1950s: Food and Drink

Although most Americans continued to eat as they always had—at home, with freshly prepared foods—several important trends in American eating habits began to emerge in the 1950s: standardization and franchising. The symbol of both these trends was the most noted restaurant chain of the century: McDonald's. Founded in 1948, McDonald's expanded across America in the 1950s through a system known as franchising. Franchising offered individual owners the opportunity to own a profitable restaurant if they would follow the McDonald's business formula.

The McDonald's formula was simple: Offer hamburgers, French fries, and milkshakes at a reasonable price, and make sure that the customer receives the same product every time at every restaurant. It helped the restaurant chain sell "billions and billions" of burgers—according to one of it's slogans—and it spawned a number of imitators across the country, including Burger King.

Food was becoming standardized in other ways as well, most notably with the rise of frozen, pre-prepared meals, often known as TV dinners. These complete meals could be pulled from the freezer, heated in the oven, and enjoyed in front of the TV in less than an hour and with very little effort. By 1954, in just the second year of their existence, Swanson sold ten million TV dinners.

The eating habits of the 1950s have since been depicted in a number of movies and TV shows. The center of both the nostalgic film American Graffiti (1973) and the long-running TV series Happy Days (1974–84) was the local diner where teenagers gathered to eat hamburgers and fries. These and countless other pop culture references indicate that hamburgers and fries were the food of the decade.