A Look Back: 10 Vintage Food Advertisements

Product: SPAM®
This Ad Ran In: 1946

In 1937, Hormel Foods introduced SPAM. Nearly a decade later, ads were calling out to busy moms, encouraging them to make SPAM a dinnertime centerpiece. This ad, for "Spam 'n' Limas," comes with instructions to make a Spanish sauce (tomatoes, chopped onions, green peppers, salt, sugar, and lard), add it to fresh or frozen lima beans and 8 to 10 partly buried slices of SPAM, then bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Would you call that a semi-homemade version of dinner in a can?

Company: KFC
This Ad Ran In: 1968

After a long day of Christmas shopping, the guy with the white mustache is there with a special gift: a bucket of crispy fried chicken. This ad appealed to all the busy women who had to pick the gifts and get dinner on the table. "Who's got time to fix dinner during Christmas rush?" the ad asks, "Colonel Sanders. That's who."

Company: Oscar Mayer
This Ad Ran In: 1960s

When you were a kid, did you ever have a hot dog sliced up in your macaroni and cheese? In the 1960s, Oscar Mayer used the natural pairing of hot dogs and carbs to create and promote "Sack O' Sauce." You got a can of wieners with a pouch of sauce in the middle — barbecue beef to go with noodles or macaroni and barbecue pork to go with rice or spaghetti. Do you wish your hot dogs came with their own sack of sauce today?

Company McDonald's
This Ad Ran In: Early 1960s

The lesson learned from this ad: if you say it, they will do it. McDonald's made it clear that The Golden Arches was the destination for a night out dining with the family.

Product: Warrens Mint Cocktail Chewing Gum
This Ad Ran In: 1947

Every salesman knows that getting a celebrity endorsement for a product can make it take off. The same was true in the late 1940s, when Warrens got actress Lana Turner to show her approval of their Mint Cocktail gum. As the ad proclaims, "It's smart to choose what Hollywood chews!"

Product: Crisco
This Ad Ran In: 1938

When you pick something to eat, choosing the digestible option is the best course of action. Luckily that's exactly how "Grandma's Chocolate Peppermint Pie" is described in this advertisement for Crisco. The pictured grandmother exclaims, "Somebody's been helping himself to my lovely Crisco pie...thank goodness it's digestible!" We shudder to think what a non-digestible piece of pie would do to the body.

Product: Jell-O
This Ad Ran In: 1926

Long before kids were jiggling Jell-O pieces with Bill Cosby, budding chefs were making the dessert in their parents' kitchens. Or, at least, that's what this ad suggests: "Jell-O is so easy to prepare that even the children can make it."

Product: Wheaties
This Ad Ran In: 1941

Hollywood actors and actresses weren't the only celebrities who provided endorsement for food products in the twentieth century. In the 1940s, baseball king Joe Di Maggio appeared in this ad for Wheaties, showing what a champion eats for breakfast. Proving that attention spans for ads were a bit longer back then, the ad comes with a full article of information about the cereal.

Product: Karo
This Ad Ran In: 1942

With WWII underway in the early 1940s, many companies adjusted their advertisements for the times. Karo ran this ad, which announced, "Our great syrup plants are operating at full speed 24 hours every day. And still the Army, the Navy and the housewife call for more and more as hard fighting, hard working Americans turn to Karo for sweetness, for flavor, for quick energy."

Product: Cream of Wheat
This Ad Ran In: 1954

The stars of "Li'l Abner," a newspaper comic strip that ran from 1934 to 1977, appeared in this 1950s ad for Cream of Wheat. Daisy Mae Yokum reveals, "Men is all alike, they cain't [sic] resist a big bowl o' smo-o-o-o-th dee-lishus [sic] 'Cream of Wheat'!"