Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast
Creamed chipped beef on toast was a common breakfast served during the 1940s and composed of thinly-sliced beef drenched in a cream sauce stacked atop toast. This military mess hall staple combined dried, salted beef in a thick white béchamel sauce, and World War II veterans brought their taste for this dish home, making it popular in the 1940s and 50s. The meal was cheap, quick, and packed with protein. Perfect for feeding large families on tight budgets.
Modern tastes find the salty, creamy combination unappealing, and dried beef has become hard to find in stores. Let’s be real, younger generations find the concept strange, especially given that it earned a nickname during the war we can’t print here. This once-common comfort food has nearly disappeared except in the memories of older generations.
Cornmeal Mush
Before instant oatmeal, there was cornmeal mush, a simple porridge made from boiled cornmeal and water or milk, and grandparents often ate it hot with butter and syrup in the morning, then fried leftovers into golden slices for supper. It was especially common in the Midwest and Appalachia, where corn was plentiful and budgets were tight. Think of it as America’s answer to Italian polenta.
In times of scarcity, it offered sustenance without breaking the bank, although its popularity has dwindled, especially with the rise of instant cereals. Today, you’ll still spot it on menus in old-fashioned diners and Appalachian bed-and-breakfasts. Still, most people under sixty wouldn’t know what to do with a bowl of it if you served it for breakfast. It simply doesn’t fit into our grab-and-go morning routines anymore.
Waffelos Cereal
In a time when breakfast cereals were more than just morning fuel, Waffelos stood out as a beloved icon of 1970s breakfast innovation, and the cereal’s memorable television commercials featured a catchy western-themed jingle. This maple-flavored cereal looked and tasted like mini waffles, and it was a breakfast-for-breakfast dream come true. Honestly, it had all the charm of actual waffles without the hassle of making them from scratch.
The cereal’s unique texture profile had a hard inside with a soggy exterior and a crispy middle, and it often shredded the mouths of kids if it wasn’t bathed in milk, yet many still loved the cereal’s strong maple syrup flavor and delightful waffle crisp. When Waffelos was discontinued in 1982, it marked the end of an era, and although Post’s waffle crisps are still available in stores today, nothing quite compares to the unique taste and distinct charm of Waffelos. I know it sounds crazy, but people still get emotional about this one.
Frozen Breakfast Platters
By the 1980s, TV dinners had taken a flavorful leap into breakfast, with Swanson representing the charge with their Great Starts breakfast line, offering a range of options from egg sandwiches and traditional breakfast platters to frozen pancakes and french toast. While the texture of the eggs might not have been a culinary triumph, the emphasis on convenience was a major selling point to those facing busy mornings. Many families relied on these yellow-packaged meals to get everyone fed before school and work.
Who has time to sit down for a full breakfast anymore, and if you do feel like splurging and treating yourself to a traditional American breakfast, you probably want something that’s a little better quality than a reheated plate of slightly rubbery eggs. It’s no wonder that today’s frozen breakfasts are more focused on convenience, offering the same ingredients of eggs, bacon, and potatoes, but in a handy wrap, sandwich, or burrito form. Here’s the thing: we still want convenience, we just don’t want to sit down and eat it with a fork and knife.
Dannon Sprinkl’ins Yogurt
First released in 1992, this product took pots of flavored yogurt and accompanied them with packs of rainbow sprinkles, and every morning, kids could pour these crunchy pieces into their yogurts, stir, eat, and then endure an almighty sugar crash about an hour later. You’ve gotta love the 90s. This was the decade where virtually anything was on the table, food-wise.
What was somewhat incredible was the fact that Dannon tried to promote Sprinkl’ins as a healthy breakfast, claiming in its advertising copy that each pot was low in fat, cholesterol, and contained various nutrients. We’re really not convinced that this rainbow-colored concoction was the best thing you could be eating at the start of your day. Dannon Sprinkl’ins stuck around until 2010 before the product was discontinued, and a lot of people still miss these yogurts to this day, but we’d be surprised if they make a comeback anytime soon.
