Snacking Through The Decades: 1950s & ’60s - Canteen (2024)

FAQs

What did people eat for snacks in the 1950s? ›

However, packaged snacks were not about to concede to the fast food trend. Peanut M&Ms, Atomic Fireballs, Certs Mints, Hot Tamales, PEZ candy, Pixy Stix, Smarties Candy Necklaces and Marshmallow Peeps were all candies developed during this decade.

So, what did people eat for lunch in the 1950s? In many cases, it was a pared-down version of dinner, consisting of meat, sides and veggies. Sandwiches were also popular, particularly bologna, as were soups packed in a thermos. And on a special day, you might have dined at a Department Store restaurant.

Dinner: American palates became more sophisticated thanks to Julia Child, but many 60's meals were still dominated by convenience foods like this terrifying olive,celery and cheese jello salad. Buffet dinners of beef stroganoff, green beans amandine and flaming cherries jubilee were popular.

The 1950s brought treats including the Hot Tamales candies in 1950, Eggo Waffles and Cheez Whiz in 1953 and Trix Cereal in 1954.

Pringles, Pop-Tarts, Doritos, Starburst, Chips Ahoy!, Gatorade, Sprite, and Ruffles all debuted during the decade, and fast food came into its own with McDonald's. New kid-friendly (read: super-sugary) breakfast cereals abounded, like Froot Loops, Honeycomb, Cap'n Crunch, and Lucky Charms.

1954: Marshmallow Peeps

The original candies were made by hand, but in 1954 Born invented a machine to mass produce his Peeps. Now the company, Just Born, makes about 4 million Peeps every day!

Popeye Candy Sticks were the coolest candy around in the 50s. Originally called Popeye Cigarettes, the name changed sometime in the 1970s.

Breakfast was viewed as the meal to set you up for the day so was, at the very least, porridge, followed by bacon, eggs and fried bread, then toast and home-made marmalade, and lots of milky tea. As children it was also when we had our vitamin tablets - Haliborange and Adexolin capsules.

The Popular Mixed Drinks of the 50s & 60s

Although the Manhattan and the Cuba Libre were common drinks for both men and women, sweet dessert-like co*cktails, such as the sloe gin fizz and the festively green grasshopper, were ladylike beverages suitable for the novice drinker.

The cuisine that the counterculture took to in the late 1960s, and then helped introduce to the mainstream in the 1970s, embraced whole grains and legumes; organic, fresh vegetables; soy foods like tofu and tempeh; nutrition-boosters like wheat germ and sprouted grains; and flavors from Eastern European, Asian, and ...

What was swinging sixties party food? ›

Popular party snacks were: chunks of pineapple and cheddar cheese on co*cktail sticks stuck all over a grapefruit. And milk shakes with balls of different pastel-coloured ice creams. Or you could make Jelly in pretty shaped moulds with different layers of tinned fruit in them.

1964 — Pop-Tarts.

1951: Dunkin' Donuts

I mean, Dunkin' still makes a mean donut to this day. But back in 1951, a year after the company's inception, everyone was snacking on those frosted doughy delights when the munchies hit.

1953 – Peeps.

Manufactured by Just Born, everyone's favorite marshmallow chicks were created by hand until Bob Born joined the company in 1946. Since then, Peeps have been produced in Bethlehem, PA, using a machine, popping out a package of the cute little guys in only six minutes.

Johnson says it was all about ease. "In the 1950s, there were a lot of people cooking who didn't really like cooking," she said. "The convenience of gelatin salads definitely had something to do with it. They're colorful, it's super easy, you don't have to bake.

Kids ate cold cereal in summer, cooked cereal (sometimes) in fall and winter. We had orange juice from frozen concentrate (no health lectures please — we know now that this can cause problems but that wasn't known in the 1950s). My parents had toast and butter, sometimes eggs and bacon on weekends.

One standout diet was the “cabbage diet” which involved consuming nothing but soup for seven days. The original recipe called for cabbage, vegetables, water and dry onion soup mix. And that's all you ate.