The Nostalgic '50s Lunch That Starts With Canned Tuna And Hot Dog Buns

Though times have changed, American school lunches of the 1950s weren't totally unrecognizable from what younger generations have been served over the years. You can usually count on the cafeteria mainstays of pizza, some type of meat patty, milk, and various sandwiches. One 1950s sandwich that might be harder to find in modern cafeterias, however, is the tuna bumstead, also called a bunstead. Common in both at-home and school lunches, this 1950s take on the modern tuna melt is the kind of dish people love or hate.

The ingredients you'll generally find in a tuna bumstead are canned tuna, cheese, chopped hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, chopped peppers, pickles, onions, and olives, all combined in a split hot dog bun. The bumstead would then be wrapped in foil and baked in an oven until heated through. Some remixes of this recipe replace the mayonnaise with Miracle Whip. The strong smell of heated tuna might make this dish unpopular in some homes, but if you like canned tuna, there's a good chance you'll enjoy this retro sandwich. Other ingredients can be left out or substituted as needed to suit your taste.

Tuna bumsteads were served in many schools across the nation in the decades after the 1950s, getting a mixed reception from students. One Reddit user was decidedly not a fan: "This horrifying slop was chopped up tuna fish (maybe) mixed with ... miracle whip and pickles and put in a hotdog bun." In contrast, various Facebook users spoke of how this was their favorite school lunch. While bumstead eaters have made their opinions known, one thing that's less clear is how this sandwich got its start.

The specific origins of the tuna melt — and therefore the tuna bumstead — are nebulous. Canned tuna became popular in the 1920s due to its convenience and supposedly similar taste to chicken. With booming demand came various new ways to eat this fish. The New York Times published a tuna sandwich au gratin recipe in 1951 that was similar to a regular tuna melt, though it included evaporated milk and flour. Another claim is that Kraft either invented or popularized the tuna melt to promote its Velveeta cheese, while others say that tuna salad falling onto a grilled cheese sandwich at a South Carolina Woolworth's created the dish.

The tuna bumstead was likely named after the 1930s comic strip character Dagwood Bumstead, who also influenced the coining of the term "Dagwood sandwich." A Dagwood sandwich is characterized by its many ingredients, which are often leftovers that can be thrown together, and mile-high layers. The range of ingredients in the tuna bumstead might be connected to Dagwood's penchant for using whatever was in the fridge. Home cooks across the U.S. could include common pantry foods like pickles and olives in this recipe to make a quick and easy meal for their kids. It could also be that this tuna sandwich was a more palatable answer to 1920s sardine-and-egg sandwiches.