I abhorred baked potatoes when I was a kid growing up in Missouri; my parents leaving me at the dinner table until I had eaten every last brown skinned, starchy bite. They quite literally made me gag, especially cold and flabby after everyone had left the table. At some point, I discovered the secret of embellishing the root vegetable with an obscene amount of butter, sour cream, with salt and pepper. Suddenly, they became one of my favorites…and are still to this day

Mid-century party food was (and still is) all about novelty; a dramatic juxtaposition from the rationing that gripped Americans during WWII.  Suddenly, in the matter of a few years we went from potted meat to sardines suspended magically in gelatin thanks to exciting food technology.