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.

You'd find hearty main dishes like Salisbury steak, beef stroganoff and meat loaf on a '50s dinner menu, plus scrumptious sides. Casseroles were also popular, particularly those featuring seafood or ham.

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 1950s saw the launch of mouthwatering sweets such as Drumsticks and Love Hearts. Drumsticks are raspberry and milk flavoured chewy lollipop. They were created by the Swizzels-Matlow Company in 1957, Derby, England.

Of course, no retro co*cktail hour menu would be complete without some old-school appetizers like a cheese ball, fondue, and deviled eggs. Those beet dyed eggs were even topped with some fried Spam because meat in a can was all the rage. Canned fish was a staple in the 60s too.

Common dishes included the likes of meat stews, creamed tuna, meat loaf, corned beef and cabbage, mashed potatoes with butter, breaded and fried veal cutlets, deep-fried vegetables, French fries… you get the idea.

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

In the 1950s, the USDA developed the Daily Food Guide, which focused on 4 main food groups (milk, meat, vegetables and fruit, and bread and cereal) and introduced serving sizes (Figure 2) (12).

The average woman in the 50s had a 27.5-inch waist and her bra size was 34B; in 2017, women's waists are 34 inches and they wear a 36DD bra. Other differences: Women in 2017 are almost 20 pounds heavier (154 vs. 136 pounds) and wear larger-size clothing (size 14 today vs. size 10 in 1957).

Gin was all the rage in the 1950s (largely due to remnants of the Prohibition), and as such, drinks like the Sloe Gin Fizz and the Tom Collins (more on that in a bit) started gaining in popularity. The Kitchn reports that Brits first invented sloe gin, and tended to drink it in winter as a way to warm up.

Why was jello so popular in the 1950s? ›

Why were Jell-O dishes so popular back in the day? 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.

M&M Peanut

Introduced in 1954, this beloved retro candy flew off the shelves and into the hungry candy-loving hands of millions! Famous for not melting in your hands, the M&M Peanut Candy was new and exciting and quickly became a favourite among every candy-crazed fan in the 50s!

Items like pancakes, sausages, meatloaf, burgers, and sandwiches were standard on diner menus, and still are today. The meals were priced low, making diners popular even before their rise in the 1950s.

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!

School lunches in the 50s were pretty much like the meat and two veg in diners at the time. There was only one lunch, no choice. Typically it would be a ham slice with pineapple, mashed potatoes and gravy amd green beans. Or turkey and dressing or Salisbury steak.