I love old ads. Advertisements in 1916 magazines provide so many insights into foods and food trends a hundred years ago.
1916 Libby’s Canned Fruits and Vegetables Advertisement
I love old ads. Advertisements in 1916 magazines provide so many insights into foods and food trends a hundred years ago.
A Hundred Years Ago 
OK, now all day I’m going to be singing, “Libby’s Libby’s Libby’s on the label, label, label. You will like it, like it, like it, on your table, table, table!” And it will be all your fault when I can’t get it out of my head 🙂
Oh dear that will make two of us..lol
And, I’ll be singing along, so that makes three of us. Oh dear, I guess it’s my own fault. 🙂
Hahahaha.
That’s exactly what I was thinking!
That is such a catchy tune but a good way to get it out of your head is to hum it and have someone else start to hum too!
We can start a movement as we all start humming the tune. 🙂
Oh I’ll have to try it😊
You know… I can’t remember ever using the Libby brand. It surely was around, but I don’t even remember the song that Susan mentioned. I’m sure it was a national brand, but for whatever reason, it’s just not a memory for me. I can’t even tell you if they’re still in business. Apparently Del Monte and Dole’s marketing teams did their job, and got us into their camps.
Oh — and for vegetables, it always was Green Giant, but that’s probably because they were Minnesota based and had saturated the Iowa market.
I think that Green Giant had the ultimate marketing strategy. The Jolly Green Giant made Green Giant popular most everywhere. 🙂
Some brands were probably more popular in some regions than others.
I love the old advertisements and labels too.
“When it says Libbys, Libbys, Libbys, on the Label, Label, Label. You will like it, like it, like it, on your table, table, table…”
lol That’s probably mostly wrong, but I recall the jingle to the commercial was something like that….
Sounds good to me. It’s such a memorable, catchy tune. 🙂
It’s peach time in Ga.. That idea with maraschino cherries looks good!
It does sound good. 🙂
I would never have thought to have walnuts with pineapples. That’s interesting.
It looks very elegant in the photo. 🙂
I love old ads, too! I even have some of them framed and hung on my walls. Old postcards also make nice decorations, plus its fun to read the messages on the back of them.
I enjoy looking at old post cards at flea markets. Sometimes I think that something has been lost over the years as we’ve shifted to using technology (first telephones and more recently emails and texts) to convey short messages.
I do too!
Funny.
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
For some reason canned asparagus seems so unlikely to me for 100 years ago, lol!
I’m thinking that they canned lots of things back in the days when fresh asparagus wasn’t available year round. I guess that grocers still sell canned asparagus – though I don’t think that I’ve ever eaten it.
Wow! Not sure that I’d go with their recipe suggestions. But fun as always to see your vintage finds 🙂
You don’t want canned asparagus garnished with pimiento strips? 🙂
When I was young, my mom ran a ‘can cover club’ for us. We collected can covers and put them into a scrapbook. I suppose we ‘competed’ to claim the best covers with the prettiest pictures of fruit or vegetables.
That sounds like a lot of fun – and something that I would have enjoyed when I was a child. Your mother was very creative when coming up with ways to entertain children. 🙂
I avoid canned food, but isn’t Libby’s still around? (And thanks. I enjoyed the ad.)
I think that it’s still around.
They sure do. I wonder if canned fruit was considered “everyday” or “special.” The cream cheese and walnuts idea if intriguing. Not sure if I might gag or if I would like it.
I had a similar reaction to several of the recipe suggestions. 🙂 My general sense is that canned fruits were considered a least a little bit “special.” Some vegetables (though I’m not sure about asparagus) may have been everyday foods.
How fun to see these. I wonder if they skipped all the additives back then. I was just looking at canned fruit in the store today and couldn’t believe all the acids, and corn syrup, etc. included in the ingredients.
It would be really interesting to see a can label from this era – though I’m not sure how much information about the ingredients had to be on the label back then. That said, people a hundred years ago were really worried about “adulterated” foods. This was the time period right after Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was founded to regulate food and drugs in the early 1900s.
Oh, here we are, back at those funny “salad” combinations that my grandmother loved so well! I wonder who came up with some of these ideas.
I wonder how many of our favorite salads will be considered “funny” a hundred years from now. It’s interesting how food fads and trends change over time. 🙂
Speaking of food trends and canned food – recently I started wondering what had ever happened to tuna casserole. My kids (and husband) used to love it in the 1980s but for the life of me I cannot figure out why I stopped making it. It’s not even in recently published cookbooks. But I eventually found a recipe online and tried it. Husband loved it. So now I’m wondering if tuna casserole was around as far back as 1916?
Now that you mention it, I used to make a tuna casserole with Chinese noodles and celery. I always really liked it, but like you I haven’t made it in years. I may have to dig the recipe out and make it again. 🙂 I’m guessing that canned tuna probably was around – though I can’t specifically remember ever seeing any advertisements for it. I definitely have seen ads and recipes that called for canned salmon.
Very cool indeed!
It’s wonderful to hear that you enjoyed this advertisement.
I’d forgotten about the Libby’s, Libby’s, Libby’s jingle.
Back then, it was advertisements; today it is the Food Network!
It’s interesting how the ways we get information about food has changed over the years. 🙂
It’s so funny. I love vintage ads too. There is s certain charm.
The old ads are so much fun. 🙂