Food Insecurity
I'm making bean soup from a mix today and as I drop in the packet of spices, I remember all the half used packet of seasonings that Mom saved... She never used the full amount and could not bear to throw anything food or food related away; wasting food was just not done in our family. I remember we'd have ham for New Years... then ham sandwiches, leftover ham dinners, etc... then she'd shave any bits of ham off the bone and mix them with buttered noodles (Schinkenfleckerln), then the ham bone would go in a soup pot. One year I watched her eyeing the ham bone after it's soup duty, assessing whether there was anything else that could be done with it... I asked her about the food supply during the war. Apparently while Hitler was in power, some food stuffs were rationed but they were not hungry. But there were definitely shortages. But during the first few years after the war, when markets and food supply chains were broken, food was scarce. Ever have those tiny bugs in