Fitzgerald, Deborah K. (Author)
Osiris: A Research Journal Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 35
Pages: 291-309
When one walks around the local supermarket, one is often struck by the proportion of highly processed foods, or what some refer to as “the middle of the store.” Yet to the military in the 1940s and 1950s, these same foods represented the apogee of scientific progress—the creation of time-insensitive foods suitable for the rigors of military combat. This article explores the social and technical development of a system for producing such things for the military in World War II, including the collaborations between the military, American food firms, and university scientists. While at the beginning of the war, military and civilian food systems were quite different, by the early 1950s the two systems had effectively merged. Thanks to the supercharged food research agenda of this period, focused on achieving maximum time insensitivity in military foods, Americans can now quite easily avoid eating time-sensitive foods entirely. Here I will explore the professional networks that made this possible in the mid-1940s, as well as the challenges of standardizing something as alive as fresh food.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Williams, Amrys O.;
(2013)
FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950--2000: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
(/isis/citation/CBB001320541/)
Article
Donnelly, Catherine;
(2013)
75 Years of IFT: Food Microbiology in JFS--1936 to Present
(/isis/citation/CBB001320892/)
Article
Petrick, Gabriella M.;
(2011)
“Purity as Life”: H. J. Heinz, Religious Sentiment, and the Beginning of the Industrial Diet
(/isis/citation/CBB001033641/)
Article
Friesen, T. Max;
Stewart, Andrew;
(2013)
To Freeze or to Dry: Seasonal Variability in Caribou Processing and Storage in the Barrenlands of Northern Canada
(/isis/citation/CBB001201437/)
Book
Valenze, Deborah;
(2012)
Milk: A Local and Global History
(/isis/citation/CBB001210091/)
Book
Wallach, Jennifer Jensen;
(2013)
How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB001202133/)
Book
Veit, Helen Zoe;
(2013)
Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001201323/)
Article
Zachmann, Karin;
(2011)
Atoms for Peace and Radiation for Safety---How to Build Trust in Irradiated Foods in Cold War Europe and Beyond
(/isis/citation/CBB001033642/)
Chapter
Thoms, Ulrike;
(2014)
The Introduction of Frozen Foods in West Germany and Its Integration into the Daily Diet
(/isis/citation/CBB001500413/)
Book
Oddy, Derek J;
Drouard, Alain;
(2013)
The Food Industries of Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
(/isis/citation/CBB001422263/)
Article
Atkins, Peter J.;
(2011)
The Material Histories of Food Quality and Composition
(/isis/citation/CBB001210131/)
Book
Hawkins, Richard A.;
(2011)
A Pacific Industry: The History of Pineapple Canning in Hawaii
(/isis/citation/CBB001200610/)
Chapter
Reif-Acherman, Simon;
(2014)
Domestic Ice-Making Machines 1830--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001500410/)
Article
Weber, Heike;
(2013)
Towards “Total” Recycling: Women, Waste and Food Waste Recovery in Germany, 1914--1939
(/isis/citation/CBB001201568/)
Article
Nelson, Bryn;
(2009)
The Lingering Heat over Pasteurized Milk
(/isis/citation/CBB001021066/)
Book
Edge, John T;
Engelhardt, Elizabeth S D;
Ownby, Ted;
(2013)
The Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South
(/isis/citation/CBB001422249/)
Article
Matthew H. Hersch;
(2024)
“Learning on Their Bellies”
(/isis/citation/CBB219572134/)
Article
Carolyn Cobbold;
(2020)
The Introduction of Chemical Dyes into Food in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB617924605/)
Article
Levi, Jane;
(2010)
An Extraterrestrial Sandwich: The Perils of Food in Space
(/isis/citation/CBB000932668/)
Book
Levenstein, Harvey;
(2012)
Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat
(/isis/citation/CBB001210041/)
Be the first to comment!