"Poor Man's" X

April 11, 2024 7:58 AM

I am trying to compile a list of food items that are commonly known as "poor man's [x]." This is surprisingly difficult to search for.

I have always known monkfish referred to as "poor man's lobster" or "poor man's scallops" because of its similarity in taste and texture, and if cut into medallions the tail can be cooked just like scallops and look pretty similar. I want to make a list of other foods that are similar, namely:

a) must be commonly known as "poor man's" something
b) actually be a reasonable replacement for a more expensive ingredient

I am NOT looking for dishes known as "poor man's meal" or anything similar. Something like Texas Caviar does not count because it is not trying to replicate actual caviar and it is not eaten the same way. Imitation crab is borderline here, as I'm not really looking for ingredients that anyone would try to pass off as the real deal.

posted by backseatpilot to Food & Drink (24 answers total)

Bob Petrillose, the owner of the Hot Truck at Cornell University until his death in 2008, invented French Bread pizza in the 1960s and either sold it to Stouffers or, uh, served as the inspiration for their product. At the Hot Truck (where I worked), and for anyone who went to Cornell during the relevant 40+ year period, that dish is known as a PMP, or Poor Man's Pizza. You might get your PMP pep (peperoni) or mush (mushroom) or even G&G (grease and garden, or with lettuce and mayo, for some reason), but the Poor Man's Pizza was the original. (My sandwich, after a night in the window, was a TMBC Pep -- three meat balls with red sauce, cheese and peperoni on a crispy half loaf. Sometimes, if it had been an especially rough night, I added a link.)

I miss you, Bob. It was the worst job, for the best boss, I ever had.
posted by The Bellman at 8:43 AM on April 11, 2024 [18 favorites]

Mussels are sometimes called the poor man's oyster, but that phrase is also used for something you just coughed up.
I've heard of "poor man's burnt ends" made with chuck roast instead of brisket. Chuck steak is also called the poor man's ribeye.
Cod or halibut roasted in butter is the poor man's lobster.
posted by bgrebs at 9:23 AM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

None of these are very strong, but...

• Shad is the poor man's salmon.
• Salsify is the poor man's oysters, according to the info on the label last time I bought some.
• Samphire is the poor man's asparagus.
• Hamburger steak is the poor man's steak.
• Chicory is the poor man's coffee.
• Prosecco can be considered the poor man's champagne,
• and grappa the poor man's brandy.

Even less strong:

Black trumpet is the poor man's truffle, but (as far as I can tell) only in Eastern Europe.

Various fish get described as "the poor man's Dover sole": witch sole, lemon sole, tilapia, plaice... but the "various" strikes me as a problem: no consensus.

Rabbit has apparently been known as the poor man's chicken, in Australia at least, but I suspect that's a thing of the past.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:26 AM on April 11, 2024

Not a good answer because it’s not “poor man’s x” but in the sense of having to make do and they were poor. In the Laura Ingalls Wilder books Ma managed to make apple pie out of green pumpkins and Pa was completely fooled.
posted by pairofshades at 9:26 AM on April 11, 2024

Isn't advacado known as poor man's butter?
posted by BlueHorse at 9:32 AM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Margarine is the poor man's butter.

(Advocado is the hipster's butter)
posted by jacobean at 9:38 AM on April 11, 2024 [11 favorites]

We used to call the Black Eightball the poor man's black and tan. You buy a 40 of OE 800 (the eightball) and drink it down to the top of the label, crack the Guiness you bought with it, and pour that in up to the top. Drink more, pour more Guiness in until that bottle's empty, finish the 40.
posted by turntraitor at 9:49 AM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Amarone wine is an expensive product because it requires drying the grapes which takes time and effort and reduces the overall yield of the product. Ripasso wine is a similar product that uses a simpler process and is referred to as "Baby Amarone" or "poor man's Amarone".
posted by mmascolino at 9:53 AM on April 11, 2024

I've heard Bonito referred to as "poor man's tuna."
posted by pazazygeek at 10:48 AM on April 11, 2024

Avocado is indeed known as poor man's butter in parts of South America. This blog post from 2008 talks about it.
posted by CleverClover at 11:25 AM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Beverage, not food, but: prosecco: poor man's champagne.
posted by verbyournouns at 11:27 AM on April 11, 2024

A favorite recipe at our house is poor man's crab cakes (actually tuna cakes).
posted by metonym at 11:44 AM on April 11, 2024

Calendula (safflower) is known as poor man's saffron.
posted by mefireader at 12:12 PM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

In my family, "poor man's ice cream" is cottage cheese with grape jelly on it. But there is also a popular recipe with the same name that is a mix of sweetened condensed milk, whipping cream, and vanilla extract, frozen and stirred.
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:29 PM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

my dad's mom used to make a pie that was filled with Ritz crackers and called it "poor man's apple pie" or sometimes just "depression pie"

I think it might be more expensive to use Ritz than apple nowadays, interesting.
posted by euphoria066 at 1:40 PM on April 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Semi-relevant to the question, the recipe for this is in the old BSD fortune file:

MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed)

  Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers
2 cups water 2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine
  Cinnamon

Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate.  Break
RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate.  Combine water, sugar
and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes.  Add lemon
juice and rind.  Cool.  Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously
with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Cover with top
crust.  Trim and flute edges together.  Cut slits in top crust to let
steam escape.  Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust
is crisp and golden.  Serve warm.  Cut into 6 to 8 slices.

(I'd just post a link to the source (here) but there's a lot there and a bunch of it is kind of sexist in a 70s-edgy way.)
posted by suetanvil at 2:00 PM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

My mother-in-law used to make Poor Man's Beef Stroganoff with ground beef, sour cream, and Lipton onion soup mix. It was served over egg noodles. Quick, easy, delicious.
posted by a fish out of water at 2:25 PM on April 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Web search engines are definitely way too fuzzy and noisy for what you want, but instead try searching newspaper archives through your local public library's databases. I did a quick spin through the results for "poor man's" AND "food" for my local paper (Philadelphia) and got quite a few relevant hits.

- An article from 1990 about a new book by a local food historian named William Woys Weaver called "Christmas Cook" that calls out "Poor Man's Poundcake" as a folk term for a recipe using leftover bread dough.
- Recipe for "Poor Man's Chateaubriand" in 1969 using shoulder steak.
- Wine article from 1982 referencing pinot blanc being commonly known as "Poor Man's Chardonnay."
- A 1983 food section profile of avocados as an ingredient that says it's nicknamed "Poor Man's Breakfast" in the West Indies.
- A column from 1943 about food rationing and alarm about a potential potato shortage in which potatoes are referred to as "once known as the poor man's caviar..."
- A 1980 article profiling trends in seafood consumption with quotes by a fishmonger who explains that tilefish was a cheap ingredient until it became lauded as "Poor Man's Lobster," which drove up the price and outstripped supply.
posted by desuetude at 3:27 PM on April 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

you don't want to know about the poor man's bidet
posted by elkevelvet at 3:51 PM on April 11, 2024

My family, which is Swiss and Ashkenazi Jewish, has always referred to gefilte fish as poor man's quenelles.
posted by pollytropos at 4:05 PM on April 11, 2024

Avocado once was "midshipman's butter" so it's got a track record.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:59 PM on April 11, 2024

This is essentially the etymology of Welsh rarebit (which contains no rabbit), although of course the twist of using an entire nationality to represent the "poor man" here carries a lot of baggage. Do look at the "Name" section of that article, though (I'd've linked it directly if I knew how on mobile), as it contains both a lot of discussion of how certain this etymology is and several similar examples.
posted by dick dale the vampire at 10:55 AM on April 12, 2024

Crabfish - poor man's lobster.
Lumpfish roe - poor man's caviar.
posted by Serge C at 7:35 PM on April 12, 2024

According to this recipe fried, seasoned breadcrumbs or pangrattato, are known as "poor man's parmesan".
posted by peppermind at 7:31 AM on April 13, 2024