Let them eat johnnycake

[halloweenjack]

Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio has been taking part in an experiment, of sorts, to see what it's like to eat for a week on what food stamp recipients have to live on--$21. He was doing OK until the Transportation Security Administration confiscated his peanut butter and jelly (he has to travel, so he was carrying it in his suitcase) on the grounds that it was a liquid or a gel or some not-entirely-solid stuff.

Some of the suggestions that people come up with in the blog comments are great, particularly when they point out all the things that he could do with the food that he's got left for the last two days: a sack of cornmeal. I was thinking that, if he could find a piece of broken glass, he could chip it into a little knife, whittle a couple of sticks into an atlatl, and get a rabbit or two to go with that johnnycake...

P.S. On reflection, I came off as a little flippant there. I've been on food stamps, for two short periods in my early twenties just after graduating from college, and it wasn't fun, both because of the bureaucratic hassle involved and because of the shame that I felt. I haven't been down to the sack of cornmeal, but I have been down to the loaf of stale bread and the block of government cheese.

Comments

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

I haven't been on foodstamps, and I guess I've been pretty lucky in the past. However there was a time when I was living on PB&J and popcorn, because they were cheap and I was so sick of ramen. And then for about the first year after my divorce I barely ate at all, because I couldn't afford it. I had maybe one meal a day. I finally decided I couldn't keep doing that to myself, bills be damned. I try to eat more often now. :P

[bleakdesolation.livejournal.com]

me too, after a while just the smell of ramen makes you gag. gimme rice and beans any day.

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

YES!! ... I haven't made rice and beans in forever. I think a trip to the store is in order...

[bleakdesolation.livejournal.com]

Dried beans, rice, and ramen. Or just the dried beans and rice. I hate ramen anymore. And of course the gov't cheese, lol. I, too, have been on the "I'm broke" beans and cornbread diet. This alternated with rice.