A Final Treat from 1946

A parting shot from Foods 1946

He will thrive! He will thrive!

Thanks, 1946... It's been great visiting you. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Voting with Our Dollars, circa 1946

Follow the money, they say, and truth will reveal itself. So as we wrap up this week of 1946, let's take a quick look at where we put our dollars back in the day.

When the charts below were compiled, a national mania for chicken had not yet spread across this country. Beef really was what was for dinner. Frozen meals didn't exist. There were markets, but supermarkets were a new phenomenon. In the weekly food expenditures chart below, you'll probably notice a few differences from your own budget.



I understand thrift and home economics, of course, but I've always been a bit mystified by complaints about food expenditures. Do you really want your dinner produced by the lowest bidder?

For a great number of us the answer is, and has been, "Yes! I'll eat the cheapest things available. Bring on the 99-cent menu!"

As oil prices increase, food prices will undoubtedly rise.

Will those prices rise to the percentage of income we see at the close of the 1940s (a'la the chart below)? Probably not anytime soon. In the postwar period of the late '40s, we faced the Malthusian dilemma and chose cheap and plentiful.

A Quick Bite of 1946, Anyone?

I think most of us have played the "would you rather" game. It's usually a contest of bad and worse. Would you rather be turned into a zombie or an oompah-loompah? Would you rather give up your firstborn child to Britney Spears or a tribe of cannibals? Would you rather eat a kitten or a puppy?

The wacky world of Foods 1946 presents us with this conundrum:

Would you rather spend more time in the kitchen and eat a sustainable, locally sourced, home-cooked meal of ham & pureed vegetable soup, roast goose with roasted vegetables and a side of applesauce, mashed potatoes and turnips, fresh-baked corn muffins and then plum pudding and fresh-ground coffee to finish, a'la 1846. (Click into the image for the larger view.)



OR

Would you rather spend less time in the kitchen and enjoy a meal composed of packaged foods: split pea soup (from a mix), canned ham, minute rice, canned asparagus tips, canned artichoke heart salad, corn muffins from a mix and a last course of strawberry shortcake (from frozen strawberries and a biscuit mix) served with instant coffee, a'la 1946.



Granted, I could go for some strawberry shortcake right about now, but I think you see what I'm getting at here.

The world of 1946 was so sure that your answer to this "would you rather" query would favor speed and cheap processed foods, they'd most certainly be floored to hear that 2007 voted "locavore" as the word of the year, that people around the globe ware increasingly more interested in Slow Food or that Community Supported Agriculture programs were thriving and growing.

Oh, 1946! Everything was so plain, so clear and so logical for you, wasn't it?

Tomorrow, just a little more fun from Foods 1946.

The Long Tail of 1946

Yesterday I introduced the weird, wild, wonderful world of Foods 1946, but to really understand where 1946 was going, it's important to take a quick look at 1945.

Our friends at Wikipedia tell us that 1945 "was a common year starting on Monday. It is most widely known for being the end of World War II. It is also known as the beginning of the Information Age."

But just scan down a very brief list of events that 1945 contained...

America's President up and dies
Hitler and Goebbels kill themselves
Berlin falls
The UN is founded
We see the first atomic bomb testing (quickly followed by the first horrible, horrible atomic bomb usage)
The second World War ends
The first ballpoint pen is sold (for $12.50... ouch!)
Ghandi shouts down the British Empire
We see the dawn of the cold war
The Nuremberg Trials begin
The Cubs are actually in the World Series

... 1945 was HUGE, people.


Hot dog! Frozen meals are promised soon!

With all that in mind, the crazy investment optimism put forth in Foods 1946 seems well-founded. America had survived so much by the time 1946 rolled around. 1945 was dramatic and terrifying. Who wouldn't be tempted to dip into some good, reliable, long-storage processed American food to welcome better days in 1946?

That's why Foods 1946 is actually a love letter to a young, optimistic processed foods industry. The good people of 1946 were looking to America's food industry to offer good, cheap, easy canned, frozen and otherwise manipulated foods to attack the very real monster gnawing at the periphery: famine.

Have a look at the following chart from Foods 1946 of average global caloric consumption as measured in the summer of 1945. (Click into the image for a closer view.)



You'll notice two things:

1. Half the listed world is starving (creating a handy market for American foods)
2. Americans are averaging waaay more calories than they need*

Is it any wonder that most of the processed food companies featured in Foods 1946 are now international food processing behemoths?

And it any surprise that we're currently dealing with a national obesity crisis? America started gaining weight in 1945 and hasn't stopped in over 60 years.

Tomorrow we'll explore yet more interesting discoveries contained in Foods 1946

(*Nutritionists generally recommend about 1500-2500 calories per person day, depending on the subject's weight and activity.)

What 1946 Hath Wrought

"The world today looks to the American farmer—To all the American People—for the very means of life. It is a challenge and an opportunity that we shall not shirk."
-Foods 1946

On a recent foraging tour in my new favorite junk shop, Puntaverde Brooklyn's own The Thing (they have a popular myspace page, natch), I came across this irresistible bit of history:



It's a 1946 edition food processing securities brochure, courtesy of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane. It's essentially profiles and financial information on the major food processing companies of the day: Archer-Daniels Midland, Wesson Oil, Sunshine Biscuits, General Foods, John Morrell & Company, Pillsbury Mills, Inc., and dozens more.

Though that initially might sound as exciting as a sink full of dirty dishes, I can assure you — treasures await.

I picked it up thinking I'd have some fun clip art for the site. There was no way I could resist the proud visage of the post-war American farmer gazing on the face of global famine... and global opportunity. But let me just step aside and let Foods 1946 speak for itself:

"For thousands of years food was raised and eaten in the same community. Famines forced some migration and spices from the East permitted some improvement in food preservation, but generally, our ancestors spent most of their time seeking something to eat and if they did not find it they starved. Food was coarse and plain, there was seldom an abundance and when there was, very little could be kept.

In the past fifty years there has been a world revolution in food."

Indeed!

So this week, I'll guide you through the wonderful world of 1946. We might just discover revealing things about the present. It's a crazy thought. But one never knows...

Tune in tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel.