Snack Nation
Between 1950 and 2000, the United States became a nation of snackers. Manufacturers introduced a host of packaged snacks that catered to basic cravings for sugar, salt, and fat. By the 1980s, people were consuming snacks everywhere—at home, work, and school, and while in the car or walking down the sidewalk. Yet as these items became widely accessible and affordable, many questioned whether they were contributing to the loss of healthy eating patterns and the overconsumption of foods with little nutritional value.
Potato chip tin, 1950s
Gift of Paula Johnson
Food companies understood that advertising products in terms of science and health would appeal to consumers in the 1950s. The New Era potato chip tin promised health and vitality through scientifically processed snacks. It also encouraged consumers to “Feast without Fear,” a slogan to erase anxieties about overindulging, a common problem with snacks.
Super Snack Bowl
Since the first Super Bowl football game in 1967, the annual championship contest has become a national day of snacking. For many Americans watching at home on television, the game has become secondary to the feasting. Game-day favorites include pizza, chicken wings, chips, nuts, popcorn, dips, spreads, and beer.
Football snack bowl, 1990s
Gift of Flo and Skip Ford
Flo and Skip Ford have hosted Super Bowl parties for friends and neighbors since 1997. Chili, taco dip, and crab dip are their perennial favorites.
Super Bowl Wagers, 1993
When the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Buffalo Bills in 1993, Texas Senator Phil Gramm received Buffalo chicken wings from New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato. Most Super Bowl bets between politicians involve regional foods. Buffalo wings were created in 1964 and have become a Super Bowl standard.
Courtesy of AP Images
Super Bowl gourmet
Blondie © Dist. by King Features, Inc., Hearst Holding, Inc.
By 2012, even Dagwood Bumstead (from the long-running comic strip) stocked up on food for Super Bowl Sunday. Known for his penchant for enormous sandwiches (the “Dagwood” is named for him), Bumstead proved he was in step with changing food preferences in the United States by ordering huge quantities of pulled pork, sushi, shrimp, and crab cakes, in addition to pizzas galore.
From Street to Staple
Fritos corn chips launched a snack empire by transforming a popular Mexican street food, fritas, little fried things, into a mass-produced, mass-marketed snack staple. C. E. Doolin of San Antonio, Texas, purchased a recipe and equipment for making the chips by hand from Gustavo Olguin in 1932. By 1950, having applied Henry Ford’s assembly-line methods to their production, Doolin was selling bags of Fritos nationwide.
Corn-shell shaper and fryer, 1955–1958
Gift of Kaleta Doolin
C. E. Doolin opened the restaurant Casa de Fritos at Disneyland in 1955, where he promoted Fritos and served Mexican and Tex-Mex foods. The menu included a “Tacup,” a small, easy-to-eat taco, made in a device patented by Doolin. This tool is an early mockup for the Tacup iron.
