Food, Tea Time, Meals in the 1950s (2024)

FAQs

What food did they eat at the 1950s tea party? ›

We would come back from school to have, at about 5 o'clock, home-made bread, butter and jam and home-made sponge cake. Sunday tea was more special. Then it would be ham or a salmon salad, with the ham or salmon coming out of a tin.

1950s Dinners

There was no such thing as the keto diet in the 1950s—meat and potatoes reigned supreme. 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.

After world war II, food was changing. During the war food shortages and rationing brought in newly created processed foods. Some cookbooks with new food ingredients such as margarine/oleo, shortening, boxed cereals and cake mixes. Foods that could save you time in the kitchen.

What was food like in the 1950s? Breakfast in my case was cold cereal in summer, hot cereal in winter. Always orange juice - frozen back then unless maybe you lived in Florida or Southern California. Eggs and bacon, pancakes or waffles would be a rare Saturday morning treat.

Delectable scones, tea sandwiches, and cakes are the hallmark of an afternoon tea, which is served in midafternoon.

Often tinned hams, salads, breads and dessert would be served in a field. However, for an easier alternative make sandwiches and wrap them in greaseproof paper. Don't forget the hard boiled eggs as no picnic would be a picnic without one! Tea and lemonade.

Popular packaged foods included Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and Special K cereals, General Mills' Trix and Cocoa Puffs cereals, Star-Kist Tuna, Minute Rice, Eggo Waffles, Pepperidge Farm Cookies, Ruffles potato chips, Rice-A-Roni, Ramen Noodles, and Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream.

This 1950's Christmas dinner menu was listed in Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Cookbook, “French onion soup, holiday duckling with orange stuffing, cranberry sauce, mushroom wild rice, almond green beans, gala fruit wreath, Parker House rolls, butter, assorted cheese and crackers, hot coffee.”

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).

What fast food started in the 1950s? ›

Taco Bell and Burger King are among the fast food chains that were started in the 1950's. With so many new innovations in technology and processing, the food industry was revolutionized in the 1950's. This revolution included restaurants and the landscape of dining was changed with the rise of fast food.

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.

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.

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.

Casseroles provided affordable sustenance during the Depressions of the 1890s and 1930s and the shortage of food items during both World Wars. In the 1950s, the widespread use of oven-proof cookware and canned foods made casseroles a simple, quick and inexpensive way to feed the whole family.

There aren't any rules when it comes to the food, but a standard afternoon tea menu comprises a tier of sandwiches, a tier of cakes and one of scones or teacakes. But you could also throw in pastries, petit*-fours or biscuits.

The menu included hot or cold hearty and traditional foods such as meat pies, Welsh rarebit, sausage, cold meats, breads, cheese, jam, butter, relishes, desserts, fruits, and tea. High tea was also called “meat tea,” because meat was usually served.

McGrady also went on to share the menu for Queen Elizabeth's daily afternoon tea: there were always two types of sandwiches, scones, a small cake, and Earl Grey tea.

Sandwiches were customarily filled with ingredients such as cucumber, egg, cress, fish paste, ham, and smoked salmon. The dessert portion of afternoon tea often featured scones with whipped cream and jam, as well as cakes and pastries such as Battenberg cake, fruit cake or Victoria sponge.