Familiar foods for a taste of the '20s

   See how many of these food products you have had recently! 

   All of them first appeared in American grocery stores in the 1920s:

 
Wonder Bread  
Welch's Grape Jelly 
Peter Pan Peanut Butter  
Wheaties brand cereal
Popsicles  
Baby Ruth candy bar  
Kool Aid
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup 


   In this decade "ready to eat" foods became a growing part of the average family's diet.  The new products were convenient and real time savers, especially for housewives.
  Before this time most items on the family table were made from scratch in the home.  

   Sliced bread began appearing in stores in 1928, after a machine was developed for large bakeries that could cut the loaves neatly.

   This decade also saw the beginning of big changes in kitchen appliances:

   The first electric refrigerators for home use went on the market.  They began replacing the old-style wooden ice boxes, which held a large block of ice that had to be replaced every few days as it melted. 

   The electric range for cooking was starting to win acceptance, although it was not until the 1930s that they became common.
 

  

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Vintage drawings are courtesy Nova Development Corp. and its licensors.
They have been edited by David Burns.


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   Copyright 2009, 2017 by David Burns.  All rights reserved.  As a guide to the Virginia Standards of Learning, some pages necessarily include phrases or sentences from that document, which is available online from the Virginia Department of Education.  The author's copyright extends to the original text and graphics, unique design and layout, and related material.