33 Old-Fashioned Recipes Just Like Grandma Used to Make (2024)

FAQs

What was the most popular food in the 30s? ›

From Hunger to Hope. From frozen foods to Jell-O molds, the 1930s and 40s saw a huge upsurge in convenience foods. Building on the popularity of brands like Wonder Bread, Kool-Aid, Velveeta Cheese, and Hostess Cakes, American supermarkets stocked up on mass-produced items.

Hosting a fondue dinner party was popular in the 1970s, and fondue pots were the ultimate wedding gift during that decade. The Swiss dish consisting of melted cheese served in a communal pot was enjoyed by dipping chunks of bread into the cheese using long-stemmed forks.

Food was always home cooked, and people usually ate bread, vegetables, meat, etc. The most common meal was made of a composite dish with one portion of proteins (meat, eggs, fish, cheese, pulses), one portion of potatoes, pasta, or bread, and two portions of vegetables, followed by fruit as dessert.

By the 1890s a typical day's diet included two kinds of meats, eggs, cheese, butter, cream, bread, corn, several other vegetables, jellies, preserves, relishes, cake, pie, milk, coffee, and tea.

1940s: Austere Times

Rationing, introduced with the war to deal with extreme shortages, affected most foodstuffs, including the basics for the British breakfast table - bacon, butter, cheese, sugar, jam, breakfast cereals, eggs, milk, canned and dried fruit and tea.

During the 19th century people used open flames for cooking or stoves. Stoves were gaining popularity in the 1800s, but they were not electric or gas like ours are now. Instead, they had either a wood fire or a coal fire inside. The stove allowed the heat to more uniformly cook and bake food than an open flame.

The US couldn't get enough walnut and goat cheese salad in 1978. A variation of this salad style became a Chez Panisse classic — the founding restaurant of California cuisine and the farm-to-table movement, which opened its doors in 1971.

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 are some of the oldest recipes? ›

"Even in the Depression, people were so inventive," Cass County Historical Society President Marilyn Fry says of the durable food brands born in the depths of the 1930s. Birds Eye Frosted Foods, sliced Wonder Bread, Hostess Twinkies, Mott's Apple Sauce, Snickers candy bars, French's Worcestershire Sauce.

Many of today's favorite snacks were also introduced during this decade: Twinkies, Snickers, Tootsie Pops, Fritos, 3 Musketeers, Ritz Crackers, Kit Kat Bars, Five-Flavor Life Savers, 5th Avenue Bars, Rolo, Smarties, Heath Bar, Lay's Potato Chips and RC Cola.

1930s: School lunch and the New Deal

The program was so successful that by 1941 every state (plus Washington D.C.) had a lunch program in place. A typical school lunch at the time included items like veggie soup, peanut butter sandwiches, and the occasional piece of fresh fruit.

The 1930s were primarily known for the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, jazz music, the Art Deco movement, and the New Deal. Jazz/swing music not only became popular in the U.S., but also found audiences in Europe.