Blast From the Past-Vintage Fourth of July Menu
July 2, 2008 by Marye Audet
Filed under Menus, Uncategorized
Lifestyles theme day today is A Blast from the Past. I thought it would be fun to look at historic fourth of July Menus.
Apparently they did it much differently in 1887. The Menu for the WHOLE 4th of July, including breakfast and lunch can be found at Vintage Recipes. I mean, fried chicken for breakfast? WOW!
Things were a bit different by the 1940s. This menu is from my mom’s Better Homes and Garden’s Cookbook from 1941.
Cold Fried Chicken
Ham Loaf
Hot Scalloped Potatoes
Parker House Rolls
Garden Salad- made from string beans, onions, quartered tomatoes, chopped celery, cooked carrots
Chocolate Puffs
Ice Cream Cups
Hot Coffee
Bottled Beverages
So….What did you have on 4th of July when you were growing up? Are you carrying on the tradition of your parents or are you doing something totally different? And how does it compare to these menus?
For me, traditionally it was burgers, macaroni salad, deviled eggs, baked beans and watermelon. That’s what I grew up with. 
Image:Public domain from Karen’s Whimsy
What a totally fun idea, Marye! We had hot dogs, baked beans, sauerkraut, watermelon, brownies or maybe something involving blueberries and strawberries with vanilla ice cream (you know – red , white and blue!). We also usually had lemonade. This was a whole town celebration in CT, where we usually were for the 4th.
LOL! Jen, I miss those whole town celebrations!
My parents were real fuddy-duddies, I guess, because we never did any special holiday meals except on Christmas and Easter. So now I make an effort to make every holiday something special–4th of July is usually something grilled, with summery, fresh sides. This year of course was my redneck party so we had hot houn’dogs and all sorts of summery nibbles.
I know, I need to check and see if you posted the whoopie pie pudding recipe you talked about