If you were raised in the 60s, you’ll recognize at least some of these breakfast classics that appeared on your table.
Tang Instant Breakfast Drink
Developed for use by astronauts and taken aboard NASA’s Gemini flights, Tang quickly became an American and Canadian breakfast table institution in the 1960s.
Moms appreciated the convenience of preparing breakfast by simply adding a few scoops of neon yellow powder to ice water. Kids got excited about drinking what America’s space travellers quaffed while zipping around in space.
Tang’s bold, sugary, synthetic orange taste gave a refreshing beginning to busy school days and made plain fruit juice seem totally old-fashioned.
Carnation Instant Breakfast
Carnation Instant Breakfast was heavily promoted to busy moms as a perfectly balanced, all-in-one meal you could drink. Opening a paper packet of chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry-flavored powder and mixing it into a glass of cold milk produced a thick, milkshake-like beverage that more resembled dessert than breakfast.
It tapped into a societal craving for quicker, more convenient food options. Children could drink a sweet, nutritious breakfast before running out to catch the school bus in less than half a minute.
Pop-Tarts
When Pop-Tarts first came out in 1964, they offered four classic unfrosted flavors: strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar cinnamon, and apple currant. These toaster pastries came in a flat, rectangular shape that would easily fit into a typical home pop-up toaster.
Parents could now give their children a hot breakfast that was ready in minutes, without the hassle of using a stove or cleaning up a pan.
Cream of Wheat
Cream of Wheat cooked in hot milk or water was childhood cold-weather comfort food everywhere during the 1960s. The bland, creamy-white porridge made from ground wheat farina could be flavored with countless sweet toppings.
Kids especially enjoyed plopping a generous dollop of salted butter right in the middle of the hot porridge and watching it melt, followed by a good sprinkle of dark brown sugar or maple syrup. Cream of Wheat was a healthy, satisfying way to start the day on cool fall and winter mornings.
Sugar Frosted Flakes
As the 1960s saw a surge in Saturday morning cartoons, grocery store shelves became dotted with cereals boasting vibrant packaging and iconic mascots like Tony the Tiger. Sugar Frosted Flakes were different because they took toasted corn flakes and glazed each flake individually with a gooey coat of white sugar.
Kids would excitedly pour and eat, finishing off by tipping back the bowl for the leftover sweet milk. It was one of the most popular cereals of the decade.
Soft-boiled eggs with toast soldiers
Generations of sixties kids began each day watching their parents gently boil free-range eggs until the whites were cooked, but the yolks stayed warm, creamy and runny.
Buttered white toast would then be cut lengthways into thin, finger-thick strips known lovingly as toast soldiers, which could then be dipped into the yolk.
Biscuits with country sausage gravy
A weekend morning wasn’t complete for many in the American South and Midwest without a heaping plate of flaky buttermilk biscuits blanketed in rich, savory country sausage gravy.
Mothers would bake fresh, homemade biscuits from scratch or open up a can of refrigerated biscuit dough, then prepare a pan gravy made from pan drippings, crumbled pork sausage, flour, and whole milk. Rich and heavy, it would fill up kids and keep them going all morning as they played outside in the yard.
Cocoa Puffs
Appearing in the late 1950s and growing incredibly popular through the 1960s, Cocoa Puffs made breakfasting on chocolate acceptable to kids everywhere. These crunchy, bite-sized corn puffs, infused with genuine Hershey’s cocoa, transformed plain milk left in the bowl into a rich, dark chocolate treat that kids craved almost as much as the cereal itself.
Paired with cute cartoon commercials starring Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, the cereal quickly found its way onto kitchen tables across suburbia.
Poached eggs on buttered toast
Cheap, easy, and packed full of protein, poached eggs on thick slices of toasted white bread were eaten almost every day in many households in the 1960s.
Clever parents would lower raw eggs into gently boiling water, allowing the whites to poach softly, while leaving the yolk still runny. When served on thick, buttery toast and the yolk was pierced, it would then seep into the slices. It was lovely, quick, and easy to make using only two ingredients.
Oatmeal with raisins and milk
Before there were single-serving bags of microwaveable instant oats, breakfast oatmeal started with whole rolled oats simmered in a pot on the stove. Mothers stirred them slowly until they became creamy, then hearty, cereal.
Often handfuls of dark raisins were stirred in during the last few minutes of steaming to plump them up. With a pour of cold whole milk and a hearty scoop of cinnamon and sugar in deep porcelain bowls, it was the perfect way to start a chilly day.
Fried Spam and eggs
Originally gaining popularity as an inexpensive shelf-stable source of protein during World War II and the 1950s, canned Spam continued to be a common breakfast meat option into the 1960s.
Thinly sliced and fried in a hot cast-iron skillet until the edges were crunchy, salty, and caramelized, it was a tasty alternative to bacon or breakfast sausage links. With sunny-side-up eggs and buttered toast, fried Spam delivered the savory flavor that defined weekday mornings for countless working families.
Like our content? Be sure to follow us.