I was a child of the 60s and 70s and I thought it would be fun to share menus and meals from the 1970s. In my home, at least, meals were pretty simple with a lot less variety than we are used to these days.
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Meals From the 1970s
I’ve compared notes with my husband who grew up in the same Southern California town I did. For the most part, we both had stay-at-home moms (mine helped out at my dad’s business some while we were in school) and dads who owned their own businesses. Same middle-to-upper-middle class incomes.
While there were many similarities in what we ate, his family life was closer to the stereotypical late 50s as he was the youngest of four. I was the oldest of three kids so my parents were several years younger. His family always had dessert with their dinners and ate more fresh vegetables. My mom served less variety and more canned vegetables.
We also ate out more often. However, both of our families quite often ate dinner at a local restaurant that served excellent prime rib and the BEST salads. I’m sure we must have been there at the same time quite often over the years before we met as young teens.
While this is a typical weekly menu for my family in the 70s in Southern California, I can’t say it more broadly represents the time period for everyone. Still, I think it gives a bit of a peek into the era.
Typical Weekly Dinner Menu
Monday: hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes, corn, salad, fruit cocktail
Mom would fry up ground beef seasoned with Lawry’s seasoned salt and black pepper, drain and add packaged brown gravy mixed with water according to package directions.
This was served over mashed potatoes (sometimes real, sometimes instant). Our usual salads were just iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes. My dad, brothers and I all liked roquefort salad dressing which was common at that time. Now it seems to be mostly just regular blue cheese. My mom couldn’t stand it so she usually had thousand island, Italian or Catalina dressing on hers.
Canned corn and a cup of fruit cocktail rounded out the meal.
Tuesday: Tacos topped with grated cheese, lettuce, tomato and green onions
This was and still is a favorite! My mom fried fresh corn tortillas in oil for our tacos which were filled with seasoned ground beef and our choice of toppings. I was well into my adult years before I realized there was even such a thing as boxed taco shells. David’s mom cooked hers the same way. Maybe that was more common in California? In any case, I have always made mine the same way. At the beginning of the pandemic I instituted “Taco Tuesdays” and to this day, that is our usual Tuesday dinner. I have no idea how many tortillas I have fried – ha!
Note: If you can find a place that sells freshly made corn tortillas they are SO much better than the usual store-bought ones. For years my aunt in California would buy several packages and overnight them to us here in Oklahoma. One of these days I’m going to try my hand at making my own.
Classic Tacos ~ A Family Favorite
Wednesday: sweet & sour pork chops, rice, peas, canned pears
This was another favorite. In fact, one of the young men who worked for my dad would occasionally come eat with us and I swear he could eat half a dozen pork chops by himself.
Back in that era, boneless pork chops (or chicken) were not very common. The pork chops also tended to be cut fairly thin. Mom would season them, arrange on baking sheets and spoon Contadina brand canned sweet and sour sauce on each and then bake.
Unfortunately, Contadina no longer makes this sweet and sour sauce which is a real shame as it was the BEST. It was still available in California for a number of years after we moved to Oklahoma and every time we visited, I would bring several cans back in my suitcase. What made it different was that it contained diced tomatoes along with bits of pineapple and green bell peppers in it. I’ve been experimenting with a homemade version and one of these days I’ll share the recipe here.
Anyway, along with the pork chops, Mom would serve rice (always Minute Rice), peas (canned in my younger days and frozen when that became more common), and some canned pears.
Thursday: Shake ‘n Bake chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, canned peaches
Shake ‘n Bake was introduced in 1965 and my mom was definitely part of its target audience. While my grandmother made the best traditionally fried chicken, that was a bit too labor-intensive for my mom to do very often.
While Grandma’s chicken was a real treat, Shake ‘n Bake was still a good weeknight option. Served with mashed potatoes, canned green beans (always French style) and a cup of canned peaches in heavy syrup, I enjoyed this meal.
Friday: dinner out
Most Friday nights, our family ate out at a local restaurant located in the Green Tree Inn. The Crown and Sword Room was such a stereotypical 60s/70s era restaurant. Low lighting, carpeted floors, white cloth-covered tables, dark red flocked wallpaper and leather booths. You can see a photo in this article.
They served excellent prime rib at an unbelievably reasonable price. I don’t remember ever ordering anything else. But the real star of the show was their salad. It was just the usual iceberg lettuce but it was super crisp and icy cold. What made it so good, though, was that the server tossed it with the dressing at the table so every piece of lettuce was well-coated. After tossing and plating it on chilled plates, they then offered toppings of real bacon bits, hand-grated cheese, and house-made croutons which were made from their cheese bread. Each person was then offered a chilled fork from a linen napkin held out by the server. All of those little details made such a difference.
Saturday: t-bone steaks, baked potatoes, iceberg salad
Steak must have been a lot cheaper back in the day because we had it at least once and often twice a week. And t-bone steaks were the norm, at least in our household. Mom cooked them in her cast iron skillet that had ridges, known as an Axford broiler.
We would also have baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, and an iceberg lettuce and tomato salad with roquefort dressing.
Sunday: deli lunch, TV Dinners
Most Sundays, after church, we would stop by the deli and pick out freshly sliced cold cuts, cheeses, potato salad and pasta salad for our lunch. We’d make huge, delicious sandwiches at home.
Sunday nights were when families everywhere gathered to watch Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” (from 1961-1969) and later, “Wonderful World of Disney” (from 1969 onward) and Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom”.
This was the perfect time to serve TV dinners. Almost every household had a set of folding trays that were stored on their own rack. Mom would put Swanson TV dinners in the oven and when piping hot (and I DO mean hot – those cranberry desserts could remove your tastebuds!), each person would get one on their TV tray and the whole family would eat dinner in the living room while watching “Wild Kingdom” and Wonderful World of Disney”. This was a common occurrence all across America in that era.
A Brief History of the TV Dinner
A Brief History of the TV Tray
Breakfast:
Weekday breakfasts were not a big production in my household. We usually had a bowl of cold cereal, a glass of milk or orange juice and our chewable vitamins. I was never a big fan of breakfast in general or cereal in particular. As I got a bit older I would sometimes make myself half a sandwich instead.
Weekend breakfasts were different, though. We had a cabin in Big Bear and spent weekends up there fairly often. My dad didn’t generally cook but he did make bacon and eggs whenever we were at the cabin. He cooked the bacon first and then fried the eggs in the bacon grease, gently spooning it over the eggs until the whites were fully cooked but the yolks were still runny. This remains my favorite type of egg. We also usually had canned orange rolls with this breakfast. I still remember waking to the smell of bacon frying and the cool, crisp air of the mountains.
School lunches:
My brothers and I attended a private school without a cafeteria. We brought lunches in metal lunchboxes each day.
I was never a fan of peanut butter which is interesting because I developed a peanut allergy as an adult. Perhaps my body knew something even as a child. My favorite sandwich was tuna but I also enjoyed bologna and cheese.
We had thermos containers that would hold hot dishes so occasionally Mom would heat up canned raviolis or spaghetti to send in our lunches.
Along with the usual sandwich, we would have potato chips and some type of fruit, often little pop-top cans of fruit which became available in the early 70s. We would also have something sweet like a Hostess Twinkie or Ding Dong, some cookies or in a pinch…a baggie of chocolate chips.
Our drink thermos usually contained milk but once in a while Mom would put cans of Pepsi in the freezer to get extra cold, wrap in aluminum foil, and send one in our lunch.
But my favorite lunch was when we were running late…or later than usual…and Mom didn’t have time to make lunches. She would pick up burgers and fries and bring them to us for lunch. It was at least a 2o-30 minute drive to our school so this was no small thing. Our friends always looked a bit envious on those days.
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We often hear how much healthier people’s diets were back in the 60s and 70s but as you can see, this wasn’t necessarily true for everyone. And honestly, I don’t think what I grew up on was all that different from most. We did drink more Pepsi and sweet tea than some. And of course, there were families who ate a wider variety of vegetables than I did. But convenience foods were extremely popular and much appreciated by busy moms.
I honestly don’t recall drinking plain water very often unless it was a drink from the drinking fountain at school during recess. No one carried around bottled water. And this was in the desert! Were we just perpetually dehydrated?
One thing that was different for most of us in that era was that we did far less snacking between meals. Families sat at the table together for regular meals and didn’t “graze”. That, and the fact people tended to be more active probably accounts for the lower obesity rates of that time period.
If you grew up in the 60s or 70s, how does this compare to your experience? What sort of things did you eat? Was there a favorite meal that you still enjoy today?
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Hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes was called ‘mince & tatties’ in our home. My mother asked for it right up to her last few months on earth. She worked at the BX in the ‘70s, so I started dinner and she finished it. Shake’n Bake chicken or pork chops is something I’m very familiar with! We also ate at the Green Tree Inn or the dining room at the Holiday Inn – prime rib, swordfish, bacon wrapped filet mignon. My love of sautéed mushrooms and garlic began in those ‘fancy’ places. We had tacos from Del Taco on whichever night they sold six for a dollar, it may have been Wednesday back then. My mother had Thursdays off and would make a big meal, like spaghetti and meatballs, a pot of all-day chili or a casserole. I still make her tuna casserole once in a while, I love it. Most Friday nights were for fish & chips from Mr Swiss. Saturdays were outdoor BBQ days: burgers and hot dogs, ribs or chicken… the only time my stepdad cooked. We almost always had Sunday roast – beef or pork, sometimes lamb, with mash and gravy, veg and Yorkshire pudding. We seldom had dessert at the table. We’d clear it, wash dishes and have bowls of ice cream or sherbet in the living room while watching television.
Breakfast and lunch were not memorable – cereal, usually. Mum didn’t cook breakfast because she left for work early.(She was horrible at it when she did!) I either bought a hot lunch at school or brought a sandwich with a piece of fruit and a snack like Pop-Tarts or a Hostess goodie. We lived close to a Hostess outlet and had a ‘snack drawer’ full of Ding-Dongs and Ho-Hos, sometimes Sno-Balls and Twinkies. I still prefer Hostess over Little Debbie. When my mother was home on Thursdays, we’d sometimes have lunch together. I drank quite a bit of soda, especially Cactus Cooler, but we always had milk with dinner. We had a fridge in the garage full of several flavors of Shasta drinks.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Sounds fairly similar but with a bit of British influence. You say you lived close to a Hostess outlet. Was it the one on Palmdale Road? I grew up in Mountain View Acres just a few blocks away from that one. In fact, my mom would let me take my cousin and drive there on the dirt roads. We would get a snack and a carton of candy cigarettes. I was about 12. Times were different – ha!
I know the Hostess outlet on Palmdale, but we lived near the one by the high school. It was at the corner of Mojave and Sixth Street. We lived close enough to town to walk to Circle K, Winchell’s Donuts, Del Taco or uptown to Der Weinerschnitzel, Burger King, etc. I was pretty much on my own every Saturday, I walked or rode my bike all over town. I always had a few coins for snacks.
I forgot there was a Hostess outlet by the high school. You had a lot more options than I did. Turning 16 and getting a car felt like so much freedom for me. My cousin who lived next door is 9 months younger and I think she was almost as excited about me getting a license as I was – ha!