Today is National Spaghetti Day
Spaghetti is usually framed as something slow, traditional, and tied to the kitchen. But for much of the twentieth century in America, spaghetti also became something else entirely: fast food.
Not drive-thru fast, but ready-when-you-are fast.
That idea is what led me to use Chef Boyardee for National Spaghetti Day.
My ongoing food photography focuses on fast food and everyday commercial food, photographed as it actually exists. Food designed for speed, convenience, and consistency. Chef Boyardee fits squarely into that world. It takes a dish associated with tradition and turns it into something shelf-stable, standardized, and immediately accessible. Open the can, heat it, eat it. No preparation, no ceremony.
The brand itself has a long American history. It traces back to Ettore Boiardi, an Italian immigrant chef whose restaurant sauce became popular enough in the 1920s that customers wanted to take it home. What began as a restaurant product quickly evolved into mass-produced canned meals. By the 1930s and 1940s, Chef Boyardee spaghetti had become a pantry staple, feeding families and even supplying military rations.
Long before frozen dinners or microwavable trays, canned spaghetti helped normalize the idea that dinner could come straight from the shelf. In that sense, it belongs to the same lineage as modern fast food, engineered for speed, reliability, and scale.
National Spaghetti Day itself isn’t rooted in Italian tradition. It’s a modern food holiday, more about recognition than ritual. That makes it an appropriate moment to look at spaghetti not as cuisine, but as a product, and to acknowledge how thoroughly it has been absorbed into American convenience culture.
This photograph shows Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs as it exists in that context. Not Italian food, but American fast food, defined by accessibility and familiarity.
To see my actual fast food photography project please visit my website at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000wQ3fbeEezF0 Thanks!
National French Toast Day Fast!
Today is National French Toast Day, and I wanted to photograph something that fit the way I shoot food, especially fast food. So instead of the usual bread, eggs, and frying pan, I went looking for a version that lined up with my approach.
That search took me to the freezer aisle and to something I didn’t know existed: boxed French toast sticks. Straight from the oven and onto a plate, they matched my black-background style with no styling and no extras. Looks like fast food to me.
French toast itself goes back centuries. Versions of it appear in early European cookbooks as a way to use leftover bread, long before it became a diner and home-kitchen staple in the United States. The idea has stayed the same: bread soaked in egg and cooked until crisp on the outside and soft inside.
There is much more food to see on my website at SecondFocus.com Thanks!
National Donut Day and America’s 10 Billion Donuts
Today, November 5th, is National Donut Day, one of two days each year when donuts get their moment in the spotlight. The first Friday in June is the original National Donut Day, created by The Salvation Army in 1938 to honor the “Donut Lassies” who served treats to soldiers during World War I. November 5th later joined as a second observance, giving donut lovers another excuse to indulge.
I’ve photographed donuts before from the big fast-food chains, but this time I turned to grocery store classics. These are Entenmann’s, a brand that began in 1898 when William Entenmann delivered baked goods door-to-door in Brooklyn. More than a century later, their boxed donuts have become a household staple, a familiar sight on grocery shelves across America.
Emily (my AI muse and assistant) adds: “Turns out, Americans consume around 10 billion donuts every year, roughly 31 donuts per person. While Entenmann’s doesn’t release exact production figures, reports suggest they’ve produced over 780 million donuts since their early days. That’s a lot of mornings, late-night snacks, and coffee breaks made a little sweeter.”
See more from my Commercial Food Photography at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
A Salad? On National Drive-Thru Day?
Yes, I realize the timing.
It’s National Drive-Thru Day — a moment made for burgers, tacos, chicken sandwiches, and anything handed to you through a window in under 30 seconds. Meanwhile, here I am posting a photo of… salad.
This isn’t part of my From Bag to Background project, which documents fast food in all its honest, unapologetic glory. No, this one came from a grocery store, not a drive-thru. A bagged salad mix — iceberg lettuce, shredded carrots, red cabbage — plated and lit like it was headed for a cookbook instead of a combo meal.
It’s a departure, but still part of the story. While most of my food photography embraces the fast and familiar reality of what we actually eat, there’s room in my Commercial Food Photography gallery for the occasional raw vegetable.
👉 View the gallery here at https://www.secondfocus.com/index/G0000WFAqDJQOgKU
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