I wasn't even a glimmer...LOL
But I found this site.
Scroll down for the 50's about half way down the page.

Here is a link that might be useful: Food Decades

I was married in 1957.....and don't remember any of those horrors!
But I do remember "California dip" which was sour cream and a package of Lipton's onion soup mix...with chips....for an M and M party...that is Martinis and Manhattens.
Never saw 7 up angel food cake...but do remember Bacardi rum cake, and Rock Cornish game hens, and lots of jell-o salads....particularly those made with cheese.
Linda C

I'm sitting here with my oversized 1958 Time-Life Picture Cook Book in front of me. Creamed tuna was OK for a family dinner but for a special occasion like a birthday called for special dishes like Beef Wellington, Beef Stroganoff or a big thick grilled steak. Green beans almondine, broiled tomato halves and au gratin potatoes would be typical "fancy" side dishes for the time.

It was a carniverous era before cholesterol counts so any recipes with beef, butter and/or cream are right on target. And the dessert fad was Flaming Foods - flaming crepes Suzette, Bananas Foster or Cherries Jubilee, for example. Fine restaurants prepared them tableside, as they did with Caesar salads.

Another classic 50's restaurant salad was a wedge of iceberg lettuce topped with thousand island or blue cheese dressing. For a flameless dessert, creme de menthe parfait.

Linda, jogging your memory now? LOL

Sounds like a great idea to make an extra-special birthday, Carol.

Yeah....I still make all thsoe things!!
My "old trusty" cook book for like a million years is Fanny Farmer's Boston Cook Book. mine is the 9th edition, printed in 1951. In the early 60's they put out another edition....it was awful!...Full of shortcuts, boxed mixes and cans of this and that. But the 9th edition was pretty basic, how to roast beef or a turkey ( they have much longer cooking times for turkey....think due to the new way of raising turkeys), veggies with butter and lwemon or toasted almonds, basic cakes and cookies etc.
Linda C

Maybe I misremember, but weren't gelatin molds a product of the late '50s? Seems like every newspaper ran another verion of them, no matter what else was on the cooking page.

Linda, shouldn't come as a surprise that the 60s edition was full of shortcuts. The 50s were the era of quick-easy-convenient; premade this & that; boxed and canned versions, frozen entrees. Why go through the bother of mixing flour and leavening when you could have it all in Bisquick?

OmiGod! Let's not forget TV Dinners; the ultimate in convenince. Well, actually, I wish we could forget them.

Cookbooks always lag the real world. So all that the 60s version did was reflect the new reality of convenience in the kitchen that has become endemic to today's society.

Aah yes! TV dinners!...and frozen Swanson pot pies and fish sticks and frozen french fries, and a Chow mein "kit"...was that Chung King? or Le Choy?...2 cans or was it 3? all you did was add some leftover sliced meat, heat can 1, add can 2 and put it over can 3! LOL! And salty? Hoo boy!
And my neighbor gave me that recipe for a chuck roast wrapped in foil, with a package of dry Lipton;s onion soup over the top, sealed and baked for a couple of hours....and Noodles Romanov in a box, add chicken for a meal... hamburger helper, and sloppy Joes! What a concept! Brown some meat and add a can of soup..( but I love sloppy Joes made from scratch with veggies and browned ground beef) served on a bun, and rice-a-roni in a box. And I had ( have??) a recipe for a "chicken divan"...using frozen broccoli and mayonaise....and an "Apple kuchen" with a can of cherry pie filling and topped with a box of yellow cake mix and drizzled with butter....EWWW!
Maybe I need to purge my recipe file? LOL!
I still remember fondly, my DH's grandmother fixing us a meal in her electric fry pan, of hamburger, mixed with egg, oatmeal and seasonings, browned in the frypan with onions and sauced with catsup, water and brown sugar.
God rest her soul, she wanted to make a meal for the newly weds and she had only an electric frypan and a toaster....no crockpots...no toaster ovens and certainly no microwaves in those days.
TV dinners indeed!....there were worse things! LOL!
Linda C

I really enjoyed reading all your suggestions - Thank you. I'm guessing that you caught my mistake and knew Tany was actually Tang. The food through the decades is a great site and I'll check out some cookbooks. Thank you again!

Jiffy Pop Popcorn was my first thought, but it really didn't hit the grocery aisles until 1958.
Sounds like a fun party theme, though.

Jan

Linda, it was Chung King. Le Choy is a relative newcomer to the marketplace.

Fishsticks. Oh, boy. Considered the greatest technological food advance since Birdseye introduced frozen food in the first place. Do they even sell them anymore?

I thought Hamburger Helper didn't come out until the 60s. But that period all runs together, anyway. What the hell; between eating C-rats and smoking controlled substances, it's a wonder any of us have either minds or stomachs left.

Oddly enough, I have never made nor eaten a Sloppy Joe. No particular reason, it just never happened. But as for adding a can of soup, that was done with everything! It was Campbells' finest hour. No need to ever create a sauce, not when a can of soup (cream of something, usually) was just a twist of the opener away. Change the flavor of the soup and you had a whole new dish, quick and convenient.

Rachael Ray would have loved the 50s.

They sell "fish sticks"...but now they are a different flavor and called "chicken nuggets"....
That's the only meat ( and I use the term loosly!) that one of my grandsons will eat!

We have now entered the era of "back to basics" and made from scratch....an era where you can buy microwave ready baking potatoes, washed and sealed in cryovac...all you do is muke for 2 minutes. And a potroast kit...complete with a cut up carrot, peeled onion and halved potatos and a "flavor packet"....just dump all into a pot with a bit of water. And we have ready to nuke twice baked potatoes, and premarinated pork chops and chicken breasts, and frozen scrambled eggs and toaster waffles....and I thought pop tarts were bad??!!
Linda C

Well none of that holds a candle to crock-pot classics in the frozen food isle. Everything you need to make a slow-cooker meal, all ready to go.

Cripes! It probably takes as long to open the package as it does to chop up some meat and veggies and toss them in the cooker.

>.....and premarinated pork chops and chicken breast.....Not to mention catfish in seven different flavors. And try and find plain pork tenderloins. Most of them are in some sort of marinade so you can have "Italian," and "Cajun," and who all knows what else they can think of for the cooking challenged.

But, on the up side, flash freezing does make certain foodstuffs available that we wouldn't otherwise have. And, when done correctly, flash frozen is the next best thing to fresh. Particularly with seafood. Indeed, under the law it is sold as fresh.

Personally, I can't eat most things that come out of cans. Between the high sodium, sugar, and preservative content they just taste off to me. But frozen vegetables are almost indistiguishable from fresh when cooked. Of course, if one buys the versions in butter sauce (or with similar afflictions) they are overpaying. But the straight veggies are a real bargain when fresh isn't available. And, often enough, even when it is.

And flash frozen calamari is the incontestible child of the fish sticks that ruled the 50s.

There's also the question of who determines "convenient" vs. "necessary?" Do you mine your own salt? Grow all your own herbs and spices? Distill your own extracts? Make your own condiments? At base, these are just as much convenience products as are Pop Tarts.

If somebody likes the taste of it, is the end product any different if they use a can of cream of mushroom vs. making their own white sauce with mushrooms? Having never used the cream of mushroom soup, I can't say. But....there's always a but:

In the past I have made pastry cups by first making crepes, then forming them in muffin pans and baking. Lately I've taken to using won ton wrappers for the same purpose. Is one scratch cooking and the other just a lazy convenience item? Who's to decide?

Indeed, won ton wrappers, egg role skins, totillas, pita, that whole range of products. What are they, if not convenince items?

So what it adds up to is that each must make their own decision as to what does or does not belong in their kitchen. And if somebody else doesn't like it, they don't have to eat there.

The even more basic point: Like it or not, all these conveniences stem from the food technology explosion of the 1950s. Which, in one sense, means that Carol's planned party is as modern as tomorrow.

(Hows that for getting back on topic)

In 1957 I was 9 years old and remember my mom serving tuna noodle casserole, "Hawaiian" shrimp with pineapple and green pepper, Spatini spaghetti sauce, Hallmark baked beans, baked Alaska, and we always bought penny candies and there are a myriad of options there -- wax lips, candy cigarettes, little wax soda bottles with sweet syrup inside, and tons and tons of candies.

Goodness, Woodie, I'd forgotten those wax soda bottles. They just don't make goodies like that anymore.

You remember the candy dots that came on paper ribbons?

that came out in 1957 is the geatest T-bird every built.

So, Carol, if you really love him....... ;>)

And Sputnik. Makes a T-bird seem cheap by comparison.

Another thing that came out in 1957 is ME! (No remarks about cheapness, please.)

I think this is a cute idea.

As a side note, the larger Cracker Barrel restaurant gift shops carry a selection of retro candies, including the candy dots on paper, wax bottles, root beer barrels, Mary Janes and many other varieties available in 1957.

Oh yea! Get the T-Bird! He'll love it :-)

I did not read all the suggestions so this might have been mentioned before. But I know that Tuna Noodle Casserole topped with Potato Chips was popular in the '50s. It was the only thing I ever knew that my Dad would absolutely not eat, although us kids loved it especially the Chip Topping. Also, I remember my Mom making Chop Suey over crunchy Chinese Noodles, which I would not eat.

I did just find a cookie recipe that sounds like it was probably popular in the '50s:

Potato Chip Cookies

1 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup crushed potato chips
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Stir in egg yolk and vanilla. Gradually stir in the flour until just blended, then mix in crushed potato chips and nuts. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Criss-cross the top using a fork dipped in water.
Bake 12 to 14 minutes in preheated oven, or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets.

You remember the candy dots that came on paper ribbons?

Ya beat me to it!

Thanks for all the great responses! Yes, he would love the t-bird - so would I, but unless I win one or someone's giving one away it won't be happening this year. I know there is an on-line candy store that has treats from the past that I'll try to locate & order some of the candies from there. Thanks again.

I'm going to do a new posting looking for a good "Rosca de Reyes" recipe to fix for my Spanish exchange student for Three Kings Day on Jan 6th. So if any of you have one I'd enjoy having it.

Well, if not a full-sized T-Bird you might be able to find one in the Matchbox series, or some similar scale model.

Lindac, you hit the nail on the head. I remember all you mentioned. The foil wrapped onion soup covered beef (I loved this) and the chow mein thing. Don't forget the pork chops with mushroom soup, always served with apple sauce.

My mother made home-made sloppy joe's for my 5th birthday (1948) party and I still make the recipe. It's great! Doesn't taste at all like the packaged ones.

What a hoot this thread is! I was the same age as Woodie in 1957, actually I'm still the same age as Woodie! LOL

What I recall vividly was those little shrimp cocktails, already mixed in the sauce. They came in little cocktail glasses with a pry off metal lid. Mom used the glasses for tomato juice after the fact. That's another thing we had at special dinners, a cocktail glass of tomato juice as a starter!

Also recall the jello salads, and the never ending contest to out do the next guy with some new variation.

Also remember "Cheese Dreams" (cheese slices melted on bread and topped with broiled bacon) and squeezable bags of margerine, you had to burst the orange dot and then mix in the colour!

Gee, Chase, I never knew those melted cheese & bacon sandwiches had a name. And, just for the record, I still make them from time to time.

And speaking of melted cheese, didn't those clamshell doohickeys that let you make grilled anything sandwiches that looked like UFOs come out about that time?

And that electric hamburger cooker....and the "hot dogger"...although they came later than 57. And the "hot pot"...I think it was the 50's version of a crock pot...but it just boiled stuff.
And the assortment of "jello cakes"...a cake mix with a package of jello and some variation of a glaze or grosting. I remember a strawberry one and a lemon one where you poked holes in the cake and poured in the stuff!
All together now..."Those were the days my friends......" LOL!
Linda C

That's what we called them GL..... a web search showed some variations with tomato and English muffins....pashaw! When Velveeta was introduced they became gourmet! LOL

Carol, these really are very 50's and may make a nice appetizer for your party. Make them as minis.

Cut white bread, of the Wonder bread variety, into fours.
Cut slices of processed cheese into fours
Precook bacon slices until fairly crisp but not too crisp.

Place the bread squares under the broiler until lightly toasted. Not required but I like the bread a bit crispy.

Add the cheese squares and top with some bacon. Return to the broiler, just for a minute, until the cheese melts...don't let them burn!

I feel a craving coming on!

As of 2 years ago, they were making reproductions of the UFO sandwich maker because I surprised my DH with one for Christmas.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Yeah, yeah Ruthanna, that's the one. Damn thing never did work right. Half the time the two halves would peel apart when you opened the machine, dripping hot melted cheese all over everything.

Carol, if you make those cheese dreams it's important that you follow Chase's directions implicitly.

Wonder or other similar fluffy white bread only. Real bread doesn't count. And certainly you don't want to try this with whole grain. Don't tell me Wonder is no good for you; that's what all the enriching is about.

Processed cheese--some of that spread stuff, or American slices. With Velveta you're starting to get uptown. Again, real cheese doesn't count. Don't let us catch you using any of that cheddar. Hey, I wonder how that stuff in the spray cans would work?

Chase: With tomato and other toppings on English muffins we called them mini pizzas.

Carol, one other point. Although not invented then, the '50s were the heyday of margerine.

Anybody besides me remember the new ubiquitous comestible?

OMG, I remember those little shrimp cocktails in the jar! Goodness, Chase, you're so darn old................

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee............................
Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!

Sharb, I'd love your mother's sloppy joe recipe, please. I've never made them but always liked them as a child when my aunt made them.

... Greenest state in the land of the free
Raised in the woods so he knew every tree
Killed him a bear when he was only three

Davy, Davy Crockett, the man who don't know fear!

Went off to Washington and served a spell
Fixed up the government and laws as well
[something something something something something]
And patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell

That's all I remember.
I wonder if my whole generation thinks that the crack in the Liberty Bell was patched. Or for that matter, thinks that it's in Washington.

That "UFO sandwich maker" is called a jaffle iron in Australia! Toasted sandwiches are often called "jaffles", and there's a chain of fast fooderies that make single-serve dinner or dessert pies in those electric pie makers, called the "Jaffle Pie Company". They've pretty well always been available in camping stores.

I have the one my mother used when we were little. She always called it "Quickie Pie." I love it for leftover hamburgers.

Egads this has brought back memories from my childhood! For birthday dinners, we'd have shrimp cocktails (the real deal served in martini glasses...my sister and I felt so sophisticated) plus a broiled steak. I remember ice cream cake (the chocolate cake rolled around vanilla ice cream) as a favorite dessert. Another favorite was American Goulash (elbow macaroni with canned tomatoes, onions and ground round). Hostess twinkies, Hostess chocolate or orange cupcakes and those small chocolate cake rounds filled with some type of cream. Bonamo's Turkish Taffy that you'd crack on a rock to break up, blue popsicles and jaw breakers.

Gellchom, how could you possible forget that

He fought single-handed through the Indian War
Til the Creeks were whipped, and peace was in store
And while he was handling that pesky chore
He built himself a legend for evermore

"OMG, I remember those little shrimp cocktails in the jar!"

woodie, my 85 year old mother still uses those little jars as juice glasses! She's frugal!!

"You remember the candy dots that came on paper ribbons?"
You can still get them, there are a few websites that have "retro" candy. Here is a link to one site

Here is a link that might be useful: the candy store

Monique - I'd bet money that my Mom and Dad still have some of those glasses too :-)
Also, a collection of stuff from Triple S Blue Stamps and I have juice glasses that we got with each fill up at the gas station!

Sounds like a wonderful birthday party. Be sure to get some paper hats and retro goodie bags for your guests. Make it a kids party for grown-ups!

oh, my goodness.........i was getting ready to graduate
and my husband was born also in 1957....best chevy ever....
hard to beliueve he was 2 years old when i graduated.
i remember i baby sat for he lady next door, and she had a full size freezer.stacked with frozen dinners...i will try to get into my old recipe cards and see what ican come up with.

Lemon chiffon pudding
Categories: Desserts
Yield: 6 Servings
1 cup Sugar
3 tablespoon Butter
4 tablespoon Flour
¼ teaspoon Salt
¼ cup Lemon juice
½ Lemon grated rind of
1 cup Milk
3 Eggs, separated

Servings: 6 DIRECTIONS: Combine sugar, flour, salt and butter. Add lemon juice and rind and beaten egg yolks. Beat until ingredients are thoroughly blended. Add milk and blend into mixture. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into a greased baking dish and set in a pan of hot water. Bake at 350-F for 45 minutes. Serve warm. Mrs. C. D. Kauffman, Hesston, Ks. Source: Mennonite Community Cookbook, by Mary Emma Showalter, 1957. Recipes from old Mennonite cookbooks, brought up to date with standard measures and directions

Lemon chiffon pudding
Categories: Desserts
Yield: 6 Servings
1 cup Sugar
3 tablespoon Butter
4 tablespoon Flour
¼ teaspoon Salt
¼ cup Lemon juice
½ Lemon grated rind of
1 cup Milk
3 Eggs, separated

Servings: 6 DIRECTIONS: Combine sugar, flour, salt and butter. Add lemon juice and rind and beaten egg yolks. Beat until ingredients are thoroughly blended. Add milk and blend into mixture. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into a greased baking dish and set in a pan of hot water. Bake at 350-F for 45 minutes. Serve warm. Mrs. C. D. Kauffman, Hesston, Ks. Source: Mennonite Community Cookbook, by Mary Emma Showalter, 1957. Recipes from old Mennonite cookbooks, brought up to date with standard measures and directions