A Story of SpaghettiOs and Forgotten History
8th September 2025
The 1960s were a famously tumultuous decade, so I suppose it makes sense that the food followed suit. On the one hand: Julia Child, who made her pop-culture arrival after the first episode of “The French Chef” aired on July 26, 1962. On the other hand: spray cheese, which debuted in 1965.
It was a contrast that feels deeply familiar today but was new back then: corporations cranking out an endless supply of new convenience foods while competing factions of culinary celebrities grew in prominence and cultural status and railed against the packaged foods that they viewed as mass-produced dreck, high in preservatives and low in any redeeming features.
Well, the ‘redeeming feature’ was that they tasted good….
I still marvel at how much TV dinner trays looked like the metal mess trays we used in the Navy.