Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I remember my Aunt Margie cooking authentic rouladen beef rolls, tied German-neatly with strings; she called them pigs in a blanket and taught me to make them when I was a teenager.
For dessert she made sheets of big, I mean big, puffy fresh oven-baked custard -filled German creampuffs. For the ever-present cookie jar, there were always thin gingerbread cookies and the slenderest imaginable lemon sugar cookies, melt- in -your- mouth delicious. How I miss that woman~ I also remember foods we ate that my mom called depression food. Cheap, but filling concoctions which every so often I still cling to as comfort food. One really unhealthy one may bring a memory to some of you "ration-card" war babies (like me). In place of cake or bakery goods, after dinner or at breakfast, we were allowed real butter spread ona slice of bread with a light sprinkle of sugar. My granma would ask, "a bit of sugar bread for you, dearie?" Mmmm...We loved it then, along with milk in our tea, the taste of pure butter was a luxury to savor, and milk added to tea was for "special" occasions only. That was during the war, mid forties, at the time when even little tots joined in to help to smash the aluminum cans flat, recycling for the war effort. Another comfort food "penny saver" was Muellers elbow macaroni, cooked a bit "al dente", slathered with Campbell's tomato soup straight out of the can and heated with a smidge of milk, but served with a dollop of that precious rationed butter, salt and pepper. To this day I consider that a treat when I feel a bit low. Crazy connections foods make to the psyche! Please share other "hard times" foods that you may remember, especially from "ration" days of the forties.