Food

Photo of McCall's Cheese

Part of a nation's history lies in what people eat. Artifacts at the Museum document the history of food in the United States from farm machinery to diet fads.

More than 1,300 pieces of stoneware and earthenware show how Americans have stored, prepared, and served food for centuries. Ovens, cookie cutters, kettles, aprons, and ice-cream-making machines are part of the collections, along with home canning jars and winemaking equipment. More than 1,000 objects recently came to the Museum when author and cooking show host Julia Child donated her entire kitchen, from appliances to cookbooks.

Advertising and business records of several food companies—such as Hills Brothers Coffee, Pepsi Cola, and Campbell's Soup—represent the commercial side of the subject

Date: 1970s

Chocolate Mousse

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.10
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.10

Blueberry Tart

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.04
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.04

Mandarin Restaurant Invitation

Invitation for a Chinese New Year celebration held at The Mandarin on February 22, 1977, in honor of the year of the snake. Includes red cloud designs on a white background and a string of black numbers. Design continues on reverse side. Tri-fold card.Currently not on view
Description
Invitation for a Chinese New Year celebration held at The Mandarin on February 22, 1977, in honor of the year of the snake. Includes red cloud designs on a white background and a string of black numbers. Design continues on reverse side. Tri-fold card.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1977
ca. 1977
ID Number
2011.0115.10
catalog number
2011.0115.10
accession number
2011.0115

Potatoes with Dill

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.21
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.21

Cheese & Onion Pie

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.06
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.06

IN-N-OUT Lap Mat, 1976

This lap mat is made of white paper with a scalloped edge and printed border featuring the red and yellow IN-N-OUT Burger arrow.
Description
This lap mat is made of white paper with a scalloped edge and printed border featuring the red and yellow IN-N-OUT Burger arrow. The right side of the mat includes a map of the greater Los Angeles area showing the locations of the eighteen IN-N-OUT restaurants that existed in 1976. The upper left displays the IN-N-OUT logo above a text box containing the simple question, “WHAT IS AN IN-N-OUT FRENCH FRY?” The not-so-simple answer provides consumers with information about the potatoes used (fresh, not frozen) and how they are cooked in vegetable oil, addressing growing concerns about healthy cooking oils.
“First, it is a Grade 1 fresh potato – peeled and diced at each location. Potatoes are peeled a few hours before cooking. The oil is pure vegetable oil used for cooking our fries to order.
Towels are used for drying off the oil. Remember when using a fresh potato, it may not look quite as consistent as a frozen fry—but the flavor you taste is the fresh potato, not cooking oil.
With portion controls of frozen foods being sold to restaurants, today, we are one of the only few still selling a fresh potato.”
While fast-food restaurants have been around since the 1920s, drive-thru dining came of age in car-crazy California in the 1950s. IN-N-OUT Burger was an early part of this trend, opening in 1948 at the intersection of Francisquito and Garvey in Baldwin Park, California. In the beginning, founders Harry Snyder and his wife Esther did all of the shopping, preparation, and accounting themselves. They also adopted a two-way speaker system, enabling customers to place their order without leaving their cars.
Eating in the car quickly caught on in the United States and IN-N-OUT’s decision in 1961 to offer customers paper “lap mats” to protect their clothing reflects the popularity of the practice. Harry Snyder began hand cutting the brown paper used by bakeries for packaging buns into rectangular mats. He soon switched to pink butcher paper thinking it would make dashboard dining a more enjoyable experience. When a printing company contacted Snyder in 1971 about replacing the butcher paper with printed lap mats, Snyder saw an opportunity to provide consumers with more information. Early versions of the lap mats featured maps of the local area and information on other IN-N-Out Burger locations. By the 25th anniversary in 1973, IN-N-Out Burger had 13 restaurants in Los Angeles County, all featuring a two-lane drive-thru and a limited amount of outdoor seating. In 1979, IN-N-Out opened its first single lane drive-thru facility with a large open dining room, a design that became the model for future expansion. In 2012, IN-N-OUT Burger had 281 locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Utah and remains a popular destination for both locals and tourists who want to eat on the go.
date made
1976
ID Number
2012.0087.01
catalog number
2012.0087.01
accession number
2012.0087

Máquina de Margaritas Heladas

In the 70's, the margarita surpassed the martini as the most popular American cocktail and salsa surpassed ketchup as the most-used American condiment.
Description
In the 70's, the margarita surpassed the martini as the most popular American cocktail and salsa surpassed ketchup as the most-used American condiment. Today, Mexican cuisine, in all its modified, regionalized, commercialized, and even highly processed varieties, has become as American as apple pie. Mariano Martinez, a young Texas entrepreneur, and his frozen margarita machine were at the crossroads of that revolution. The margarita was first made on the California-Mexican border, and became associated with the service of Mexican food, particularly, with one of its variants, Tex-Mex, a regional cuisine that became popular all across the United States. In 1971, Martinez adapted a soft serve ice cream machine to create the world's first frozen margarita machine for his new Dallas restaurant, Mariano's Mexican Cuisine. With their blenders hard-pressed to produce a consistent mix for the newly popular drink they made from Mariano's father's recipe, his bartenders were in rebellion. Then came inspiration in the form of a Slurpee machine at a 7-Eleven, a machine invented in Dallas in 1960 to make carbonated beverages slushy enough to drink through a straw. The soft-serve ice cream machine that Martinez adapted to serve his special drink was such a success that, according to Martinez, "it brought bars in Tex-Mex restaurants front and center. People came to Mariano's for that frozen margarita out of the machine." Never patented, many versions of the frozen margarita machine subsequently came into the market. After 34 years of blending lime juice, tequila, ice, and sugar for enthusiastic customers, the world's first frozen margarita machine was retired to the Smithsonian.
Description (Spanish)
En la década de 1970 la margarita superó al martini como el cóctel más popular de América, y la salsa aventajó al ketchup como el condimento más usado por los americanos. En la actualidad, la cocina mexicana, en toda su diversidad, regionalismos, comercialización y hasta variedades altamente procesadas, se ha vuelto tan americana como el pastel de manzanas. Mariano Martínez, un joven empresario tejano, y su máquina de margaritas heladas se hallaron en la encrucijada de tal revolución. La margarita tuvo su origen en la frontera entre México y California, y empezó a asociarse en particular con el consumo de la comida mexicana y una de sus variantes, la tex-mex, una cocina regional que se popularizó en todo Estados Unidos. En 1971, Martínez adaptó una máquina de helados para crear la primer máquina de margaritas heladas en el mundo en su nuevo restaurante de Dallas, Mariano's Mexican Cuisine. Bajo la presión de tener que producir una mezcla de calidad uniforme de esta popular bebida sustentada en la receta del padre de Mariano, los barman se hallaban sublevados. Así fue como surgió la inspiración a partir de una máquina que usaba el 7-Eleven para hacer Slurpees, inventada en Dallas en 1960 para elaborar bebidas carbonadas congeladas lo suficientemente derretidas como para beber con pajita. La máquina de helados que adaptó Martínez para servir este cóctel especial tuvo tanto éxito que, según Martínez, "trajo los bares de los restaurantes Tex-Mex a la primera plana. La gente venía a lo de Mariano para beber la margarita helada de la máquina". La máquina nunca fue patentada y surgieron en el mercado numerosas versiones de la máquina de margaritas heladas. Luego de 34 años de mezclar jugo de lima, tequila, hielo y azúcar para sus entusiastas consumidores, la primera máquina en el mundo de hacer margaritas heladas se jubiló en el Smithsonian.
Date made
ca 1970
maker
Sani-Serv
ID Number
2005.0226.01
catalog number
2005.0226.01
accession number
2005.0226

Ravenswood Winery (poster)

David Lance Goines is known as a writer and lecturer as well as an illustrator and printer of both letterpress and offset lithography, his work much exhibited and collected throughout the country.
Description
David Lance Goines is known as a writer and lecturer as well as an illustrator and printer of both letterpress and offset lithography, his work much exhibited and collected throughout the country. But his Arts and Crafts influenced design is best known on his posters and in books. Goines was a recognized activist in Berkeley, associated with the Free Speech and Anti-War movements, and he did poster and book work for these movements.
Alice Waters, who founded the Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, was a founding inspiration of the fresh, local, and organic food movement. She met David Goines in the Berkeley Free Speech movement. They began to collaborate on a column, “Alice’s Restaurant” for the local alternative paper. She wrote the recipes and he provided the artwork. He collected and printed each column as Thirty Recipes for Framing and the entire set and individual prints from the set began to appear on Berkeley walls and beyond, establishing him with enough profits to buy the Berkeley Free Press, rechristened the St. Hieronymus Press.
He issued his first Chez Panisse poster, "Red-Haired Lady," in 1972 and his most recent, "41st Anniversary," in 2012. In between is a series of anniversary posters, plus occasional others celebrating the restaurant's book releases, such as the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook, and other ventures. These works established his place as the primary artist associated with food and wine in the so-called Gourmet Ghetto. His early posters for Chez Panisse were soon followed by requests from other food and wine related sites and events, as well as from many other commercial entities.
The 1976 logo for Ravenswood Winery shows three intertwined ravens in a triskelion on the label designed by Goines for the release of the winery’s first vintage of Zinfandel. Winemaker Joel Peterson, the founder of Ravenswood Winery, told the artist of something he experienced in harvesting his first vintage. Ravens were the vineyard protectors who cawed at him through his stormy, debut harvest. Years later, the image is well known from the wine label which has remained as Goines designed it in 1976 (number 83 in the Goines repertory), on what became one of the most popular wines in the country.
The label even inspires tattoos. Peterson says that anyone showing up at the winery with a tattoo of said Ravenswood/Goines image will receive tastings of the wine free. Since 2008, every July the Winery holds a Tattoo Coming Out Party and Poetry Slam where people without permanent ink on their bodies can receive a temporary tattoo if they write a poem that “declares your love for tattoos, Ravens, or tattoos.”
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1979
maker
Goines, David Lance
ID Number
2012.0169.01
accession number
2012.0169
catalog number
2012.0169.01

IN-N-OUT Lap Mat, 1988

This paper lap map features a nostalgic scene of the #1 IN-N-OUT Burger place with vintage cars shown in the drive thru.
Description
This paper lap map features a nostalgic scene of the #1 IN-N-OUT Burger place with vintage cars shown in the drive thru. The mat reads “California’s First Drive-Thru Celebrates 40 Years!” The right side of the mat features a special 40th anniversary logo composed of the silhouette of a store atop a curved arrow and their signature logo. IN-N-OUT Burger has used vintage images of their stores on a variety of products and consistently references its humble beginnings and growth on its menus and lap mats.
While fast-food restaurants have been around since the 1920s, drive-thru dining came of age in car-crazy California in the 1950s. IN-N-OUT Burger was an early part of this trend, opening in 1948 at the intersection of Francisquito and Garvey in Baldwin Park, California. In the beginning, founders Harry Snyder and his wife Esther did all of the shopping, preparation, and accounting themselves. They also adopted a two-way speaker system, enabling customers to place their order without leaving their cars.
Eating in the car quickly caught on in the United States and IN-N-OUT’s decision in 1961 to offer customers paper “lap mats” to protect their clothing reflects the popularity of the practice. Harry Snyder began hand cutting the brown paper used by bakeries for packaging buns into rectangular mats. He soon switched to pink butcher paper thinking it would make dashboard dining a more enjoyable experience. When a printing company contacted Snyder in 1971 about replacing the butcher paper with printed lap mats, Snyder saw an opportunity to provide consumers with more information. Early versions of the lap mats featured maps of the local area and information on other IN-N-Out Burger locations. By the 25th anniversary in 1973, IN-N-Out Burger had 13 restaurants in Los Angeles County, all featuring a two-lane drive-thru and a limited amount of outdoor seating. In 1979, IN-N-Out opened its first single lane drive-thru facility with a large open dining room, a design that became the model for future expansion. In 2012, IN-N-OUT Burger had 281 locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Utah and remains a popular destination for both locals and tourists who want to eat on the go.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1976
ID Number
2012.0087.03
catalog number
2012.0087.03
accession number
2012.0087

Russian Beef Borsch

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.22
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.22

Whole Wheat Bread

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.29
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.29

Couple Cooking on a Grill near their Camping Tent

Some fans traveled great distances to participate in music festivals, and would camp nearby. This couple brought a grill to make a meal or two.Currently not on view
Description
Some fans traveled great distances to participate in music festivals, and would camp nearby. This couple brought a grill to make a meal or two.
Location
Currently not on view
negative
1972
print
2003
maker
Horenstein, Henry
ID Number
2003.0169.097
accession number
2003.0169
catalog number
2003.0169.097

Paella Valenciana

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.17
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.17

Pate Maison

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.18
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.18

Chicken Biryani

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.08
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.08

Moroccan Carrots

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.15
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.15

Herb Vegetable Sauce

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1968-1970
author
Waters, Alice
ID Number
2016.0085.11
accession number
2016.0085
catalog number
2016.0085.11

Madame Chiang's Mandarin Recipe Book

Black and white paper menu of 22 pages. The cover has a black and white picture of a bowl and spoon with flower patterns. Inside the booklet, on the left page features a picture and on the right page features a recipe with instructions.
Description
Black and white paper menu of 22 pages. The cover has a black and white picture of a bowl and spoon with flower patterns. Inside the booklet, on the left page features a picture and on the right page features a recipe with instructions. The first page on the left features a black and white sketch of Cecilia Chiang and on the right page a description of her cooking philosophy. The next pages detail recipes from appetizers, soups, vegetables, and main dishes.
A recipe book is a collection of typical or popular recipes of that particular chef’s style or of a particular cuisine. The first American cookbook is dated in 1796, American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. In the 19th century, cookbooks began to be used as a kitchen reference and were written primarily for housewives. By the latter half of the 19th century, cookbooks were written by women’s organizations. By the 20th century, manufacturing canning companies began to create cookbooks for the American housewife. Today, many cookbooks are published by famous chefs and professionals.
The organization of a cookbook varies across cultures. A western cookbook typically categorizes main dishes by ingredients. In Cecilia Chiang’s recipe, she categorizes her recipes by serving order and is outline much like a menu: appetizers, soups, vegetables, and main dishes.
Chiang’s cookbook is dated in the 1990s. By then, she had held her own cooking classes and taught well-known chefs such as Julia Child and Alice Waters. Her recipes were sought after by Trader Vic himself, who pleaded with Chiang to give him her recipe to the Peking Duck.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1974
ID Number
2013.0127.02
accession number
2013.0127
catalog number
2013.0127.02

Basic Needs

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1976
associated date
1976
ID Number
1986.1035.102
catalog number
1986.1035.102
accession number
1986.1035

Child Eating, Buffalo, NY

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970-10
maker
Faul, Jan W.
ID Number
PG.70.22.02

Christmas at Hinky Dinky

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1971
maker
Alinder, James
ID Number
PG.73.32.01
catalog number
73.32.1
accession number
309843

1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay

This bottle of 1973 Chardonnay was made by Miljenko "Mike" Grgich, winemaker at Chateau Montelena Winery in Calistoga, California.
Description
This bottle of 1973 Chardonnay was made by Miljenko "Mike" Grgich, winemaker at Chateau Montelena Winery in Calistoga, California. This vintage outranked some of France's best white Burgundies at a blind tasting held in Paris in 1976.
Organized by Steven Spurrier, an English wine merchant, the tasting involved a panel of nine experienced French judges. They compared a select group of wines from France and California without benefit of knowing which was which. The judges were taken aback when they realized they had awarded first prize to an American Chardonnay in the white category. When they also scored a California red (1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon) higher than any of the French contenders in the same competition, the rest of the wine world took notice.
The "Judgment of Paris" had a huge impact on the California and U.S. wine industry. It crushed the widely-held belief that only the French could make premium wine and inspired American vintners to expand their operations. The aftermath of the tasting played out most vigorously in California, where, between 1975 and 2004, the number of wineries grew from 330 to 1,689. By 2004, California accounted for most of the $643 million in annual U.S. wine exports.
Date made
1973
referenced
Spurrier, Steven
owner
Barrett, James L.
referenced
Chateau Montelena Winery
maker
Grgich, Mike
ID Number
1996.0028.01
accession number
1996.0028
catalog number
1996.0028.01

Ship Model, Ketch

In 17th-century New England, the ketch (or “catch”) was a small, two-masted craft with a square stern. Ketches had small crews of around four men, and they are believed to have had fore-and-aft rigs, rather than square sails, for ease and simplicity of handling.
Description
In 17th-century New England, the ketch (or “catch”) was a small, two-masted craft with a square stern. Ketches had small crews of around four men, and they are believed to have had fore-and-aft rigs, rather than square sails, for ease and simplicity of handling. They were used mainly for local coastal trade and for fishing on the shallow sand banks off the New England coast.
In the early 18th century, this boat type disappeared from contemporary records and descriptions. It was replaced by the “scooner” or schooner, a similar boat type with a fore-and-aft rig that was easy and economical to sail. In fact, some scholars think that only the name changed, and that the two boat types were almost identical in rig and construction.
Date made
1978
original ship built
ca 1600
maker
Hoff, Jr., William Bruce
ID Number
TR.336377
accession number
1978.0351
catalog number
336377

Boycott Lettuce Protest Button

Some of the most effective nationwide consumer boycotts and strikes, often lasting for years, were against big fruit and vegetable growers and bulk wine producers.The struggle to balance fair wages and workers rights while maintaining cheap labor and sustaining farms has been a m
Description
Some of the most effective nationwide consumer boycotts and strikes, often lasting for years, were against big fruit and vegetable growers and bulk wine producers.
The struggle to balance fair wages and workers rights while maintaining cheap labor and sustaining farms has been a major issue in the history of agriculture and Mexican American civil rights. The National Farm Labor Union (later the National Agricultural Workers Union), the AFL-CIO, and the United Farm Workers used boycotts, strikes, and stoppages as a way to receive national attention for workers rights and working conditions. In the United States Southwest, agricultural labor was overwhelmingly Mexican and Mexican American. Issues of legal status, workers rights, and displacement of domestic workers are issues unions with predominantly Mexican participation have been struggling with since the 1920’s.
date made
ca 1970
ID Number
2012.0036.03
accession number
2012.0036
catalog number
2012.0036.03

Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.

If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.