Thanksgiving and leftovers go together. For many, it’s their favorite part of Thanksgiving.   Days of turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce combined together in all sorts of configurations keep the warm holiday feeling going.

In fact it was one Thanksgiving leftover that created an American Icon.

And for that we are thankful.

R) Vintage Swanson TV Dinner Ad

The first TV dinners were an answer to a problem with Thanksgiving leftovers. Swanson’s iconic product had its genesis as a brilliant solution of what to do with an excess of Thanksgiving turkeys.

In 1953 C.A. Swanson and Sons a Nebraska-based poultry processor who sold frozen turkeys and chickens miscalculated the number of turkeys Americans would eat for Thanksgiving. Farmers had overproduced turkeys that year and it left the company with an oversupply of  260 tons of frozen birds sitting in 10 refrigerator Rail Road cars. Swanson didn’t have enough cold storage warehouses to keep the turkeys. This was a major problem

Their executives were frantic, trying to figure out what to do with this excess supply of frozen turkeys. Gerry Thomas a savvy Swanson salesman came up with a million-dollar idea.

Pan Am Stewardess

After a recent visit to Pan American Airways in Pittsburg, he had taken note of the airplane-friendly pre-prepared food in compartmentalized aluminum trays used by Pan Am. Developed by Maxon Food Systems in 1945 for military transport and civilian airline passengers, the frozen meals were reheated on the plane in a special oven which took 15 minutes. The complete dinners in 3 separate compartments had equal portions of meat, vegetable, and potato. Called “Strato Plates,” they regionally marketed a consumer version called “Strato Meals” in 1946 which didn’t take off.

Thomas was inspired by these meals and a lightbulb went off.

(L) “The oven-cooked meal that tastes home-cooked. Now, Mom’s on the TV from the start thanks to Swanson’s she’s ready to serve an extra special dinner. ” Vintage Swanson TV Dinner Ads 1950’s

Why not produce frozen turkey dinners in the same system. He excitedly introduced the idea back at Swansons and with smart marketing tying it in with the young technology of television, a TV Dinner was born. The TV dinner was as easy as turning a dial. Mrs. Americ could even throw away the dirty dishes after her family had dined alongside Bonanza

They ordered 5,000 aluminum trays and created a Thanksgiving-like meal composed of turkey with cornbread stuffing and gravy, peas and sweet potatoes ( both topped with a pat o butter another Swanson product. ) Recruiting an assembly line of hair-netted women with ice cream scoops in hand they launched the TV dinner. The price was 98 cents.

Industry Ad for Swanson TV Dinners June 1954

Swanson’s introduced the TV dinner in October 1953 at a national convention of food editors meeting in Chicago. It was a gamble.

“Just what housewives want -no work no thawing needed. Out of the box and into the oven- 25 minutes later a hearty turkey dinner ready to eat on its own aluminum tray. It’s the hottest item ever handled in the frozen food dept.”

Despite their jitter that they had miscalculated again, they were a success  In the first full year of production in 1954 10 million turkey dinners sold.

The idea of a complete meal in one package was novel and exciting. It was revolutionary!

Swanson has long advocated that being alone should not prevent you from experiencing a festive spirit. Their very first TV dinner was meant to be associated with warm holidays and good times without all the labor-intensive work involved. Imagine, even by yourself you can still savor a full-fledged Thanksgiving feast with all the fixins’ without any of the fuss or muss.

Saturday Night Was Swanson Night

I confess to loving TV dinners as a child. Thanks to wartime research I was the happy recipient of a world of no waiting, no wondering, no defrosting,  no fuss no muss. Though my suburban mother’s cooking repertoire relied heavily on the new and improved with frozen food considered an asset to the mid-century housewife, she never once served us a TV dinner as a family meal. This despite  Swanson’s tagline “Only Swanson comes so close to your own home cooking.” In a world of modern conveniences that was not a stretch.

However, TV Dinners did figure prominently on my Saturday nights as a child.

Like clockwork, my sociable parents spent nearly every Saturday night going out to dinner with friends.  Just as predictable nearly every Saturday night I dined on a Swanson’s TV Dinner. It was a true night off for Mom with no meals to cook, no dishes to wash, no kid’s squabbles to referee. While she busied herself “putting her face on,” readying herself for her night out, she’d simply pop the trays into the GE  wall oven, and relax confident that in under 30 minutes a complete nutritious dinner would be ready for her children.

It was a tradition I relished.

While my mother delighted in dining out on duck a l’ orange elegantly served under a metal serving dome, I was tickled with my aluminum tray filled with just the right portions of thick slices of juicy turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing whipped sweet potatoes and tender garden peas with a pat o’ country butter . Why it was like Thanksgiving in June!

Jet Set Eating

It was new, it was modern, and pre-dated the Jetsons.

Until I was 10, I had never flown in an airplane so eating a meal out of an aluminum tray transported me to the glamourous world of Pan Am. I could be a jet setter without ever leaving suburbia or my house for that matter. I could imagine myself flying off to some exotic local as I dined on compartmentalized whipped dehydrated potatoes.  Little did I know there was a deep connection between the 2.

Eventually, Swanson included a dessert with their meals, and expanded their menu to include a line of international TV dinners, making the choices as varied as going out to eat at a fine restaurant but in the comfort of your own home.

Shopping with Mom at the supermarket to select my weekly Saturday night TV Dinner was a treat.   I loved the frozen food section of our local Food Fair. The overflowing open top freezer cabinets were like a frozen tundra filled with cardboard boxes of better-buy-Birdseye peas lost in a mass of tangled pot pies, and frozen fish sticks.

But I could always spot the distinctive Swanson’s Box.

The TV Dinners stood apart, gleaming in their  6 color Fidel-I-Tone color cellophane laminated boxes. With the familiar wood-grained TV set complete with 2 turning knobs ( one on the left for USDA inspection the other knob for displaying the retail price) the center screen would be filled with a full color, picture-perfect meal, maybe an appetite-whetting golden fried chicken, or a Salisbury steak sizzling, real enough to melt the ice. Though other companies jumped on the frozen dinner bandwagon, there was no substitute to the gen-u-ine, original TV dinner.

It is one of many traditions now long gone. TV dinners have since slid down the culinary food chain and there is even a sad patina attached to them.  But at their height, it was a revolutionary dining experience.

“It’s good dining and good timing with Swanson,” was their motto. This Thanksgiving the timing might be perfect for a comeback.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2022

Visit My Shop

The reactionary gasbags are at it again.

With great indignation they are whining “First the Feds came for our guns. Next, they came for our God. Now they are coming for our gas stoves!

Holy Rachel Ray! Chill out.

Can’t stand the heat -Get out of the kitchen!

While some Republicans are on a low simmer, many are boiling over in rage at yet another perceived overreach of government.

Dubbed stovegate, the outrage was triggered by comments that a member of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission made. Floating the possibility of regulating or banning gas stoves because research suggests their harmful emissions pose health hazards, quickly ignited a heated debate.

Gaslighted?

Live Modern For Less. Vintage ad 1960s Tappan Gas Range

It’s been known for quite a while that gas stoves unleash indoor pollutants like soot, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide.

The hazards of cooking with gas are hardly news, but the facts have been drowned out by the well-oiled gas industry and its extensive gas crusades.

For nearly a century the benefits of this magic fuel have been well publicized, completely ignoring the idea of what it might mean to combust a fossil fuel in our home sweet home.

Gas was your quick, clean, economical Servant. 1937 ad

Gas the Wonder Fuel. Vintage ad 1941 American Gas Association.

Vintage 1947 American Gas Association ad

Vintage 1952 American Gas Association Ad

In the 1950s, Gas Industry utilized celebrities to promote their product. Esther Williams appears in this 1950s ad.

1958 Vintage ad American Gas Association

A recent study revealed that one in 8 cases of asthma in US children is because of the emission of toxic chemicals from gas stoves. Vintage Children’s cookbook

Vintage ad 1962 American Gas Association

Despite its glamourous portrayal, the methane emissions from gas stoves in the US are equal to adding 500,000 cars to the road each year. Vintage ad 1964 American Gas Association

Fuel to frug by. Gas was the hip, with -it fuel for swingers. Vintage 1966 American Gas Association

The Art of the Spiel

Over the last hundred years, gas companies have engaged in an all-out campaign to convince Americans that cooking with a gas flame is superior to electric, bombarding us with ads portraying gas stoves as a desirable, cleaner, and healthier way to cook.

The Modern Miracle Fuel

Vintage Magic Chef Gas Stove ad 1920s

When gas stoves first appeared after the turn of the 20th century they were in fact nothing short of a miracle contributing enormously to easing the exhausting work of the home cook.

In 1920 my grandmother Sadie was a newly married bride eager to join the up-to-date young modern set that was defining the postwar world. Her racy Packard ran on gas and so would her home!

Along with a new husband, and a new apartment in a swanky elevator-operated building on fashionable Eastern Parkway Brooklyn, Sadie had an up-to-the-minute gas stove. The smooth, white, painted steel appliance with the elegant slender legs that emphasized the lighter mechanics of gas appliances would replace the heavy, ornate black iron coal stove of her Williamsburg childhood.

For a cooking-challenged new wife, the ease and efficiency of a gas range would help her take the guesswork out of baking and easily help her provide her husband with those man-pleasing meals she read about in pages of the women’s magazines.

With no more soot or ashes to worry about, her new gleaming Princess Ware pots and pans would stay bright when she cooked with a clean blue flame. And the whole range cleaned as easily as a China plate!  Best of all it would give her plenty of leisure time to shop and attend her various Women’s Clubs.

Modern all the way

The history of how the miracle of gas cooking campaign that made this source of fossil fuel combustion in our homes seem completely safe, has been going on for a century.

By the roaring twenties, coal was becoming as old-fashioned as the horse and buggy and Mrs. Modern would equip her kitchen only with the most contemporary gas or electric appliances. This was an era when there was a widespread transition from wood and coal-fueled stoves and electric and natural gas stoves vying for the public’s loyalty.

Home use of gas once provided a very small market for manufactured gas until the turn of the 20th century. Manufactured gas was the dominant fuel in the early U.S. but during the 19th-century natural gas supplanted it. Though there was no shortage of gas companies, their product was used primarily for lighting city streets, public places, and gas lighting at home.

The gas companies soon began promoting other domestic uses for their fuel especially cooking.  With stiff competition from the Electric companies, the gas lighting companies allied themselves with gas appliance manufacturers, forming the “ Commercial Gas Association” in 1905.

This new organization put its considerable energy into merchandising the fuel, developing new appliances, and creating showrooms and displays for demonstrations to the curious public. A national advertising campaign jointly sponsored by gas companies and appliance manufacturers began in 1912 promoting the many uses for its gas.

By 1918 it became the American Gas Association when it merged with American Gas Institute and with that its future was assured in spite of the serious competition from the powerful electric industry.

Vintage ad 1930s

By the time cooking by gas and electricity had come in, so had the advertising industry and they worked in tandem.

During the 1930s the AGA formed the National Advertising Committee to oversee an aggressive nationwide advertising program promoting gas for cooking, refrigeration, and home heating.

1936 Vintage ad

The American Gas Association wanted to imprint the idea in people’s minds that cooking with gas was an economical servant and the most effective way to feed the family.

Relieving women of burdensome chores, they wanted to convince the American housewife that cooking with gas would become a joy instead of a job. Not only that,  they assured m’lady “it was a savings on woman power- the economy of time steps and wear and tear the relief from kitchen drudgery and glorious luxury of greater leisure comfort and health.”

Vintage ad 1937

Imagine an appliance that promised to bring you happiness three times a day! That was the promise of an Estate Gas range in 1937.

Welcome a modern gleaming Gas range into your kitchen. A willing smiling friend that brings you more happiness morning noon and night.

Natural Gas Natures Perfect Fuel

Vintage 1930s gas company brochure

By the 1930s the industry embraced the term “natural gas” which gave the impression that its product was cleaner than any other fossil fuel. “The discovery of Natural Gas brought to man the greater and most efficient heating fuel which the world has ever known,” boasted one 1934 ad.

Just as milk would one day be aggressively sold to America as Nature’s perfect food, so gas was sold as “Natures perfect fuel.”

Americans Were Cooking With Gas!

Vintage ad 1937 American Gas Association

It was also during the 1930s that the industry adopted the slogan “Now we’re cooking with gas.”

The phrase was coined by Carroll Everard “Deke” Houlgate who worked in public relations for the American Gas Association, hoping to convince people to use gas, rather than electricity, to power their kitchen stoves.

Instead of going the usual advertising route of the period — print advertisements in newspapers and magazines, radio commercials, and spots running before the latest Hollywood movie release — Deke chose a different direction.

He planted it with Bob Hope’s writers who then wrote it into one of his radio scripts.

“Now we’re cooking with gas” quickly became a catchphrase for the wisecracking Hope who repeated it in both radio and movie performances. Others adopted the phrase, adding it to scripts for popular radio shows like the “Maxwell House Coffee Time” and “The Jack Benny Program.”

Before the start of World War II, the phrase was already American slang, thanks to the radio programs, movies, and even a Daffy Duck cartoon where it was spoken to indicate positive progress or achievement.

There was no going back as nature’s perfect fuel became embedded as the desirable best way to cook.

New Freedom

Vintage ad 1945 American Gas Association

The future of Gas cooking would continue to grow after WWII.

Urging women to begin planning their new post-war dream kitchen built around one of those beautiful post-war magic gas stoves,  gas kitchens were promoted as “ Freedom Gas Kitchens.”

Seventy-Five years later freedom kitchens take on a different meaning, as Republicans bemoan that their freedoms are being ripped out of their kitchen.

And by God, they are locked and loaded to protect them.

Copyright (©) 2023 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Bert Lahr for Lays Potato Chips. Vintage ad

Americans are crazy for potato chips, so it’s not crazy at all that today we celebrate National Potato Chip Day!

And why not?

They’re crunchy

They are crispy. And for the past month despite the fact I’ve never been a fan of potato chips, I’ve been devouring them like crazy.

And that’s just nuts.

I can’t taste them, but I can’t stop eating them.

No wonder sales of chips continue to be up. Cravings for salty, crunchy, foods can indicate frustration, anger, or stress, and the crunching down with your jaw is cathartic.

When the chips are down it seems American love to gobble them up.

In 2020 when COVID-19 forced people to isolate and stay home, many found comfort and solace in a particular snack food- potato chips. That crunchy, crispy treat enjoyed around a $350 million increase in sales from 2009-2020.

But boredom and stress eating during the pandemic shutdown is not the snack’s only connection to the virus.

A lingering reminder that COVID-19 is still affecting me more than a month after I first tested positive is my loss of taste and smell. Deprived of these fundamental senses, the experience of eating has fundamentally changed. Now both the texture of food and its sound have become elements as important as taste once was.

Talk about hip chips- “Bugles” with the woven bugle shape,  “Whistles” – a cheddar-flavored corn product in the shape of a whistle and “taste like grilled cheese on toast, only crunchy”; and a nod to flower power there was  “Daisy*s” – a flower-shaped snack that had the flavor of “puffed popovers.” Vintage ad

In search of sustenance that satisfied my depleted senses, I found myself drawn to crunchy snacks in ways I hadn’t since I was a child.  The last time I was so hepped up over the discovery of snack food was when that trio of novelty hipster corn chips- Whistles, Bugles, and Daisy*s burst on the scene in 1966.

But now it was another kind of chip that oddly peaked my COVID interest – Lays Potato chips.

Hiding in the back of my kitchen cabinet was that classic bright yellow bag with its simple red circle. Even without the name emblazoned across the front along with the sliced potatoes and chips scattered around the packaging, I would recognize this shape and color combo anywhere.

Despite my long-standing dislike of potato chips, I knew this was a vital piece of Americana to keep on hand for guests.

And now in my quest for crisp, I decided to experiment and munched on a few Lays.

It was love at first crunch.

A Million to One

Though I loved the Lays commercials as a child, I never cared for the potato chips, Ruffled or otherwise. In the 1967 commercial for Lay’s Potato Chips, actor Bert Lahr, who portrayed the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz,” is shown getting dressed in his room. Suddenly, the Devil, also portrayed by Lahr, appears in a puff of smoke. “Lay’s Potato Chips,” says the Devil. “Bet you can’t eat just one.” Lahr proceeds to eat one, but he can’t resist the temptation for more. In a voice-over, the announcer explains that “Lay’s Potato Chips are so thin and light, you can eat a million of them.”

And I found it’s true- you can’t just eat one. Even when you can’t taste the salty, dehydrated potato flavor. The crunchy feel and auditory element of the food was divine.

And just like that, I joined the legion of potato chip fans.

And to my delight, the more I did a deep dive into the chips I discovered that it was a woman who helped make potato chips the popular convenient snack they are today.

Potato Chip Queen

Up until 1926, potato chips were sold in huge glass display cases or cracker barrels. Then Laura Scudder of Monterey Park, Calif., had a fresh idea. She started packing potato chips in small, waxed bags so the chips wouldn’t get stale.

Known as the “Potato Chip Queen, Laura Scudder is one of the legends of the potato chip industry you’ve probably never heard of and possibly one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time.

She invented the airtight packaged bag, pioneered the concept of indicating the freshness of food on the packaging, and was the first to use the chip’s noisy crunch as her marketing message.

Legend has it that the potato chip was born in 1853 when a disgruntled customer in a Sarasota restaurant kept sending back an order of french fries, complaining that they were too thick. Frustrated, the chef prepared a new batch using potatoes that were sliced paper thin and fried to a crisp. The difficult patron – Cornelious Vanderbilt, loved them.

Potato chips used to be the exclusive domain of restaurants.

They were developed in 1853 by accident when a chef in a Sarasota, N.Y. restaurant tried to please a difficult customer. When you think of potato chips the name Vanderbilt would likely not be one that comes to mind.

But in fact, we owe the chance creation of these salty snacks to railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, the aforementioned customer with the persnickety appetite, who fell in love with the chips.

The Saratoga chips grew in popularity over the next 70 years with little innovation.

For a long time, potato chips remained a restaurant-only delicacy. As more restaurants began offering potato chips as part of their menus, customers began craving them as a treat to enjoy at home. By 1895 entrepreneurs met that demand, delivering them in barrels in horse-drawn wagons to grocery stores.

Now if you craved potato chips, you could go to your local grocery store where they were sold loose in glass display cases, metal bins, or cracker barrels, and scooped into paper bags for customers.

Of course, there was a difference in quality between the top of the barrel and the bottom of the barrel where chips were stale and crumbled. The paper bags were not ideal either and did not keep the chips fresh for very long.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the salty snack entered Americans’ home and never left. Except there was one big problem-the chips got soggy and damp very fast.

Enter Laura Scudder

It took a visionary former nurse with a law degree in northern California to change all that. It was 1926 and entrepreneur Laura Scudder had begun her next career heading a food company in Monterey Park. She realized that moisture was killing the crunch in what could potentially reach a million hungry Americans.

She knew just what could save the potato chip.

Wax paper.

Paper coated with paraffin -wax paper- had long been used by butchers to keep meat fresh. Laura realized that she could use the same technique to increase the shelf life of her potato chips and reduce crumbling.

However, you couldn’t just order a bunch of wax bags for potato chips. They didn’t exist.

Instead, Laura Scudder started paying the female employees of her company to take home sheets of wax paper and iron them into the form of bags, which were then filled with chips at her factory the next day. This innovation kept the chips fresh and crisp for weeks before they started getting soggy. By the end of the 1920s, Laura Scudder’s Potato Chips became a common name throughout most of California.

Over time, the innovative packaging method allowed for the first time the mass production and distribution of potato chips.

Cellpohane packaging was a boost to the sale of potato chips. Vintage ad

When cellophane and, subsequently, glassine was invented in 1933, Laura saw an even better opportunity to package her chips.

Scudder also began putting dates on the bags, becoming the first company to add a freshness date its food products and sold in twin packs to further reduce staleness and crumbling.

This new standard of freshness was reflected in the marketing slogan: “Laura Scudder’s Potato Chips, the Noisiest Chips in the World.”

Vintage ad for Laura Scudders Blue Bird Potato Chip

During the Depression, her company had to face many obstacles in the male-dominated market of the day. For instance, when she tried to get insurance for the company’s delivery truck, she was denied by all the local male insurance agents, because “women could not be relied on to pay their premiums on time.”

Eventually, a more forward-thinking female agent insured the truck and went on to insure the entire company fleet.

Laura Scudder didn’t just brave through the Depression, though. She came out of it with a business that was worth millions.

In a field dominated by men, she was a standout and innovator.

Now that’s something to really chew on.

Snow cones are not just for summer.

Watching my dog Moe eagerly nibble the freshly fallen snow, a readily available frozen treat that miraculously turned to water conjured up snowy childhood memories. After the exertion of rolling 3 balls of heavy snow to build a lumpy snowman, I built up an appetite and thirst. With my woolen mittens covered with little crystals of snow, I would scoop up double handfuls of heavy wet snow placing it in a paper Dixie cup to eat as a melt-in-your-mouth refreshing snack.

It was like summertime in the winter because eating a real snow cone was generally something reserved for summertime walks on the boardwalk at Long Beach where Italian shaved ice snow cones were sold at seasonal stands. Flavored with an assortment of day-glo-colored syrup, it was wet, sweet, and satisfying.

Frosty the Sno-Man

Some lucky kids could have a snow cone all year round right in their own home.

And you didn’t need actual snow to create it! All that was required was a Frigidaire.

A toy I coveted as a child but never owned was Hasboro’s Frosty Sno-Man Sno-Cone Machine. Like an Easy Bake Oven, it allowed you to create familiar snacks at home, without the help of Mom.

According to the TV commercials that ran continuously beginning in 1967 it not only would make you popular with all the kids it could help you earn extra money too by selling it to others at your own sno-cone stand raking in enough dough to keep you well stocked in all the Archie Comic books you could buy.

In real life, Frosty stood at just 10” tall but this sturdy white plastic figurine was a powerhouse factory for icy treats.

Just load ice cubes from your own freezer into the top of Frosty’s head, push the frozen cubes down using Frosty’s plastic hat, and then manually crank a red circular grinder on the back to create ice shavings. When pulverization was complete, just scoop out the “snow” with the red plastic shovel, and place it into the funnel-shaped paper cups that came as a part of Frosty’s accessory package.

The best part of the sno-cone was the sweetener and Hasbro provided five chemical laden flavor choices: orange, grape, pineapple, blueberry, and pink lemonade.

Then sit back and relax as you watch the kids race to your home in their PF Flyers for a chance at their own homemade sno-cone.

And neighborhood dogs would race over too.

Southern Sno-Balls

To some, the signature treat is known as a snow cone and to others as shaved ice but in New Orleans, it’s called a snowball. Since 1936 Hansen’s Snow Bliz has offered a sweet treat in New Orleans.

It’s no wonder that my Louisiana lab Moe gravitated to this snowy, icy delicacy.

His home state was the home of the first sno-ball and is wildly popular there.

Who knew?

What I learned from Moe, Louisiana snowballs ( or sno-balls)  are not the same as what is known as “snow cones” in the rest of the country.

Snow cones consist of coarse crunchy ice while snowballs are made from fine fluffy shaved ice that’s easier to eat.

The ice man delivering ice was once a common sight.

Kids ( and dogs) have long loved icy treats, especially in sweltering southern summer.

Before refrigeration and freezers children would follow ice wagons asking for ice shavings to eat to cool down in the sweltering summer.

Soon vendors in cities like New Orleans set up pushcarts and hand-shaved ice from the blocks. After filling a paper cone with shaved ice, they would pour one of the original syrup flavors on top—strawberry, pineapple, or spearmint.

A big leap forward came in the 1930s when two New Orleans snowball pioneers, Ernest Hansen, and George Ortolano independently invented electric ice-shaving machines. It didn’t take long for the snowball machines to become available commercially, and the snowball craze to take off.

In 1934, inventor Ernest Hansen patented the first known “ice block shaver” He was inspired to create a more refined and hygienic version of the popular Italian ice sold from push-carts in the city. His wife Mary created many flavors of fresh syrups to flavor his finely shaved artificial “snow”.

In 1936 they took it to the streets and opened Hansen’s Snow Blitz.

Sno-Wizard

By this time, grocer George Ortolano had invented his own ice-shaving machine, which he later called the Sno-Wizard. Ortolano redeveloped his original wooden machine into one made of galvanized metal after he began receiving requests from people who wanted to use his machine to start their own businesses. He drew up blueprints and set his product into automated production.

Ortolano’s Sno-Wizards are now the primary sno-ball machines used in Louisiana and throughout the Gulf Coast.

The invention of the snowball machine helped the treat become popular throughout all of South Louisiana. Snowball stands popped up everywhere from Baton Rouge to Lake Charles, and in dozens of small towns in between. Today, you can find sno-ball stands throughout all of Louisiana.

Moe may miss his Louisiana sno-ball stands but there is plenty of New York snow for him to satisfy his Southern cravings.

Tupperware, the Queen of plastic containers  has been dethroned marking an end to a post-war suburban success story

The famous “burp” heard round’ the world has been silenced.

Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy after 78 years.

Few products are more symbolic of household life in post War War II America than Tupperware. As is the iconic Tupperware party where mid-century housewives gathered in suburban living rooms to be regaled by neighbors demonstrating the wonders of these plastic containers

The party is sadly over.

Sadly, it was a party I only heard about.

Tupperware What Dreams Are Made Of…For Some

Vintage Tupperware Ad

The Smithsonian may boast over 100 pieces of Tupperware dating from the late 1940s in their collection but nary a one was ever part of the vast plastic storage collection of Betty Edelstein.

For a woman who lived out the quintessential post-war suburban dream, the perfect poster girl for the colorful Cold War world of carpools, cookouts, and cream of mushroom soup casseroles, Mom never once attended a Tupperware party.

Despite the new and improved, EZ-does-it mindset of mid-century living that infused my childhood home, a polyethylene Tupperware bowl storing remnants of yesterday’s dinner never took up space in my mother’s Frost Free Frigidaire.

Waste Not Want Not

But that is not to say we were not leftover devotees.

Perhaps as a carry-over from WWII shortages and rationing mentality, wasting food was not just a sin in my house, it was near criminal. There was never an insistence to be a member of the Clean Plate Club, because uneaten food would always be repurposed.

I come from a family of serious savers. Just as we held onto newspapers, magazines, letters, and all sorts of flotsam and jetson, leftover food was never thrown out in our house. No morsel was too small or insignificant to not save.

Truthfully, I cannot remember a dinner where some part was not kept for later.

Table scraps whether a few curled Del Monte canned green beans or a half-eaten veal chop would never be disposed of in the trash.  Minute Rice may have taken moments to prepare, but in our fridge if there was a surplus, it could be saved for days.

Dubious Plastics

Vintage Pyrex Refrigerator storage containers

In the early 1960s while others were tucking their leftovers into raspberry-colored Tupperware containers Mom clung to her Pyrex refrigerator dishes, these sturdy containers with clear glass lids that came in bright primary colors and different shapes and sizes.

Mom was wary of plastics.

In 1946 when Earl Tupper first introduced his Tupperware Wonder bowl made from polyethylene waste material, plastics were unfamiliar in the home and not associated with food storage.

After the war, many didn’t trust plastic products convinced from their experience with cheap wartime materials that they’d break, chip, melt or smell.

At first, homemakers were wary of a material that they associated with bad smells, a weirdly oily texture, and cheap construction. Tupperware bowls’ most unique feature was also what held it back initially: the airtight lids wouldn’t seal unless they were “burped” beforehand, and that confused consumers, who returned them to stores claiming the lids didn’t fit.

Instead of being stacked in m’lady’s refrigerator, the containers sat in department store shelves.

Vintage Tupperware Ad

It would take an ambitious woman—and an army of amateur salespeople—to sell the innovative containers to America. The genius was how they were marketed -by a woman named Brownie Wise who launched the concept of the Tupperware party where products were peddled by housewives to their friends.

It helped make plastic acceptable.

A coveted Tupperware Party Invitation

Despite their popularity, my mother never attended a Tupperware party. Perhaps the Temple sisterhood gals were too busy with their rummage sales and Bingo night to hold one.

But her interest in plastic would change.

Once food manufacturers began packaging the food itself in plastic containers signaling its safety, those containers were highly valued. Kitchen cabinets were quickly filled with stacks of empty deli containers, and plastic storage receptacles to re-use again.

Washed out and saved, an empty tub of Cool and Creamy was the perfect vessel to hold last night’s tuna noodle casserole. Just as she repurposed those little glasses of Sau Sea Shrimp cocktail- that ready-to-eat shrimp cocktail in a glass jar, that once consumed and run through the dishwasher was now the perfect juice glass from which to drink our Tang.

Somehow my frugal mother did not see the sense in buying plastic containers when you could easily repurpose ones she had already purchased.

Expanding Plastic Empire

Over the years, her collection of plastic containers grew, migrating out of kitchen cabinets and could be found all over the house holding all sorts of household items. When I went through the arduous task of closing down my parent’s house, the hundreds of containers scattered about all told a story.

Food brands long gone conjuring up meals enjoyed from long ago. Dozens of quart soup containers once filled with won-ton soup from a neighborhood Chinese take-out were stacked in rows in my old bedroom. A favorite neighborhood kosher deli was well represented on dozens of plastic containers, its contents enjoyed only weeks before my mother died.

They all told a story in a way a generic Tupperware couldn’t.

The newest clown for McDonald’s -Donald “Ronald McDonald ” Trump

Trump may not have served up some Whoppers on Sunday, but you can bet there were plenty of lies served up with those fries he was dishing out at McDonalds in Pennsylvania.

There was no shortage of cheez to go around during this faux photo shoot.

The restaurant was closed for the day, creating an air of secrecy. It seems the so-called ‘people’s president’ is merely a wealthy individual playing

To appear that Trump is a man of the people, he cooked up a scheme to try his hand at working at McDonalds. Inside the restaurant, Donald wore an apron over his shirt and long red tie and dropped French fries into a vat of gurgling oil.

The only catch was the restaurant was closed for the day creating an air of secrecy.

The staff at McDonald’s working alongside the so-called “People’s President” were all Secret Service agents. The customers he served were supporters rehearsed in advance. After serving bags of takeout to people in the drive-thru lane, Trump leaned out of the window, still wearing the apron, to take questions from the media staged outside.

Want some lies with your fries? How about some humdingers with your hamburger?

Now no one disputes Trump’s long love affair with McDonalds. He loves fast food so much Trump he served it at the white house to the winners of the football champions in 2019.

It is likely that yesterday was the first time he ever actually stepped foot inside a McDonalds. Despite his love for the food of the people, it is doubtful Richie Rich has ever stood in line in a McDonalds let alone pulled into a drive-thru.

Don’t we deserve a break from Trump’s constant manipulation and deception?