1970: Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn is introduced. Agronomist Redenbacher has found a yellow corn that expands nearly twice as much as other brands. In five years, it will be the country's largest-selling brand.
1970: Hamburger Helper is introduced.1970: Fifteen percent of flour sold in the United States is sold to home consumers.
1970: Resealable plastic bags are introduced.
1971: The nation's first salad bar is introduced at R.J. Grunts, a singles bar/restaurant in Chicago.
1971: Rival trademarks the Crock-Pot.
1971: McDonald's opens a location in Tokyo, its first international site.
1971: Alice Waters opens Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif. A three-course meal costs less than $8.
1971: Starbucks is founded at Pike Place Market in Seattle. The company goes public in 1992.
1972: Celestial Seasonings Herbal Teas are introduced.
1972: The New York State Division of Human Rights prohibits ladies' nights at Yankee Stadium because they discriminate against men.
1973: The Clorox Corp. buys the rights to Hidden Valley dressing from Steve Henson, who began serving his concoction on greens at his dude ranch near Santa Barbara in 1954.
1973: Bar codes begin appearing on food packaging.
1973: ``Eating Well Is the Best Revenge' is the October issue of New York magazine. America is becoming familiar with the wide world of cuisine.
1973: McDonald's introduces the Egg McMuffin, the first fast-food breakfast item.
1973: Moosewood, a vegetarian collective restaurant, opens in Ithaca, N.Y.
1973: Carl Sontheimer introduces the Cuisinart Food Processor at the National Housewares Exposition in Chicago. Buyers are cool to the $140 machine at first, but Julia Child and James Beard's praises garner a favorable reaction. The product becomes so hot during the 1976 Christmas season that retailers sell empty boxes as promises for future delivery.
1973: Rising food costs and shortages of some meat cuts lead many Americans into the kitchen to try recipes beyond casseroles.
1974: Vincent Marotta and Samuel Glazer gain nationwide recognition for their Mr. Coffee (invented in 1972) by signing Joe DiMaggio as their spokesman.
1974: Yoplait yogurt, Miller Lite (the first light beer) and Mrs. Field's Cookies are introduced.
1975: The word ``fajita' appears in print for the first time. From the Spanish ``faja,' for ``girdle' or ``strip,' the word actually means the cut of meat itself. Cooking the meat over wood has always been a Texas tradition, but how the name derived is anyone's guess - including that of Homero Recio, who used a fellowship to Texas A&M in 1984 to study the subject. But Texas restaurants should probably thank Ninfa Laurenzo for popularizing the item when she put it on her menu at the original Ninfa's in Houston in 1973 as tacos ``al carbon.'
1975: American consumption of soft drinks surpasses that of coffee.
1975: The ballpark nacho is born at the Texas Rangers' Arlington Stadium.
1976: Tom Wolfe calls the 1970s the ``Me Decade,' and Burger King follows with the ``Have It Your Way' campaign.
1977: Dean & DeLuca and The Silver Palate specialty-food stores open in New York City.
1978: For the first time, more women than men enter college.
1978: Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Crepes opens in Vermont.
1979: Paul Prudhomme, formerly of Commander's Palace, opens K-Paul Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans, and the Cajun craze is on.
SOURCES: Louis Rukeyser's ``Book of Lists,' (Owl, $15.95); John Mariani's ``The Dictionary of American Food and Drink' (Hearst, $19.95); ``Soda Pop! From Miracle Medicine to Pop Culture' by Gyvel Young-Witzel & Michael Karl Witzel (Town Square Books, $35); ``The Food Chronology' by James Trager (Owl Books, $22.50); ``Fashionable Food' by Sylvia Lovegren (Macmillan, $25); ``Mechanical Brides' Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design (Princeton Architectural Press); ``Jewish Cooking in America' by Joan Nathan (Knopf, $30); American Frozen Food Institute; ``The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers' by David and Tom Gardner (Simon & Schuster, $25); ``Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet' by Harvey Levenstein (Oxford, 1988); ``Neighbor, How Long Has It Been?' by Wallace O. Chariton (Self-published; $14.95); ``Eating in America: A History' by Waverley Root & Richard De Rochemont (Morrow, 1976); McDonald's; Kraft; ``We Remember' by Jeanne Marie Laskas and Lynn Johnson (Morrow, $25).
