50 Recipes from a 1950s Housewife- A Cultivated Nest (2024)

FAQs

What was the typical daily menu in the 1950s? ›

What meals did families eat in the 1950s? Beaver Cleaver was known to sit down to a normal meal such as pork chops, a veggie and mashed potatoes. French fries were not normal fare in the 50s. Most families in the middle class region of wealth, ate spaghetti, ham, pot roast.

As you can see from the decade's top recipes, the 1950s were all about the intersection of comfort food and convenience—casseroles and quick dishes like Chicken a la King and Welsh rarebit reigned supreme.

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.

The publication also outlines daily tasks that one should complete each and every day, which include: Kitchen: Put away food, clean coffee grounds, wash dishes & sink, sweep, empty wastebasket. Bedrooms: Hang up night clothes, make beds, straighten & dust, dust/vacuum blinds.

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.

A normal breakfast would be Bacon and Eggs and toast if you lived in the mid south and further south you would probably have grits on your plate with those eggs and there would be toast or biscuits. A bit further north it might be Bacon and Eggs and hash browns or skillet potatoes.

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.

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.

As well as being quicker to make, dishes served at diners were cheaper, too. Items like pancakes, sausages, meatloaf, burgers, and sandwiches were standard on diner menus, and still are today.

Some families were already able to afford a refrigerator, a freezer, or even a dishwasher. A considerable time-saver for housewives was the purchase of smaller appliances, such as blenders or toasters. At the same time, many machines with crank handles, like bread slicers,were still in use.

What was the most popular food in 1953? ›

In the 1950's American homes were traditionally comprised of a mother and a father and their children. The father went to work, and the mother stayed home to take care of the children. The kids would be polite to their parents, obey their rules, and as a result form a close parent-child relationship.

The 'housewife syndrome' was a mental disorder diagnosed in many American housewives suffering from supposed bouts of madness and enigmatic conditions, such as hysteria or neurosis, that plagued women who showed unhappiness in their stereotypical role of homemaker in the mid-twentieth century.

On average, women probably had maybe 5 every day dresses and maybe 3 “church” dresses and one or two pairs of dress shoes. They probably owned a couple of pairs of casual shoes and only a few tops and pants and a couple of purses.

The image of American women in the 1950s was heavily shaped by popular culture: the ideal suburban housewife who cared for the home and children appeared frequently in women's magazines, in the movies and on television.

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. During the Great Depression, diners provided an inexpensive way for families to go out to eat, the Telegraph reported.

After World War II, dietary guidance emphasized eating with the family and overall “healthy” meals. 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).

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.