The Back in Time for Dinner phenomenon started in the United Kingdom. The CBC ran its own version in 2018. The Canadian version featured a Canadian family with how Canadians ate in each decade from the 1940s through the 1990s.
Host Carlo Rota guided the Campus family: mother Tristan, a registered nurse, father Aaron, a multimedia designer, 18-year-old daughter Valerie, 17-year-old daughter Jessica, and 15-year-old son Robert.
The Canadian version seemed an obvious choice to work its way to the United States, even if that took until late 2021 and early 2022 to arrive on the Cooking Channel.
Canadians had to deal with more abrupt changes, compared to Americans, in their diet during World War II due to war rations. The war also started in 1939 for Canada and most of the countries fighting the war. The United States didn't join the war until after the Pearl Harbor attack in late 1941.
They have to work with kidneys in the early part of the 1940s episode. By they, we mean (sadly) the women. Tristan does the vast majority of the work with occasional help from daughters Valerie and Jessica. Though Aaron does a lot of the cooking in the modern version, he and Robert are banned from helping in the kitchen for the initial episodes.
Meat arrives in the 1950s along with some odd food trends of the day. Reading about how housewives put a salad in a gelatin mold is interesting; watching someone do this offers a broader perspective.
Tristan and Val made yoghurt with a yoghurt maker. They had to do this with conversion in the 1970s episode. This was the time in Canada where the country transitioned from imperial (the U.S. system) to metric.
They figure out converting litres to cups (a litre is slightly more than 4 cups) but had trouble with the temperature of heating the milk. They had difficulty converting 45°C to Fahrenheit. Tristan is a nurse in real life, where you would know that 37°C (98.6°F) is the body temperature. Rota adds a voiceover to say 45°C was 113°F not the figure they got.
The U.S. audience would learn, if they didn't already know, that some Canadians get their milk in a bag.
The ladies also have to work without the modern technology of a dishwasher, as an example.
The Back in Time for Dinner episodes have improvements within the episode so the end of the 1950s episode is closer to 1959 than 1951.
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Food is a key portion of the program mixed in with history and social impact. Tristan has a surprisingly good attitude toward having to be the dominant cook of the times. Valerie and Jessica are much less enthused to being there. In the 1950s episode, Valerie disappears for most of the episode. Then when she finally returns, Jessica isn't in that scene.
The men have more of a role in the kitchen as the episodes progress. Everyone involved has trouble adjusting to the technology of the past.
The program does present heightened trends as being "everywhere." A lot of people weren't eating quiche in the 1980s.
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U.S. fans can catch up on previous episodes from the Cooking Channel. The U.S. channel airs the 1990s episode on Thursday at 10 pm Eastern. Canadians can watch the episodes via CBC Gem.
photos credit: Back in Time for Dinner/CBC
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