Modern Breakfast Tables

If the end of the 1800s signaled a new era in the American breakfast, with the invention of ready-to-eat packaged cereals, the 1960s heralded the modern age with a vengeance. The decade opened with a bang with the release of Coffee Rich, an instant nondairy creamer, followed by the competing brands Coffee-mate and Cremora, all of which were perfect to stir into the instant coffee that became so popular after World War II. In 1964 Kellogg introduced Pop-Tarts, the first successful toaster pastry (Post had tried six months earlier with Country Squares, which failed). And in 1965 the space age orange juice substitute Tang took the kid’s breakfast market by storm, accompanied that same year by the breakfast-in-a-glass drink for young moderns in a hurry: Carnation Instant Breakfast. Suddenly a complete—or at least filling—breakfast could be assembled from packaged products, with no work or dirty dishes.