1900-1910
· Factors Effecting Food
o Reflected diversity of people living in the country à depended on who they were (ethnic heritage, religion), where they lived (regional food preferences), and how much money they had (wealthy, immigrant poor?)
o Food manufacturers flooded markets with new “convenience foods” such as Jell-O
o Immigrants settled in urban areas and opened resturants and imported foods. First Italian Pizzeria opened in NYC in 1905
o Science and technology: advances in transportation, food preservation, and home storage began to equalize local food availability and lessen dependence on seasonal variations.
o Home economics & Nutrition Science
§ College women studied the science of cookery and applied knowledge to improving nutrition
o Company
§ Companies such as National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), Campbells, Swift, General Mills, Kraft, Jell-O, and Hershey’s provided products, invented recipes, and created a steady demand for variety of foods
o World Fair’s
§ Pan American Fair 1901 and Louisiana Purchase Exhibition (St. Louis Fair) 1904
§ Americans fascinated by food here. Most of foods had been around for awhile but they were mass marketed at the St. Louis fair
§ Foods from fair: ice cream cones, hamburgers, puffed rice, Dr. Pepper, iced tea, Texas style chili, and peanut butter
1910-1920
· Still depends on who they are (rich,poor, ethnicity, etc)
· Some food given to soldiers to eat during WII; civilians faced rationing
· American cook books gave foods nationalistic names à American cheese
· Concept of nationally branding was rare. Only large companies did this; grocery store ads promoted product not company or brand
· 1914- first electric refrigerator is introduced. Not until after WWI that they are widely used; individual sized prewrapped cakes at bakery instead of cakes sold in slabs that only storekeepers could get
· 1912- Oreo Biscuits and Lorna Doon cookies are introduced by National Biscuit Company
1920-1930
· 1921: Eskimo Pie, Betty Crocker, White Castle
· 1923: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
1930-1940
· popular magazines never mentioned hardship of their readers
· Food prices dropped à cut back on amount of meat, fish and fresh fruit ate
· Nationally- Known American candy brands by 1935: Tootsie pops, Hershey Bars, Butterfingers, Milk Duds, Baby Ruth, Lifesavers, Mounds, Milky Way, Heath Bars, Snickers
· 1930: Twinkies, Snickers, Wonder bread(sliced)
· 1932: Fritos, Skippy Peanut Butter
· 1933: Nestle Toll House Cookies
· 1939: Lay’s Potato Chips, Dairy Queen
· World Fair NYC 1939 (Ney York Times’s article “There’ll be all Kinds of Food at the Fair”)
o 50,000,000 people predicted to come
o Hot dogs, hamburgers, snack bars, sandwich bars
1940-1950
· Rationing introduced by Office of Price Administration in 1942 to equally distribute low food supplies à victory gardens
· New Products were “convenience foods”à dehydrated juice, instant coffee, cake mixes, etc); result of military research. Not all were embraced at first since traditional homemakers preferred to cook the old fashioned way
o Early cake mixes were not realiable and produced inconsistent reulsts
o Cooks felt obliged after WII to return to way things were.
o When food companies make things too simple than rejected à like today
o Today though most people make cakes from mixes instead of buying premade cakes. The real “scratch cake” is rarely made
· Started making butterless, eggless, and milkless cakes
o Origin dates back to Medieval ages. Spices and raisins were popular ingredients. Early American cookbooks filled with spice cake recipes à until the 19th century fruit/spice cakes were wedding cakes
o Made because hard to get ingredients during these timesà named “War Cake” or “Depression Cake”
1950-1960
· By looking at cookbooks and magazines can tell that simple meals from pre-packaged goods were popular. Makes sense have recent memories of lean pantries, government rationing, and WII soldier rations.
· American companies advertised towards people buying time-saving appliances and serving new convenience foods.
· Did not buy all of new convenience foods at first. Experimented with new recipes introduced by return of soldiers à created Americanized versions of pizza, chow mein, barbecued meats etc
· Chex mix became the main snack; food companies promoted its product through recipes in cookbooks. Idea first seen in 1950 edition of Betty Crocker’s Cook Book (recipe called “Buttered or Cheese Kix”)
1960-1970
· Junk food was aimed at the baby boom children
· 1964: pop tarts
1970-1980
· still dependent on how much money had, where live, etc
1980-1990
· 1987: Oscar Mayer Bun-Length hot dogs
· 1986: Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn
1990-2000
World Fair (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/display/39wf/taketour.htm)
· Food zone à unified visitor (prospective customer) with product by displaying the food as a spectacle
· Promoted future of food. Included new advances in how food was produced and newly developed or improved foods
· Continental Baking companyà could watch make Wonder Bread and Hostess (this company represented unity between nature and technical advances in food industry b/c located in only wheatfield in NYC for 50 yrs)
· Heinz Dome, Beech-Nut Packing building, and Shaefer Center (restaurant)
"General Mills, firmly rooted in grain products--Gold Medal Flour, Bisquick, Softasilk, Wheaties, and Cheerios--embraced cake mixes, but Betty was a late arrival to the party. O. Duff and Sons, a molasses company, pioneered the "quick mix" filled by marketing the first boxed cake mix in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Continental Mills, the Hills Brothers Company under the Dromedary label, Pillsbury, Occident, Ward Baking Company, and the Doughnut Corporation all produced versions of cake mixes before World War II. But problems of spoilage and packaging abounded, keeping mixes from widespread consumption and acceptance. In November 1947, after four years of cake mix research and development, General Mills' test markets were exposed to the "Just Add Water and Mix!" campaign for Betty Crocker's Ginger Cake. After a final assurance from the corporate chemists that the boxed ingredients would indeed perform as advertised, the mix was made available for limited distribution on the West Coast. Within a year it made a national debut that excluded the South (presumably, product testing there proved futile). While Ginger Cake required a nine-inch-square pan, designers projected that the PartyCake line, already in development, would offer home bakers a choice of using either two square pans or one 9-inch-by-13-inch rectangular pan, a size and shape that were becoming popular. As layer cakes are a uniquely American creation, they seemed a fitting choice for PartyCake, the next wave of Betty Crocker mixes. The layered butter PartyCake mixes--in Spice, Yellow, and White cake varieties--and Devils Food Cake Mix were priced at $.35 to $.37 per red-and-white box. "High impact" colors were essential to entice "the ladies who trundle their little shopping wagons among the shelves and tables" of the supermarket...The postwar quest for cake mix supremacy unfolded much like the flour wars of the 1920s. In 1948 Pillsbury was the first to introduce a chocolate cake mix. Duncan Hines stormed the market in 1951 with "Three Star Surprise Mix," a three-flavor wonder in that in three weeks captured a 48 percent share."
“After wartime flour and sugar rationing were suspended, in 1946 and 1947 respectively, the remained of the decade saw more than a billion cakes made or bought yearly. Among the highest- and must personal- forms of culinary achievement, cakes were far more than sweetened bread. As Betty liked to say, “For any occasion, big or small, there’s nothing like a home baked cake to make the moment memorable.”
"The very marketable premise behind cake mixes was, and still is, the ability to have a fresh, "home-made" cake with very little time and effort. Though Betty Crocker--like her competitors--promised that cake mixes offered freshness, ease, and flavor in a box, the market was slow to mature. Puzzled, marketers reiterated the message that homemakers need only drop this scientific marvel into a bowl, add water, mix, and bake. But that was still a little too good to be true for Mrs. Comsumer America. Certainly, cake mixes sold, but--compared with the early performance of Bisquick or Aunt Jemima pancake mix--not up to industry expecations. The "quick mix"...industry, eager to correct the shortfall, conducted research even as the development of new mixes continued. General Mills considered the market research of the business psychologists Dr. Burleigh Gardner and Dr. Ernest Dichter to explain the mediocre sales of cake mixes. The problem, according to the psychologists, was eggs. Dichter, in particular, believed that powdered eggs, often used in cake mixes, should be left out, so women could add a few fresh eggs into the batter, giving them a sense of creative contribution. He believed...that baking a cake was an act of love on the woman's part; a cake mix that only needed water cheapened that love. Whether the psychologists were right, or whether cakes made with fresh eggs simply taste better than cakes made with dried eggs, General Mills decided to play up the fact that Betty Crocker's cake mixes did not contain...dried eggs of any kind...Before long, cake mix started to gain some acceptance and notoriety; even Mamie Eisenhower instructed her cooking staff to use this novel invention at the White House."
Ice Cream/ Popsicles Source: http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodicecream.html#popsicles
· All sold in cities, amusement parks, boardwalks during WII through pushed carts to bicycles to horse drawn trucks.
· "The third member of the great novelty trimuvirate of the 1920s was born on a cold eureka-shouting morning in New Jersey in 1923. The inventor was Frank Epperson, who made lemonade from a specially prepared powder that he sold at an Oakland, California, amusement park. While visiting friends in New Jersey, he prepared a batch of special lemonade and inadvertantly left a glass of it on a windowsill with a spoon in it. The temperature went down below zero during the night and in the morning Epperson saw the glass. He picked it up by the spoon handle and ran hot water over the glass freeing the frozen mass. In his hand was the first Epsicle, later to be known as the Popsicle. Epperson saw immediately the potential of what he held in his hand and applied for a patent, which was granted in 1924. He was fortunate, because research conducted by The Ice Cream Review in 1925 revealed that a major ice cream company was experimenting with "frozen suckers" at the time of the windowsill incident, and as far back as 1872 two men doing business as Ross and Robbins sold a frozen-fruit confection on a stick, which they called the Hokey-Pokey." (Great American Ice Cream Book, Paul Dickson [Atheneum:New York] 1972 (p. 83)
· August 1917 during WWI in Montiers, France. Soldiers drenched by 36 consecutive days of rain (tired, hungry). In tent near front lines, Salvation Army made donuts by filling refugee pail with oil. Made dough with left over flour and other ingredients left over. Used wine bottles as rolling pins. Baking powder tin for a cutter and camphor-ice suck tube was used to make holes. Donuts were fried in soldier’s steel helmets on 18 inch stove.
· Made 100 donuts the first day. Soon as many as 500 soldiers stood outside the tent waiting for the chance to get a donut. Soon over 9,000 donuts were being made per day and tent became first 24 hour donut shop
· Word spread about the donuts and before long Salvation Army were making donuts all over front lines.
· Reported some pilots dropped notes asking for donuts for their troops.
· After the war, soldiers brought back their taste for donuts. Not known in the states but donuts had become favorite of soldiers
· When soldiers returned home no one had heard of donuts but soon bakeries began to start making them.
· Ever since day in France, Salvation Army has provided free donuts and hot coffee to firemen, rescue workers, disaster victims, and anyone in need.
Potato Chips- Source: http://www.geography.ccsu.edu/harmonj/atlas/potchips.htm
· Potation chips were usually prepared and eaten in restaurants. Visitors to Saratoga Springs took the chips and basic cooking principles to other parts of the country
· Idea of making them as food item for sale in grocery stores first was seen by William Tappendon of Cleveland, OH in 1895. Began making chips in his kitchen and delivering to neighborhood stores but later converted a barn in the rear of his house into makeshift factory.
· From 1900-1930 many small chip factories sprouted up including the Utz company which is still in business today.
· Laura Scudder who made Scudder’s potato chips is credited with making the wax paper bag that potato chips still come in today. Allowed for wider distribution b/c of its preserving properties. Prior to this chips were in bulk from barrels or class display cases which allowed for customer self-service. Cellophane and later glassine packing expanded the market for potato chips
· Potato chip manufacturing was done in small batches and kettles in first part of century. Invention of continuous fryer in 1929 allowed for larger amounts of chips to be made; it was first installed in Ross Potato Chip Co in Richland PA. Depression slowed its use but eventually it drove out most distribution area chip manufactures.
· 1933, first pre-print waxed glassine bag appeared to improve freshness and expand market areas and thus provided a place for advertising and brand identification
· Potatoes first brought to America as animal fodder and not until German and Northern Europeans arrived was it used was as a human food. Today, more potatoes are being processed before consumption
· Potatoes can tolerate long distance shipment and considerable storage time but the fresher the raw potato the better the chip. For this reason, potato chip manufactures shifted the location of their production sources over the years.
· Due to pershability and fragility of chips, most potato chips are produced very close to place of consumption.
· Largest today is the Frito-lay company and Eagle snacks.
· In Northeast there are still some small businesses that have loyal customers
· Production of snack foods is highly profitable and recession proof so smaller producers have been able to resist larger manufacturers
· In 1930s regional difference developed in Midwest where preferred light blander ship and glassine packaging and in East they would rather eat strong-flavored, darker chip. The chips in the East required less protection from less and were less fragile so could be packed more tightly so cellophane was used more for packaging
· In early 1960s, Proctor and Gamble (Pringles) and General Mills (Chipos) decided to take technology of making soap and use to it to make chips. Snack food industry was threatened that they wanted to make a standard product nationally and fought to deny these companies from using the word “potato chip”.
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