Snapshots into how Americans grow, prepare and serve food
1500-1600 | 1600-1700 | 1700-1800 | 1800-1900 | 1900-1950 | 1950-2000+
1900-1950
A melting pot of people . . . Mechanization, electricity, and new technology change the way we eat.
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 | | Ladies-only luncheon at Delmonicos,
New York City, 1902
The Museum of the
City of New York | |
Turn-of-the-Century Dinners: A Dozen Courses With Wine
Well-to-do people at the turn of the century consumed huge twelve-course meals, each course accompanied by its own wine. A typical dinner began with oysters, followed by a clear broth, poached salmon, fillet of beef, lamp chops, creamed chicken, roasted game birds, boiled potatoes, and asparagus. Desserts could also include several courses such as cakes, fruit, and ice cream. Coffee and tea were usually offered with dessert. Famous restaurants such as Delmonico's in New York City and Antoine's in New Orleans offered diners all of this in addition to signature dishes.
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 | | Pink Ice Cream Cone
� CORBIS | |
St. Louis: Premiere of the Ice Cream Cone
The St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 introduced the public to peanut butter, hamburgers, and ice cream cones. Perfect partners, ice cream and the cone were the ultimate in portable sweets. Up until this time, ice cream had been served in bowls and eaten with spoons. Suddenly, people could enjoy ice cream anywhere: on the beach, on the road, and, even, at the pool.
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 | | Twins Eating Popsicles
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Frozen Treats: A Twin Pop by Any Other Name
In 1905, 11-year-old Frank Epperson of San Francisco, CA, left a fruit drink outside, with a stirrer in it, on a night of record low temperatures. It froze and he named the treat the Ep-cicle. Years later, in 1923, he patented his invention and eventually it was renamed the popsicle. He also created the twin popsicle - during the Great Depression, so that it could be shared by two children -, and later, the Fudgsicle, the Creamsicle, and the Dreamsicle.
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 | | Bowl of Corn Flakes
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Science & Eating: The Rise of Health Food
At the same time that well-to-do families were eating twelve-course dinners, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a vegetarian, created a cold breakfast cereal, called "corn flakes," to replace meat at the breakfast table. Kellogg ran a sanitarium (health resort) in Battle Creek, Michigan, and one of his former patients, a man named C.W. Post, started a rival health food empire with a cold cereal called "Grape-Nuts."
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 | | The first Piggly Wiggly at 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis
Piggly Wiggly Company | |
WW I: Food Shortages and Self-Service Grocery Stores
During World War I, many foods were in short supply, like butter and eggs. So Americans developed new recipes for eggless-butterless cakes, using a new product called Crisco instead of hard-to-get lard. Shopping for Crisco and other items became easier and faster due to the newly introduced self-service grocery stores (one of the first being Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, TN). Shoppers were thrilled to choose their own groceries instead of having to present a list to the store clerk who would gather the goods from the shelves.
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 | | Moon Pie & Royal Crown Cola
Courtesy of: Moon Pie | |
Moon Pies: A Southern Tradition
How is a legend born? To hear it told in Tennessee, the Chattanooga Bakery had a clever salesman. One day the salesman asked a bunch of coal miners about their favorite snacks. The miners said that a snack had to fit in their lunch pails, be solid and filling. When the salesman asked how big it should be, one coal miner looked at the moon and said, "About that size." The salesman took this advice and he and the bakery cooked up the "MoonPie," made of two graham cookies dipped in marshmallow and coated in chocolate. A MoonPie and RC Cola became an immediate Southern tradition.
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 | | Bean Sprouts in Bowl
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Chop Suey: East Meets West
"Chop suey" is actually a Chinese-American dish invented in California, probably by one of the thousands of Chinese looking for work during the mid-19th century, where cooks were constrained by the lack of Asian vegetables and trying to produce a dish that was easy to prepare and palatable to Americans. Chop suey, which in Cantonese means "miscellaneous pieces," combines bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, mushrooms, meat or chicken, soy sauce, and rice. By 1920, chop suey was one of the trendiest dishes of the Jazz Age.
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 | | An early White Castle, Columbus, Ohio, 1929
White Castle Management Co. | |
Fast Food Freedom: The Slyder is Born
In 1921, the first White Castle restaurant opened in Wichita, KS, offering hamburgers at the unbelievably low price of $.05 apiece. While hamburgers were already popular in America, the greasy spoon restaurants that served them were not. To prove to customers that the restaurant was clean, employees wore spotless white uniforms. Years later, five holes were added to their burgers, "slyders," after a White Castle employee noticed that the five holes helped the patties cook faster and more evenly. This also eliminated the need to turn the burgers over, increasing productivity and quality, one small step toward the improvement of fast food.
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 | | Birdseye frozen food
display, 1950s
Culinary Archives and Museum, Johnson & Wales University | |
Frozen Foods: Americans Say "What?"
Clarence Birdseye was on an expedition to the Arctic when he made a shivering discovery. He noticed that meat exposed to the Arctic air tasted as good cooked as fresh meat, even when it was cooked several months later. A biologist, Birdseye concluded that it was the speed with which something was frozen that made the difference: the faster the freeze, the less chance that ice crystals would tear apart cell walls and release natural juices. Back in New York, Birdseye created his own quick-freeze method to preserve meat, poultry, fruits, and vegetables. Unpopular at first, Americans warmed up to the idea of frozen food once they realized how convenient and flavorful it could be.
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 | | Can Opener
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The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread: New Convenience Foods
By the late 1920s, Americans were able to buy a variety of food in cans - everything from tuna to pineapple. Other ready-made foods included Kool-Aid, Jell-O, Velvetta, and peanut butter. People had never before been able to choose from so many convenience foods and cooking was changed forever. To Americans, the new convenience foods were the greatest things since, well, since sliced bread.
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 | | Chocolate Chip
Cookies and Milk
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Toll House Cookies: A Chocolate Accident
One of America's favorite cookies came about through a random occurrence. Ruth Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, MA, was making cookies for her guests when she ran out of regular baker's chocolate. She substituted a bar of semi-sweet chocolate and cut it into pieces, thinking it would melt into the dough as baker's chocolate did. Lucky for us, it didn't. Instead her cookies were full of delicious chocolate "chips."
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 | | Men in bread line on 41st Street, New York City
Library of Congress | |
The Great Depression: Americans Learn to Ration
After the stock market crash in 1929, the American economy fell apart and 13 million people lost their jobs. Families cut down to two meals a day or ate on alternate days. Some families even searched for their meals in the local garbage dumps. A coal miner's lunch at this time consisted of beans and a watery gravy along with a "water sandwich" - stale bread soaked in lard and water. Most everyone had to cut down or remove completely fruits and meats from their meals because they were too expensive to afford.
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 | | George Washington Carver standing in field
Library of Congress
Photograph by: Frances Benjamin Johnston | |
George Washington Carver: Peanut Scientist
George Washington Carver, a brillian African American scientist, revolutionized Southern agriculture by advocating crop rotation (growing different plants every year to improve the soil), a practice long embraced by Native Americans. The heavy-feeding cotton plant, grown on the same acreage year after year because of the South's reliance on cotton to fuel its economy, drained the soil of its mineral and vegetable resources and left wasted land. Fascinated by the peanut, Carver created 300 products from peanuts, showing farmers that there were other cash crops besides cotton. By 1938, peanuts were the chief export of Alabama.
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 | | Rationing Safeguards Your Share Poster
Library of Congress | |
WW II: PB&J for Victory
Both peanut butter and jelly were part of the U.S. military's rations during World War II. It's said that GIs added jelly to the peanut butter to make it easier to eat. Some people claim that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich itself was on the ration list. This sticky combination was popular at home, too, because food rationing did not apply to peanut butter, a good source of protein. Postwar, the PB&J sandwich remained a major favorite among adults and children and has been ever since.
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1500-1600 | 1600-1700 | 1700-1800 | 1800-1900 | 1900-1950 | 1950-2000+
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