Hi Leonard, as a recently unemployed person I am rediscovering your show, there's a silver lining to every cloud! I make depression cake using my family recipe. I learned from my great-aunt who learned during the depression. All of my daughter's classmates love it and I use it all the time for birthdays because it can so easily be made vegan, or nut-free. All of the substitutions in depression era cooking make it really vital right now with the growing emphasis on fresh seasonal produce and on frugality. There are wonderful recipes online for this cake with many variations, the core ingredients stay the same; I urge people to experiment!

Of course we will return to canning our own food. Many of us never stopped and those of us who are pushing the local food movement are busy organizing workshops to handle the hordes of people who want to learn basic food preservation techniques.

Does Mr. Kurlansky see this trend coming back at all with the organic grassroots movement focused on eating local? or is our food supply too centralized to "get back to basics"?