This weeks WPA Great Depression era food story is about Elizabeth Phelps Bradley’s Connecticut May Breakfast Brigade. It's based on 1930s and early 1940s WPA food sources located in the archives of the US Library of Congress. Each day this week we are sharing with our reader’s segments from these records in a paraphrased format when necessary and indirect quotes as often as possible.
Second to her fruit preserves was Elizabeth’s watermelon pickles, which emerged from the jar still the pale greenish-white they had been in their raw state, still with their edges as crisply square as when first cut into cubes, but so transparent that one could actually read print through them, and with a flavor so delicate as to baffle imitation. With the starburst and watermelon pickle, Elizabeth decided this year to serve some of her Damson plum jam. That would complete the patriotic colors to be placed at intervals down the middle of the long tables used for the May Breakfast.
