50 Recipes from a 1950s Housewife- A Cultivated Nest (2024)

FAQs

How to be the perfect wife in 1950s? ›

Not only did the women of the 1950s have to make exciting meals, ensure their children are well behaved without disciplining them excessively, keep their home smelling lemon fresh and always look appealing for their husbands, they had to make it all look easy.

1950s Dinners

There was no such thing as the keto diet in the 1950s—meat and potatoes reigned supreme. You'd find hearty main dishes like Salisbury steak, beef stroganoff and meat loaf on a '50s dinner menu, plus scrumptious sides. Casseroles were also popular, particularly those featuring seafood or ham.

From then on, it's a downhill slide. By the time a woman is 30, there is about one chance in two she will ever get married and at 40, only one chance in five. By the time she is 50, the chances she will marry are just one in 16, and after 60, her chances drop to one in 62.

' “Popular since the 1950s, this tenacious stereotype conjures mythic images of culture icons -- June Cleaver, Donna Reed, Harriet Nelson -- the quintessential white, middle- class housewives who stayed at home to rear children, clean house and bake cookies.” (Meyerowitz, 1994) The creation of the “ideal woman” gave a ...

Breakfast was viewed as the meal to set you up for the day so was, at the very least, porridge, followed by bacon, eggs and fried bread, then toast and home-made marmalade, and lots of milky tea.

Typical main dishes might have been a hamburger, tuna fish, chicken casserole, dried chipped beef in cream gravy over toast, fried chicken, mac and cheese, Spam, canned ham, spareribs, hot dogs wrapped in Bisquick, hot dogs with barbecue sauce, liver and onions or various bean dishes.

1955: Peanut M&Ms

M&Ms were the go-to candy back in 1948 after they had been used as rations during World War II. But by 1955, the newest hit was peanut—and for good reason, right?

Once a week is a common baseline, experts say. That statistic depends slightly on age: 40- and 50-year-olds tend to fall around that baseline, while 20- to 30-year olds tend to average around twice a week.

How often do people in middle age and older have sex? Older adults still have plenty of sex. Thirty percent told AARP researchers that they have sex weekly, 27 percent said monthly or less, and 40 percent reported having no sex in the last six months.

Do married couples in their 50s make love? ›

Researches have stated that married couples who have reached their late 40s or early 50s are likely to have sex once in 10 days. However, it is not the same for all couples as a very small percentage of them feel that sex is even better now that they have turned almost 50.

However, packaged snacks were not about to concede to the fast food trend. Peanut M&Ms, Atomic Fireballs, Certs Mints, Hot Tamales, PEZ candy, Pixy Stix, Smarties Candy Necklaces and Marshmallow Peeps were all candies developed during this decade.

Gin was all the rage in the 1950s (largely due to remnants of the Prohibition), and as such, drinks like the Sloe Gin Fizz and the Tom Collins (more on that in a bit) started gaining in popularity. The Kitchn reports that Brits first invented sloe gin, and tended to drink it in winter as a way to warm up.

Roast turkey, stuffed goose, ham aged in Grandpa's smokehouse, hot rolls, hot biscuits, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, preserves and jellies, and, of course, mince pies, sweet potato pies, white and dark fruitcakes, all kinds of other delectable desserts, nuts, and raisins, and brandy for the gentlemen.

The U.S. marriage rate was at an all-time high and couples were tying the knot, on average, younger than ever before. Getting married right out of high school or while in college was considered the norm. A common stereotype was that women went to college to get a "Mrs." (pronounced M.R.S.) degree, meaning a husband.

Despite its widespread use in sociology courses, little is known about the origins or authenticity of this article. This paper demonstrates that “The Good Wife's Guide” is a fabrication, a form of postmodern simulation that paradoxically upholds both patriarchal and feminist ideas about gender in the 1950s.