- Sliced Wonder Bread
- Hostess Twinkies--In April of 1930, baker James Alexander Dewar made a snack cake filled with banana cream using an idle strawberry shortcake filling machine at the Continental Baking Company. This new snack, called the Twinkie, switched to vanilla cream filling when bananas were rationed during World War II. It has been wildly popular ever since.
- Snickers Candy Bars--The Snickers bar was introduced in 1930. It consisted of nougat, peanuts and caramel with a chocolate coating and was named for the Mars family’s favorite horse. Today it is the best-selling candy bar in the world!
- Bisquick
- Tootsie Pops
- Frito Corn Chips--In 1932, C.E. Doolin bought a recipe and equipment for making a typical Mexican street food called /fritas/from Gustavo Olguin in San Antonio, Texas. Doolin and his family started selling Fritos in the midst of the Depression which were made by deep-frying extruded whole cornmeal. The next year they opened two additional plants in Dallas and Tulsa to produce the tasty snacks. The Frito Company merged with H.W. Lay and Company to create Frito-Lay in 1961. That company merged with Pepsi-Cola in 1965 to become one of the world’s largest producers of soft drinks and snack foods.
- Skippy Peanut Butter
- Three Musketeers Candy Bars
- Nestle Toll House Cookies--Ruth and Ken Wakefield bought a restaurant in Massachusetts called the Toll House Inn in 1930. Ruth was a registered dietician well-known for her cooking. She also enjoyed experimenting with new recipes. While experimenting in 1938, she mixed a chopped up Nestle semi-sweet chocolate bar into the dough. It was a hit! During World War II, soldiers from Massachusetts received Toll House cookies in care packages and shared them with their buddies, which started a nationwide craze.
- Kraft Miracle Whip
- Ritz Crackers--Ritz Crackers were introduced by Nabisco in 1934 in hopes of creating a cracker that could compete with Sunshine Biscuits, Sydney Stern, a Nabisco employee, came up with the name “Ritz” to give a “bite of the good life” to Americans during the Great Depression.
- Royal Crown Cola
- Kix Cereal
- Spam
- Kraft Caramels--In 1933 Kraft Cheese Company introduced two new products—Miracle Whip and caramels. Kraft specialized in processed dairy products, from ice cream to cheese. Caramels were one way to turn fresh milk into a product with a long shelf life.
- Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinners
- Ragu Spaghetti Sauce
- Lay’s Potato Chips
- Hawaiian Punch
- The Shirley Temple--This mocktail made with grenadine and ginger ale may have been invented for Shirley on her 10th birthday either at the Beverly Hills restaurant called Chasen’s or at Hollywood’s Brown Derby. This sweet, non-alcoholic drink appeared in the 1930s and has made children feel special ever since. Canada Dry ginger ale was invented in 1904 and became popular during Prohibition because it masked the taste of harsh liquors available then.
- Crisco
- Finger Foods--During Prohibition speakeasies started serving an array of finger foods or canapés for their customers to snack on while imbibing illicit alcohol. These foods were popular even after Prohibition ended in 1933 as cocktail parties were considered extremely fashionable. A few of the most popular finger foods of the 1930s were deviled eggs, deviled ham on Ritz crackers, and pigs in a blanket