70's shadow boxes

[the antithesis]

This may not be the best place to ask about this, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of choice in the matter.

So when I was a kid, my parents had this kind of crap on the wall.




I was a kid and didn't understand why they'd want a box with old dried beans and pasta and weeds as a decoration (note, these are not their shadow boxes but examples I've found online) I remember even asking at the time but I never did get a satisfactory answer.

Does anyone remember this... fad? I assume it was a fad because I recall others had similar decorations. There is precious little information about it online and I am wondering why. Why? Why!? WHY?!!!?! Forty years later and I still don't get it. There has to be some kind of story behind this, having a compartmented box with various seeds in it stuck on your wall. Someone somewhere came up with this idea. I'd love to know who and why and why it became (briefly) popular.

Anyone else remember these things?

[LonnieFisher]

Emergency food long term storage.

[LonnieFisher]

Forty years later and it would make some great soup!

[Hedji]

We had those too.

[Gadgeteer]

Yes my grandparents had deco like this in the kitchen, I never questioned it but looking back that was just another weird '70's thing.

[Nostalgiabuff]

kind of like the giant wood spoon and fork people hung on the wall

[thunderbolt]

kind of like the giant wood spoon and fork people hung on the wall

Hey, I have a set of those. And yeah, my Mom had the dried weeds in a box, too.

[the antithesis]

We had those too.

You're from Rochester?

Now I'm wondering if it was a local thing.

[Werewolf]

I don't remember those. My grandparents did have one of those little Norwegian kitchen witch dolls hanging in their kitchen. I think those were fairly popular in the 60s and 70s.

[Brazoo]

I never saw them before, but I think it looks like the same kind of thing artist Dave McKean uses a lot in his photo collage comic covers for Sandman.

[thunderbolt]

You're from Rochester?

Now I'm wondering if it was a local thing.

Nahh, I was in rural Illinois and we had 'em.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Fazoli's used to have those hanging on their walls as well...but they're past people, so...

Chris

[MIB41]

Definitely remember these. Two words are synonymous with the 70's that pretty much applied to everything... earth tones. Think of yourself as a moderate hippie wanting to be one with the earth and then look at this again. Makes sense...

[the antithesis]

Definitely remember these. Two words are synonymous with the 70's that pretty much applied to everything... earth tones. Think of yourself as a moderate hippie wanting to be one with the earth and then look at this again. Makes sense...

Yeah. I'm just wondering where this came from. Were they sold in stores because I can guarantee my dad did not build the ones we had. In fact, thinking on it now, I think I remember the unboxing and my parents were disappointed because the lentils, similar to the top picture, had leaked into one of the other compartments.