What Did People Eat for Dinner in the 1920s?
Family dinner has been a mainstay of U.S. households since the mid-19th century, when men increasingly began to work and eat lunch — once considered the main meal of the day — outside the home. By the 1920s, the food rationing of World War I was a thing of the past, and the “Roaring ’20s” brought economic prosperity for many Americans.
When families sat down for dinner in this era, they could expect a menu typically consisting of a meat, a starch, and a side dish. The 1920s also saw an increase in the availability and variety of foods, including canned fruits, as well as innovations such as iceboxes and, later, refrigerators, which began to make their way into family homes over the course of the decade.
All of these factors played a part in what was served for dinner. From hearty mains to unique salads and decadent desserts, here’s a peek into dining rooms across America in the 1920s.
Baked Ham
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby focused on the wealthy elite of New York’s Gilded Age, describing buffet tables overflowing with hors d’oeuvres and spiced baked hams. But meats weren’t just for the rich, and in the 1920s, a baked ham or other large cut of meat was a common sight at family meal time, especially during holidays or as the centerpiece of a Sunday dinner.
A popular glazed ham recipe involved studding the outside with cloves, canned pineapple rings, and maraschino cherries. With the invention of Wonderbread and the proliferation of sliced bread in the same decade, leftover ham sandwiches were also a lunchbox fixture.
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Chicken à la King
The origins of this recipe, like those of many classic food and drink concoctions, are unclear, but its regular appearance on dinner tables in the early 20th century is an undisputed fact. At its most basic, the dish consists of cubed chicken and mushrooms in a creamy white sauce, garnished with pimentos and served over toast, pasta, or flaky puff pastry pieces.
The rich sauce, made with cream, butter, and flour, was also often seasoned with sherry or other spirits for added flavor. Over time, ingredients such as green peppers or peas also began appearing in recipes. The beloved comfort food grew even more popular in later years, reaching its peak during the 1950s. While it fell out of favor in subsequent decades, it can often still be found as a canned or frozen entrée in grocery stores.
Stuffed Celery
Hors d'oeuvres enjoyed immense popularity in the 1920s. The Prohibition era fostered more informal social gatherings and cocktail parties at home, where finger foods were often served. Stuffed celery was a regular choice not only for entertaining, but also as a side at the dinner table.
The recipe began appearing in cookbooks and women’s magazines in the early 1900s and gained popularity throughout the ’20s and ’30s. The basic premise remained simple: chilled celery stalks filled with cream cheese, which was mixed with toppings such as tuna, lobster, crab, or, more commonly, olives and pimentos. Olives and pimentos were also used in cheese and olive salad, which was served on leaves of lettuce.
Waldorf Salad
Originally created in 1893 at New York’s prestigious Waldorf Hotel by the executive chef Edouard Beauchamp and maître d’hôtel Oscar Tschirky, this timeless salad was a staple of family dinner menus in the early 20th century, when sweet salads became a favorite.
The first recipe was published in 1986 in Tschirky’s own The Cook Book, by “Oscar” of the Waldorf. This original incarnation called only for diced apples and celery to be “dressed with a good mayonnaise.” Over time, the salad evolved; throughout the 1920s, recipes also began calling for walnuts and seedless red grapes. As recently as 2017, the Waldorf — short for the Waldorf-Astoria — still featured an elevated version of the salad on the menu, made with Granny Smith and Fuji apples, halved grapes, and candied walnuts.
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Thanks to advancements in canning and a boom in the Hawaiian pineapple industry, canned pineapple enjoyed newfound popularity in the U.S. in the 1920s. The sweet golden rings were used not just as a garnish for baked hams, but in baked goods, too — most notably, in the pineapple upside-down cake.
The all-American dessert was an adaptation of already-popular skillet cakes, previously made with fruits such as apples or cherries. It gained a new audience after Dole — then known as the Hawaiian Pineapple Company — held a pineapple recipe contest in 1925.
Dole received 2,500 recipes for pineapple upside-down cake alone, and the published recipe, which appeared in a Dole cookbook as well as in magazines, helped it find a whole new audience. The syrupy-sweet tropical dessert has remained a family dinner favorite for decades, through the 1960s and beyond.
Icebox Cake
This no-bake dessert was named for the then-ubiquitous icebox, a precursor to the electric refrigerator that held a large ice block and was often made of wood and lined with tin. Iceboxes helped preserve fresh food in a way that canning or drying could not, and in the case of the icebox cake, it helped soften it to decadent perfection.
To start, crisp wafers or cookies were layered in a dish with whipped cream. After being left to sit in the icebox for a few hours or even overnight, the cookies softened and melded with the creamy filling. While the simplicity of the dessert was part of its appeal, other ingredients such as custard, fruit, gelatin, or chocolate were sometimes used as well.
