I’m kind of surprised we haven’t had a thread on this series, as it is now in season 3.
The first season just had 3 episodes, and each episode featured an era and business trends in food. The second season has 16 episodes and each episode is much more specific, going over the origins of specific food trends in America such as pizza, gum, cola, pre-packaged cookies, fried chicken, etc. The third season is following the format of the second.
What’s interesting, and to me, funny, about this series is that they dramatize this history with actors. They also dramatize the dramatizations with forceful music. There’s a lot of solemn faces while looking at newspaper articles and inquisitive faces while looking at machines. It’s pretty cheesy and I love it.
If you’ve seen History’s “The Men Who Built America,” it’s the same as that but with food. There’s also recent series of “The Titans Who Built America” (haven’t seen that), “The Machines That Built America” (that’s very recent and I’m halfway through it) and apparently “The Toys That Build America” which I didn’t know existed.
As far as I can tell you can watch all 3 series of the Food one on the History Channel web site. You can see seasons 1 and 2 on Discovery+, and most likely season 3 at least would be in your cable’s On Demand for History.
Anyone else watching this show? It’s really interesting, albeit cheesy. So far season 3 is a little bit boring but season 2 was actually gripping. I audibly gasped during the chicken episode when it’s revealed that the chef tasked with coming up with a new item for McDonald’s didn’t come up with Chicken McNuggets first, but ONION NUGGETS!
I watch all of the above whenever they’re aired. I also find them fascinating, despite some cheesy production values.
F’rinstance, I just finished watching the WWII episode of the series about automobiles. Couldn’t they at least get the uniforms of American servicemen right? It ain’t that difficult!
Still, they’re one shining star in a universe full of ancient aliens, conspiracy theories, and the lower strata of society.
I’ve watched a bunch of them, and it’s definitely interesting how companies like McDonald’s and Coke literally changed the entire farming/food production industry over the 20th century.
That’s one of my favorite things about the show. The actor who plays Ray Kroc looks like a mid-40’s 6 ft tall retired wrestler who is always slamming his hands down and getting ready to put someone in a headlock. The real Kroc was in his late 50s/early 60s when he was running McDonalds, and was about 5 1/2 ft tall.
I’m pretty sure that they borrowed the dramatic tone, and overly-dramatic music, from those earlier series. I’ve watched a lot of this new series (as well as the one on toys), and it’s the uber-serious music, while discussing Fritos or Hot Wheels, which cracks me up.
The production values are a hoot, but still miles ahead of Mysteries at the Museum over at the Travel Channel. The costumes are similar to the ones we raided from the trunk in the attic when we were kids, and the “museum” from which the artifacts featured are more correctly described as “roadside attractions.”
Thanks for reminding me about this. My wife and I saw The Toys That Made America and The Cars That Made America and were planning on catching this. Until I forgot all about it.
They also did “The Cars That Made America”, which is full of anachronisms and other errors. Like a '55 Mercury that’s supposed to be an early-Fifties Chevy.
They don’t even get the history right. I’ve seen lots of fake stories passed off as what really happened. I prefer Drunk History. At least they’re trying to be fake intentionally.
I love this series, and all the other ones like it!
I was going to post a thread about how the History channel is now actually doing history. When I was in college in the late 90s, we called it the Hitler Channel, because of all the old WW2 footage they’d run. Then, it became about ancient aliens. That stuff still appears, but they are also doing these series where they use historians but intersperse these actor portrayals. There’s one on Teddy Roosevelt that’s on the way.
In fact, these new shows they are making are slick enough that I like them even when the subject matter is the Subway/Blimpie wars.
Harvey Kellogg was only about 5’2”, but they portrayed him as taller than his brother, Will.
