper, and is suspicious of other cuisines.
J, the caregiver, also has lost quite a few teeth and has a problem with dairy. When he decides to stop eating dairy I'll support him on that. Until then it's his problem and he'd best clean the bathroom when he's done coping with it. It's not that I'm not sympathetic, but one has to come to the point of renouncing favorite foods all on one's own, and I know it took me years to accept that fructose made me ill. So that's his battle, not mine. He'd probably do better if he stopped drinking so many "energy drinks" but he's a grown man, and I am not his mother. All I ask him to do is bring the plates back to the kitchen and go shopping for the household once in a while.
So if you wonder, "Gee, why aren't they doing anything with X?" that's probably why. Please share a recipe in comments anyway; someone else might be able to use it.
I am very fortunate. When we were forced to go on food stamps, I knew how to cook, had a kitchen full of gadgets, including Hercules, my stand mixer, and had a mostly full pantry of spices and seasonings. I will mention my gadgets as I go, but also how some of them can be worked around in other ways. I have fibromyalgia, and so the gadgets help me to get things done. As I have foot issues, I like to do prep in advance so on bad days I have to stand minimally.
This is also a more rural perspective on food. For me, venison is not an exotic meat, any more than rabbit is. They don't come from the store; they come from Uncle Tom or Cousin Damon after he goes hunting for a weekend. Catfish and panfish come out of a nearby lake, and I had the fun of fishing for them. Therefore, they appear on the menu at times. While I do not grow my own produce, I am related to people who do, and am one of the people who gets some of the extra in season. My canner and collection of jars didn't wither away when our income did, and so canning and other preservational techniques will probably also be mentioned.
We also have NO income at the moment. Therefore, we are getting the Indiana state maximum for two people. The caretaker, J, also gets food stamps; he contributes about $50-$75 of his to the common pot, and uses the rest to buy himself various things. Dad has too much pension to qualify, but it is silly to not give the man a bowl of what I'm making when I cook, when I'm cooking in his house. The stipend that Uncle Tom (runs Dad's money) gives to the caretaker for Dad's food thus goes to make sure we have dog food and cat litter, toilet paper and shower supplies, and all those other things that food stamps won't buy but are very necessary.
Despite the title, I do not consider myself a "gourmet". I am a good plain cook, and what I do is good plain cooking; it feeds us and doesn't make our bodies unhappy. Often, it makes us happy. And there's plenty of sources of unhappiness in poverty. You have to eat, and if you aren't doing anything else, you might as well make the food good. The psychological benefit is immense.
With the introduction done, we'll start talking about how I feed us good, tasty food on a fairly limited budget in the next diary.